Ecofeminism, Subsistence Living & Nature Awareness

April 10, 2023

A Woman-Centered Economy! (Part 2) Replacing the Male-Dominated Economy

By Jeanne F. Neath

Perhaps after reading the first half of this blog, the subsistence economy has begun to feel familiar to you. Or not. Whatever you may be feeling, the fact remains that the male-dominated economy is doing us – Earth and humans – in and there is an already existing woman-centered economy that can take its place. Part 2 of this blog is again primarily written for people of the global North (“North” and “South” here refer more to the “developed” vs. “developing” world than to strict geographies. Even within a country, some groups may belong to the North and others to the South.) [1]. We have a choice to make!

The War Against Subsistence

The capitalist, colonizing patriarchy is doing everything it can to control that choice. This global system does not want anyone, global South or North, to have “an independent subsistence”. As Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen explain:

“Ivan Illich stated as long ago as 1982 that the war against subsistence is the real war of capital, not the struggle against the unions and their wage demands. Only after people’s capacity to subsist is destroyed, are they totally and unconditionally in the power of capital.” (p. 19, Subsistence Perspective, Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen)

Seed sovereignty campaign in Africa

In the global South vast numbers of people from the countryside have been forced from their lands and subsistence-based ways of life as result of centuries of colonization, international development policies, land and water grabs, loss of land due to climate and ecological disasters, and corporate/state pressures on peasant farmers.

In the global North over a century of economic pressures on small farmers, propaganda campaigns portraying rural life as backwards and the industrialization of agriculture have pushed many farm families off their lands.[2] Today the “service” economy is busily eating away at the subsistence economy, as people pay for all kinds of things they used to get from their communities, do for themselves or not do at all, including “treating themselves” to toenail and fingernail manicures, socializing on social media, getting tattoos, and eating at fast food restaurants, to name a few.


The capitalist economy is colonizing and commercializing both the Earth and the subsistence economy in its endless quest for profit and wealth for the few. Resistance is strong in the global South, but people in the global North are far more under the control of capital, due to our loss of “an independent subsistence.”


The capitalist economy is colonizing and commercializing both the Earth and the subsistence economy in its endless quest for profit and wealth for the few.[3] Resistance is strong in the global South, but people in the global North are far more under the control of capital, due to our loss of “an independent subsistence.”

Putting Women at the Center

Still, the woman-centered economy beckons. Every day women (and men) in the industrialized world get to choose the economy they want over and over again. Eat out (capitalism) or cook dinner (subsistence). Plant kale or buy it at Wal-Mart. Walk the dog or hire a dog walker. Through making one choice at a time women (and men) can gradually diminish our dependency on and support for the male-dominated economy.

Red Russian kalePutting women at the center of an economy prevents men from taking more than their share of power and ensures a balance between women and men. Woman-centered does not imply woman-dominated. Women in subsistence economies (and elsewhere) generally create caring and sharing relationships that are non-hierarchical.

Our individual choices give us power in our own lives, but subsistence economies are created by communities of people giving to and receiving from each other and the Earth. The giving of gifts begins with the gifts of the Earth and the gifts of human mothers. As Robin Wall Kimmerer has explained, a natural human response to “a world made of gifts”, the abundance of nature, is to also give, give to the Earth and to each other.[4] Among humans, gift giving comes very naturally since human infants are dependent on the care – gifts – of our biological and social mothers. According to Genevieve Vaughan, this one-way mother/child gifting relationship forms the basis of a maternal gift economy where all relationships are based in gifts, not exchanges.[5]

Subsistence economies are based in the giving of gifts, though some, perhaps the more stratified and patriarchal ones, may include barter, trade, cash and markets while still making the well-being of everyone in the community the central concern.[6] In many subsistence-based societies women participate in local markets in order to share surpluses from subsistence production and gain power and prestige within their communities.[7] Increasingly, feminists interested in a return to subsistence and maternal gift economies are acknowledging the connections between the two.[8] Perhaps a better name for the subsistence economy would be the “subsistence/gift economy.”

Daughters of Bilitis picnic 1959

The capitalist economy isolates people and destroys community. Both gift giving and subsistence-based relations create deep bonds and community. As female-centered economies grow, we can expect communities to grow and strengthen too. With a central place in the economy, women’s place in community should follow suit.

