I also like this quote from Karen Warren, "The Power and the Promise of
Ecological Feminism":

...because a feminist ethic is pluralistic, and "in-process," one way to
evaluate the claims of a feminist ethic is in terms of their
*inclusiveness*: those claims (voices, patterns of voices) are morally and
epistemologically favoured (preferred, better, less partial, less biased)
which are more inclusive of the felt experiences and perspectives of
oppressed persons. The condition of inclusiveness requires and ensures the
diverse voices of women (as oppressed persons) will be given legitimacy in
ethical theory building....a feminist ethic makes no attempt to provide an
"objective" point of view, since it assumes that in contemporary culture
there is really not such point of view...it does not claim to be "unbiased"
in the sense of "value-neutral" or "objective." (In People, Penguins and
Plastic Trees (eds. C. Pierce & VandeVeer, 1995)

The threat to what she sees as the goal and purpose of ecological feminism
can be described as three "features of oppressive conceptual frameworks:
(1) value-hierarchical thinking" or up/down thinking, (2) "value dualisms"
where values are disjunctive and oppositional, and obviously (3) the "logic
of domination" with it's own grammar and language. The last item here is
formal patriarchism, the domination of women by men through institutional
violence [oppressive rules and laws that benefit men at the expense of women
and their capabilities].

What she sees is the dual domination in western culture of both women and
nature as a result of patri[archal] dominance: "...the logic of domination
has functioned historically within patriarchy to sustain and justify the
twin dominations of women and nature."

In defining ecofeminism I think that she may have said something important
with : "In the words of Maria Lugones, 'Unity - not to be confused with
solidarity - is understood as conceptually tied to domination.'"

If a human institution [contrast non-human] is able to sustain and justify
domination of women and men, then it can be said either that the institution
is in the process of being a true institution, or completely false
institution [holo-centric] where the periphery is everywhere and the center
is no-where, an inverted tree with its roots in heaven and its blossoms on
earth or vis versa, then it can be said to in the "process of becoming" a
true institution, i.e. there is a teleological interest to progress ad
infinitum, IF it is inclusive and merges and separates all voices,
acknowledges the diversity of womens voices.

In earths solidarity,

John

"The only thing that overcomes an emotion is an more powerful emotion.
Reason cannot over power an emotion." Baruch de Spinoza, Ethics

"Truth is subjective or inter - subjective" Me

On the panels you read:

ANIMAL > WOMAN

Three hundred women and one
small cat rumbled through the
street

EVEN THE Maculine ANIMAL TAKES PRECEDENCE OVER the feminine HUMAN BEING

PETITION*

The invention of a word which will abolish the ambiguity between Man-Species
and Man-Male. Or, the ABOLITION OF THE WORD MAN, which in this double
meaning, no longer means anything, because, being a permanent sign of
Humanity, it is at the same time an ambiguous and tenacious sign of the
human male....

The addition of a neuter form to the already existing masculine and feminine
genders. OR THE ABOLITION OF MASCULINE AND FEMININE FORMS as in english

Or that it be the number which takes precendence, not only gender.

from "The Euguelionne", Louky Bersianik


"The Word 'Man' Word for Word"












At 11:09 07/11/98 -0700, you wrote:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: LS McLeod <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Date: Sunday, November 08, 1998 9:13 AM
>Subject: RE: gentlemen?
>
>
>>Alright gentlemen ('boys'?), on to more substantive issues.
>>
>>As for this 'girl' (oh, and in the Southern part of the US, women are
>>generally referred to as 'ladies' and girls as 'young ladies'), I've been
>>doing some research into the policy viability of ecofeminism, in
>particular,
>>the ecofeminist ethic of care. One of the *common* (ecocentric/animal
>>rights) policy approaches to dealing environmental protection is to reduce
>>the rights of nature to the level of infants and the mentally challenged
>>(nature is allotted rights such as protection against wanton suffering). I
>>find this problematic in that it seems to slip back into the anthropocentic
>>paradigm that champions value dualism, where there exists a distinct line
>of
>>demarcation between nature, and natural hierarchy, nature is inferior
>>(rather than different from) to humans.
>>
>
>Good point, here are two quotes I like on this issue.
>
>"Moving across the spectrum (the species) of wild animal being, the concept
>of rights extrapolates less and less well: rights for sheep, bats, eagles,
>mussels. The problem only grows as we plunge further into radically
>different orders of being. We might at first think that there are "rights"
>behind each of the pairs of eyes that we confront. But that is not so; what
>is there is a fierce "wildness." The value of that is indisputable, even
>though it is a value that is not carried adequately by the concept of
>rights. There is an independent integrity in the wild life, and humans ought
>not to violate this without justification."
>Holmes Rolston, III.
>
> ". . .Individual animals, a lot of them, will continue to be harmed if we
>eat them, experiment upon them, hunt them, keep them captive, certainly if
>we attempt to preserve endangered species (for management involves the
>control of stock and eradication of pests and predators). Even if we leave
>them alone in the wild they will not be immune to suffering. I condone these
>practices because it is in the overall interests of animals, being primitive
>beings rather than a competing race of human ones, that they are adapted to
>our ways. In the debate over 'conservation or welfare' I am firmly on the
>side of the former."
>Michael P. T. Leahy.
>
>I'm very suspicious of an ethic which rests on the premise that we have
>moral obligations to nature because we, humans, are of a "higher" nature. In
>an evolutionary sense that is incorrect; lots of species have evolved more
>recently than Homo sapiens (sic), sheep for example.
>
>>So, I wonder if the ecofeminist ethic of care can offer a more satisfying
>>alternative. Ecofeminism, while not rejecting rights, generally does not
>>focus on rights because of the above mentioned problems. The problem
>becomes
>>how can care be politicized in a meaningful, more positive way. (I say more
>>positive because rights-based theories are generally constructed on the
>>assumption of conflict and competition). Comments? Suggestions?
>>
>
>If the ecofeminist ethic were solely based on care I'd have the same
>reservations. Do we care or give care because it is the right thing to do,
>or because we are capable of it? If the latter, I'm suspicious again.
>
>Steven J. Bissell
>http://www.du.edu/~sbissell
>http://www.responsivemanagement.com
>Our human ecology is that of a rare species of mammal
>in a social, omnivorous niche. Our demography is one of
>a slow-breeding, large, intelligent primate.
>To shatter our population structure, to become abundant
>in the way of rodents, not only destroys our ecological
>relations with the rest of nature, it sets the stage
>for our mass insanity.
> Paul Shepard
>
>
>



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