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Ain't I A Woman? newspapers, June 1970-July 1971
1970-09-25 "Ain't I a Woman?" Page 10
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NATURE HOW BEING FEMALE HELPS IN UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE QUESTION: As my "Earth Week" reading I picked up Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (in keeping with a policy of giving female authors priority). This book deals with the problem of chemical poisoning of the environment, specifically from pesticides and herbicides, and those who have been irresponsible in advocating chemical usage without bothering about the consequences. One could, of course, cite this book as further support for the radical position. In fact, when the radical movement does give attention to the question of ecology, all too often attempts are made merely to buttress the existing radical line. In other words, we have political and economic analysis aplenty, but the question of how we relate to nature is never raised. (Does that sound familiar?-- Radicals are quick to analyse how to relate to the capitalistic power structure, etc., but never deal with the question of how to relate to women.) Rachel Carson was a naturalist, and in a very poetic way she suggests that the way we should relate to nature is by coming to understand nature on Nature's terms - by learning how nature actually works and not superimposing our hasty conclusions. For example, she suggests that instead of rushing to laboratories to cook up a new chemical weapon, the best way to deal with agricultural pests or whatever lies in getting to know that particular organism and in finding out how it relates to the natural scheme, then introducing natural controls - nature provides more efficient ways of control than man in his laboratories without all the drastic consequences. We get our clues by getting to know nature better. That is really a mind-blowing concept! Instead of imposing upon nature, we relate to her as she is! Isn't that similar to what we are struggling with as females? Isn't the root of our "coming into consciousness" a realization that we don't know what our real needs are- or even who we really are - because these things have been defined for us by men? Isn't our struggle for liberation ultimately the desire to be ourselves - to be a real and a total self, not just a half-self, or an "other"-self, a self defined and thus controlled by men. For some women, liberation means putting aside the makeup, hair bleaches, girdles, and all those other gimmicks for forcing ourselves into a stereotyped image of the "pretty female" - an image which oppresses us, and makes us anxious because we at best achieve only imitations of that image and thus remain forever insecure. We have been alienated from our own natural selves and thus we spend untold energy and emotion in attempting to remake our faces and figures into a superimposed ideal. For some of us, liberation means meeting our own sexual interest, finding sexual satisfaction on female terms in our female bodies, rather than always and only defining sexual activity in terms of male interest. We want to be freed from the myth of vaginal orgasm. from all forms of prostitution (including marital), and from being "punished" for sex by having to bear children. We want to be sexually ourselves. We are already well into the problem of finding out who we really are, rejecting male definitions of ourselves. In fact, we are questioning the who male mentality - we see its brutality, its corruption all too well. We should likewise question the male attitude toward and definition of nature. If we no longer accept the existing male assessment of ourselves, then we should likewise suspect the existing male approach toward nature. That's what got us into all this environment trouble anyway. We should begin to view nature directly, without looking through male viewpoints. For some of us, liberation means obtaining intellectual and creative fulfillment- after all, our brains are part of our natural body. We are tired of being dealt with merely as sex objects and not as total persons. We are angered at being forced to spend all our time in menial work - whether typing, washing diapers, or whatever - and of being totally alienated or deprived from any mental stimulation or opportunity for growth and fulfillment. We want to be mentally ourselves. For some of us, liberation means being able to meet the most basic physical needs- having food to eat, a bed to sleep in. For other women this means freeing physical bodies from the chain of perpetual childbirth. reprinted from It Ain't Me Babe HOW DEALING WITH ECOLOGY CAN HELP US AS FEMALES: The very term "ecology" refers to the totality of the pattern of interrelationships between organisms and their environment. Nature operates in a series of relationships. Food chains are one example of this - the minnow eats plankton, the big fish eats the minnow, the gull eats the big fish, and so forth - and if you wipe out one link in the chain, you ruin the whole show. Our own bodies are another example - bacteria and other organisms live in ambiotic relationship, helping to digest our food and thus enabling our own survival. To focus attention upon any one organism in isolation is to fail to understand that organism- for every organism exists in relationship to others. Relationship, that's the key. Instinctively, perhaps, we women are organizing ourselves into groups - the small group pattern. We are realizing that part of man's secret for controlling us has been to divide us, to alienate us, to make us compete with each other. As a result, we each feel isolated and alone - unique in our individual problems - and it has driven us to the point of hysteria. We're beginning to deal with that, to support each other, to think in more communal terms. Sisterhood is really a beautiful idea - sisterhood speaks of women relating to each other. But sisters don't exist in isolation either. Emotional support is essential, coming to consciousness is necessary - but women's liberation can't stop there. We hit this, of course, whenever we try to deal with any of the "practical" issues - child-care, economic independence from men, control over our own bodies. For many of us, the "web" of interdependencies has become all too literal, and we're trapped. Sometimes it seems as though we can't even get one single childcare center open, much less overturn the whole economic structure which oppresses us, or depose the male supremacist power elite - or whatever hands are manipulating the strings behind the strings. Sometimes the whole thing seems impossible. After all, we women have been told we can't handle anything very complex. We have only simple, childlike minds and are incapable of really understanding things in their totality. [hand drawn picture of food & a bone] Perhaps our clue can come from nature. While man has been arrogantly fucking over the earth, blithely spraying his chemicals here and detonating his missiles there, nature has been involved in reweaving the whole fabric of natural relationships - weaving man right out of the pattern. So too while old supremacist, racist, imperialist, arrogant Man is sitting high on his throne, we shall be busy weaving a whole new pattern of relationships among people - and shall leave the Man out of it. And sisters, weaving is a feminine art! We shall survive and we shall be free. 10 Vol. I No. 6 Ain't I