We can choose to create community at the same time we choose the subsistence/gift economy over capitalism. Yes, cook dinner instead of eating out AND invite family, friends or neighbors. Plant kale, eat it yourself AND give some away. Do this within the community you belong to or intentionally begin creating the community you want.

A Plan for Transformation

Despite the climate and larger ecological emergencies unfolding, this dominant society is not even attempting to create a plan that would make the radical (meaning root) transformations necessary to halt these disasters. Such a plan would have to recognize the need to bring capitalism, growth, male dominance and all domination to an end. This the power holders in the global society cannot and will not even consider.


Despite the climate and larger ecological emergencies unfolding, this dominant society is not even attempting to create a plan that would make the radical (root) transformations necessary to halt these disasters. Such a plan would have to recognize the need to bring capitalism, growth, male dominance and all domination to an end. This the power holders in the global society cannot and will not even consider.


As Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen has explained, these times call for new strategies to create social change:

“In view of the social power structures of our era, the old quandary of whether “we” should abolish the plundering capitalist system or whether “we” – since there is no time for systemic issues – should concentrate on reforms, has become obsolete. What matters now is that we – all sovereign individuals capable of acting responsibly – withdraw from the forced maximization economy by refusing to participate.”[9]

A very promising option available to those in the global North who want radical transformation is constructive resistance, the use of actions that work to both upend capitalist, colonizing patriarchy and, at the same time, create alternatives. Reclaiming and expanding woman-centered economies is constructive resistance. Every move into the female-centered economy is a move out of the male-dominated economy. Because capitalism is dependent on growth (to avoid recession, depression, collapse), it depends on women’s (and other consumers’) participation.[10] Think back to George W. Bush’s response to 9/11. Here in the U.S. we were told to go shopping!


Every move into the female-centered economy is a move out of the male-dominated economy. Because capitalism is dependent on growth (to avoid recession, depression, collapse), it depends on women’s (and other consumers’) participation.


The male-dominated economy has an Achilles’ heel. The growth of the woman-centered economy is the dart that can slow it down and, over time, bring it to an end. Talk of ending the economy that so many people now depend on sniffs of disaster, yet so does the continuation of that economy. An alternative way to meet everyone’s needs must be created. That alternative is the subsistence/gift economy! The shift to this woman-centered economy opens the door to the creation of fully woman-centered communities and societies that do away with domination.

Pakistan floods affected 30 million.Why not switch to the female-centered economy and scrap the male-dominated one? Clearly, the male-dominated economy that is bringing us climate catastrophe, forced migrations and the Sixth Extinction is far scarier than the subsistence/gift economy that exists only to bring us life. In the global South, people have been fighting to continue their own ways of life, which includes their subsistence economies, since the beginnings of colonization. Choosing to embrace and expand woman-centered economies offers those in the global North another way to step up by moving into an Earth-centered way of life and curtailing support for the economy of destruction.

If you are still troubled by thoughts of what you might have to give up as the male-dominated economy winds down, consider this. Yes, subsistence economies provide the essentials of life, not the “extras.” But, there can be more than one economy, a mix of economies, within any society. Why not have two female-centered economies? Caring for the well-being of all Earth and human communities must be the priority, but as the earth recovers, woman-centered economies providing “wants” may evolve and co-exist with subsistence economies.

Gardening and Eating: A First Step

Industrial agriculture is terrible for the Earth.[11] We have to eat! Industrial agriculture – a central part of the male-dominated economy – must be replaced and we can look to the woman-centered economy for the replacement.

Earthworms to fertilize the soil. Red wigglers for making compost from food scraps.Mountain Mother is calling me and it’s spring so the earthworms and the garden are calling extra loud. If you listen, you will probably hear them too. Not everyone is physically able to garden, but everyone can probably find a way to make sure their food scraps feed the earthworms and restore the soil.

With most women (and men) in the U.S. spending so little time gardening (average is under 1 ½ hours a week for women) there is a great opportunity to expand home food production. This expansion could happen really quickly, as it did during both World Wars when the U.S. government encouraged people to plant victory gardens. In 1943, 20 million victory gardens produced 10 billion pounds of food.

Hello earthworms! Creating home and community gardens and small farms can restore the Earth and restore us. There is plenty of work to be done besides the actual gardening, including garden planning, learning about insects, seed saving, cooking and preserving foods and much more. As we become deeply connected to the plant world, our relationships with the life-giving soils and ever-changing winds and waters will grow too. These kinds of deep and real connections can transform our lives, including even our desires and what we think we need. Stepping away from the cell phones and all the rest of the constant bombardment of modern society and slowing down to nature’s pace can open up such a different and awesome world that everything changes, inside and out.

This reminds me of one last insight from Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen:

“Decommercialization is first and foremost an attitude of mind. Orienting ourselves not to money, but to what we actually need puts all decisions in a new light. Modern insatiability can be replaced by the satisfaction of having a need fulfilled.”[12]

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Notes

1. “inequality within countries has also been growing and some commentators now talk of a ‘Global North’ and a ‘Global South’ referring respectively to richer or poorer communities which are found both within and between countries. For example, whilst India is still home to the largest concentration
of poor people in a single nation it also has a very sizable middle class and a very rich elite.” More info here.
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2. Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, The Subsistence Perspective, p. 17-19.
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3. “Money or Life? What Really Makes Us Rich” by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen in Climate Chaos: Ecofeminism and the Land Question edited by Ana Isla, 2019.
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4. “Mishkos Kenomagwen, The Lessons of Grass” by Robin Wall Kimmerer in Traditional Ecological Knowledge: Learning from Indigenous Practices for Environmental Sustainability edited by Melissa K. Nelson and Dan Shilling, 2018
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5. Genevieve Vaughan, For-Giving: A Feminist Criticism of Exchange, 1997.
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6. For example, Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen described how a peasant and craft economy functioned as late as the 1960s in the German village of Borgentreich. Peasants traded their farm products for the goods and services of local craftspeople: blacksmiths, dressmakers, bakers, carpenters and so on. Cash payments were only required when the craftsperson had to buy materials (e.g. fabric) and needed to replace the cash they had spent. But, not every person could pay. Then as Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen report:
“After waiting in vain, the craftsman would sometimes go to the farmer and pick up a couple of sacks of rye or seed, or maybe a few piglets. But, as one master joiner put it, ‘We also simply forgot about a lot of it.’ The baker said that most people paid their bills at the end of the year, but ‘those who hadn’t a penny to their name got their bread for nothing; in the end you couldn’t just let people starve.’” From Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, The Subsistence Perspective, p. 88-89.
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7. Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, The Subsistence Perspective, p. 109-110]
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8. For example, Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen includes a discussion of the maternal gift economy in her 2019 article “Money or Life? What Really Makes Us Rich” published in the Climate Chaos anthology edited by Ana Isla.
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9. “Money or Life? What Really Makes Us Rich” by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen in Climate Chaos: Ecofeminism and the Land Question edited by Ana Isla, 2019. p. 55.
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10. David Holmgren, one of the founders of permaculture, suggests in his article “Crash on Demand” that permaculture activists could initiate a financial crash by reducing consumption and that this could bring about desperately needed societal and ecological changes. Holmgren’s ideas are very interesting, yet have received sharp criticism from some because of the effects a financial crash would have on humans. I am suggesting a gentler approach than Holmgren in which the growth of the subsistence economy would supply people with what we need to live as the capitalist economy (and the damages created by it) diminish through reduced participation. Withdrawing from the capitalist economy and is a matter of ethics! In either Holmgren’s scenario or the one I am suggesting, the actions of a relatively small portion of the populace could have a large effect because of capitalism’s fragility.
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11. Industrial agriculture is not only a major contributor to climate change, but also fuels habitat loss, the biodiversity crisis, freshwater drawdown, pollution and more. For an introduction to these issues, check this out
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12. “Money or Life? What Really Makes Us Rich” by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen in Climate Chaos: Ecofeminism and the Land Question edited by Ana Isla, 2019. p. 60.

March 29, 2023

A Woman-Centered Economy! (Part 1)
Replacing the Male-Dominated Economy

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Economics,Jeanne Neath,Patriarchy,Resistance,Subsistence Living — Jeanne Neath @ 10:51 am

By Jeanne F. Neath

If you had the choice, wouldn’t you rather live in a woman-centered economy?[1] It’s pretty clear by now that the male-dominated economy – patriarchal capitalism – is a social, ecological and economic failure. What if I told you that there is a choice? Most people don’t realize it, but everyone participating in the global economy is living in two economies, a mix of economies where one is male-dominated and the other female-centered. Why not switch to the woman-centered one and scrap the other one?