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NATURE HOW BEING FEMALE HELPS IN UNDERSTANDING THE NATURE QUESTION: As my "Earth Week" reading I picked up Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (in keeping with a policy of giving female authors priority). This book deals with the problem of chemical poisoning of the environment, specifically from pesticides and herbicides, and those who have been irresponsible in advocating chemical usage without bothering about the consequences. One could, of course, cite this book as further support for the radical position. In fact, when the radical movement does give attention to the question of ecology, all too often attempts are made merely to buttress the existing radical line. In other words, we have political and economic analysis aplenty, but the question of how we relate to nature is never raised. (Does that sound familiar?-- Radicals are quick to analyse how to relate to the capitalistic power structure, etc., but never deal with the question of how to relate to women.) Rachel Carson was a naturalist, and in a very poetic way she suggests that the way we should relate to nature is by coming to understand nature on Nature's terms - by learning how nature actually works and not superimposing our hasty conclusions. For example, she suggests that instead of rushing to laboratories to cook up a new chemical weapon, the best way to deal with agricultural pests or whatever lies in getting to know that particular organism and in finding out how it relates to the natural scheme, then introducing natural controls - nature provides more efficient ways of control than man in his laboratories without all the drastic consequences. We get our clues by getting to know nature better. That is really a mind-blowing concept! Instead of imposing upon nature, we relate to her as she is! Isn't that similar to what we are struggling with as females? Isn't the root of our "coming into consciousness" a realization that we don't know what our real needs are- or even who we really are - because these things have been defined for us by men? Isn't our struggle for liberation ultimately the desire to be ourselves - to be a real and a total self, not just a half-self, or an "other"-self, a self defined and thus controlled by men. For some women, liberation means putting aside the makeup, hair bleaches, girdles, and all those other gimmicks for forcing ourselves into a stereotyped image of the "pretty female" - an image which oppresses us, and makes us anxious because we at best achieve only imitations of that image and thus remain forever insecure. We have been alienated from our own natural selves and thus we spend untold energy and emotion in attempting to remake our faces and figures into a superimposed ideal. For some of us, liberation means meeting our own sexual interest, finding sexual satisfaction on female terms in our female bodies, rather than always and only defining sexual activity in terms of male interest. We want to be freed from the myth of vaginal orgasm. from all forms of prostitution (including marital), and from being "punished" for sex by having to bear children. We want to be sexually ourselves. We are already well into the problem of finding out who we really are, rejecting male definitions of ourselves. In fact, we are questioning the who male mentality - we see its brutality, its corruption all too well. We should likewise question the male attitude toward and definition of nature. If we no longer accept the existing male assessment of ourselves, then we should likewise suspect the existing male approach toward nature. That's what got us into all this environment trouble anyway. We should begin to view nature directly, without looking through male viewpoints. For some of us, liberation means obtaining intellectual and creative fulfillment- after all, our brains are part of our natural body. We are tired of being dealt with merely as sex objects and not as total persons. We are angered at being forced to spend all our time in menial work - whether typing, washing diapers, or whatever - and of being totally alienated or deprived from any mental stimulation or opportunity for growth and fulfillment. We want to be mentally ourselves. For some of us, liberation means being able to meet the most basic physical needs- having food to eat, a bed to sleep in. For other women this means freeing physical bodies from the chain of perpetual childbirth. reprinted from It Ain't Me Babe HOW DEALING WITH ECOLOGY CAN HELP US AS FEMALES: The very term "ecology" refers to the totality of the pattern of interrelationships between organisms and their environment. Nature operates in a series of relationships. Food chains are one example of this - the minnow eats plankton, the big fish eats the minnow, the gull eats the big fish, and so forth - and if you wipe out one link in the chain, you ruin the whole show. Our own bodies are another example - bacteria and other organisms live in ambiotic relationship, helping to digest our food and thus enabling our own survival. To focus attention upon any one organism in isolation is to fail to understand that organism- for every organism exists in relationship to others. Relationship, that's the key. Instinctively, perhaps, we women are organizing ourselves into groups - the small group pattern. We are realizing that part of man's secret for controlling us has been to divide us, to alienate us, to make us compete with each other. As a result, we each feel isolated and alone - unique in our individual problems - and it has driven us to the point of hysteria. We're beginning to deal with that, to support each other, to think in more communal terms. Sisterhood is really a beautiful idea - sisterhood speaks of women relating to each other. But sisters don't exist in isolation either. Emotional support is essential, coming to consciousness is necessary - but women's liberation can't stop there. We hit this, of course, whenever we try to deal with any of the "practical" issues - child-care, economic independence from men, control over our own bodies. For many of us, the "web" of interdependencies has become all too literal, and we're trapped. Sometimes it seems as though we can't even get one single childcare center open, much less overturn the whole economic structure which oppresses us, or depose the male supremacist power elite - or whatever hands are manipulating the strings behind the strings. Sometimes the whole thing seems impossible. After all, we women have been told we can't handle anything very complex. We have only simple, childlike minds and are incapable of really understanding things in their totality. [hand drawn picture of food & a bone] Perhaps our clue can come from nature. While man has been arrogantly fucking over the earth, blithely spraying his chemicals here and detonating his missiles there, nature has been involved in reweaving the whole fabric of natural relationships - weaving man right out of the pattern. So too while old supremacist, racist, imperialist, arrogant Man is sitting high on his throne, we shall be busy weaving a whole new pattern of relationships among people - and shall leave the Man out of it. And sisters, weaving is a feminine art! We shall survive and we shall be free. 10 Vol. I No. 6 Ain't I
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