There is a catch. Or, at first look some people think there is. The woman-centered economy is a subsistence-based economy. And that subsistence word scares people. Well, it scares people who are very dependent on or privileged by the male-dominated economy.

In The Subsistence Perspective, Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen point out that the village women of Bangladesh or others reliant on subsistence do not find subsistence scary. These Bangladeshi women understand that “what is important is what secures an independent subsistence.” (p. 3, The Subsistence Perspective). Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen claim that the perspective of the Bangladeshi village women, a subsistence perspective, is desirable, even for people living with a great deal of privilege:

“The utopia of a socialist, non-sexist, non-colonial, ecological, just, good society cannot be modeled on the lifestyle of the ruling classes – a villa and a Cadillac for everybody… : rather it must be based on subsistence security for everybody.” (p. 4, The Subsistence Perspective)

Subsistence-based economies have sustained human life across countless millenia and continue to do so today. With the development of patriarchy, war, colonization and class, other types of economies were created, although subsistence economies endured. These new economies were based on an overclass accumulating wealth through various means such as taking land by force, slave labor, tribute, wage labor and taxation.

Today people’s relationship to subsistence differs based on how assimilated and privileged they are in the capitalist, colonizing patriarchy that now dominates the Earth. In general terms, those in the global North are likely to be well assimilated, feel a part of the dominant society and no longer have “an independent subsistence.” (“North” and “South” here refer more to the “developed” vs. “developing” world than to strict geographies. Even within a country, some groups may belong to the North and others to the South. [2]) In the global South many people are resisting, fighting to keep their own ways of life, including their subsistence economies.


Many of us would rather not support the male-dominated economy, but the thought of subsistence scares us or makes us uncomfortable. Yet … what an opportunity we have! We don’t have to wait for a feminist revolution!


My writing today is directed primarily to people in the global North. Many of us there would rather not support the male-dominated economy, but the thought of subsistence scares us or makes us uncomfortable. Yet … what an opportunity we have! We don’t have to wait for a feminist revolution! We already belong to a female-centered economy that can replace the male-dominated one.

By now, you are probably asking yourself: What is subsistence anyway? What makes subsistence a woman-centered economy?

What is Subsistence?

Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen provide us with a simple definition of what they call “subsistence production” or “production of life” saying that this “includes all work that is expended in the creation, re-creation and maintenance of immediate life and which has no other purpose.” (p. 20, The Subsistence Perspective) The fact that subsistence economies have “no other purpose” is key to distinguishing the subsistence economy from capitalist and state run economies. That “other purpose” is profit, the creation of wealth for a few (mostly men) at the expense of the well being (and perhaps the survival) of the Earth and human society.

Women's vs Male Economy GraphIt is important to understand the importance and the size of the subsistence economy. Genevieve Vaughan recently discussed research from D. Ironmonger and F. Soupourmas showing that unpaid household work, called “gross household product”, would have cost $11.6 trillion in 2011, if wages had been paid.[3] Compare this to the $15.6 trillion figure for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2011. Even in a highly developed country, the U.S., the subsistence economy is a multi-trillion dollar economy almost as large as the market economy! This economy is critical to the continuation of life and human society and women’s work is central to it.

Despite the magnitude and importance of this woman-centered economy, over the past couple of centuries more and more women have joined the male-dominated economy as wage workers and business owners (while also continuing to do subsistence work). There are many reasons for this movement, including economic need, sexism, feminism and the much higher status accorded the male-dominated economy. There has been a “war against subsistence” at work here, as I’ll discuss in Part 2 of this blog. For now, please keep in mind that status is given and taken away by society and there is no reason to think that the work done for the “other purpose” of money in the male-dominated economy is in any way superior to subsistence work.

What Makes the Subsistence Economy Woman-Centered?

Creation of Life (Biological Reproduction): Women are the creators of human life. The work that only women can do bearing, birthing and nursing children is a key part of what makes subsistence a woman-centered economy. While men have a necessary role in biological reproduction it is fleeting and small compared to pregnancy and giving birth. The continuation of human life is utterly dependent on women, even where capitalist or state economies now sometimes play a (profitable) role through provision of reproductive technologies, doctors and hospitals.

Maintaining Life (Social Reproduction): Raising children is likewise critical to the continuation of human societies. Since this is social, not biological work, men often participate. Nonetheless, across countless societies and historical eras much of the work of nurturing and socialization has fallen to women. This is essential subsistence work carried out primarily by women and a key part of what makes subsistence a woman-centered society.


Across countless societies and historical eras much of the work of nurturing and socialization has fallen to women. This is essential subsistence work carried out primarily by women and a key part of what makes subsistence a woman-centered society.


It isn’t just idle speculation to say that it is mostly women raising children. The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) collects data every year on how many “household hours” per week women and men spend doing child care (on average). Yes, women do much more child care! In 2018 we spent about 33 hours per week when unemployed and just a little less (30 hours) when employed.[4] The comparable numbers for men were about 23 household hours (unemployed) and 18 (employed). (In actuality, women and men with young children spend many more hours doing childcare than the BEA reports. The BEA numbers are based on averaging data from all U.S. households, including those that have no children or only older children who require much less care.[5]) Please notice that the BEA statistics do not have anything to say about the quality of childcare provided by men, as compared to women.

Zora walks herselfMaintaining life involves much more than socializing the next generation and women do much of this maintenance work too, even in the global North. You don’t have to have children to play a central role in running a household. For example, do you cook meals? Clean your house? Care for other members of your household when they are sick? Walk the dog? Do yard work? Sew buttons back on your clothes when they fall off? Keeping a household going can involve seemingly endless work and women do much of it! This is true even in households that have many modern “conveniences.”

Women do even more work maintaining households in non-industrial societies where their livelihoods are more fully tied into the subsistence economy. This work can include tasks such as: processing and preserving of food from gardens or fields, carrying water, butchering, house building, weaving textiles, processing hides, making fishnets, manufacturing clothing, making pottery and many other crafts. In non-industrial societies women’s household maintenance work is likely to be higher where men have taken over more of the work of food production.[6]

Maintaining Life: Subsistence Production of Food: Despite all the work described above, in many non-industrial societies women can be heavily involved in subsistence production of food. In a 1986 article in American Anthropologist, Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry documented the extent of women’s contribution to subsistence food production in 186 non-industrial societies. While men contributed more than women overall, in about half of the 186 societies women did over 35% of the food production. The researchers considered women’s contribution to be high when it reached this level (35%). Women were especially likely to make a high contribution to production in societies that used simple technologies to gather or grow plant food (high contribution in 70% of these societies). This is in stark contrast to societies based primarily in hunting of animals (high contribution in just 13% of these societies).[7]

Backyard chickensWe can’t include anyone’s production work from the capitalist economy (in jobs, as business owners) in these considerations as that work isn’t subsistence work and cuts into time available for subsistence work.[8] Today, women make up a major portion of the paid work force.[9] Still, some women in heavily industrialized societies do garden or keep chickens or other livestock for home (subsistence) use. According to the BEA, in 2018 men in the U.S. did a little more home gardening than women (The rough averages in the U.S. are 1 ½ to 2 ½ hours for men, ½ to 1 ¼ hours for women.)

Women in industrialized societies who want to participate more in the women’s economy could work fewer hours at jobs. Traditionally, women have been the gatherers of plants and were the inventors of agriculture. One avenue women could take to reclaim power would be in developing close relationships with and knowledge of the plant peoples. We could become gatherers, gardeners, seed collectors, tenders of the wild, herbalists or subsistence farmers. As has traditionally been the case in some subsistence economies, surpluses can be taken to market for barter or to obtain cash.[10]

Thanks to capitalist, colonizing patriarchy, we are facing an uncertain future where women and their local communities may need to take very seriously the need to focus on providing basic necessities like plant foods and medicine. The food sovereignty movement is important for the global North, not just the global South.

Subsistence is a Woman-Centered Economy

Let’s take stock of all the work creating and maintaining life that women do, as discussed here:

  • Almost all the biological reproduction PLUS
  • Most of the child raising PLUS
  • Most of the household maintenance PLUS
  • For nonindustrial societies, a very significant chunk of the food production.

Without women’s contributions there would be no subsistence economy and, indeed, no human society or life at all. Subsistence is a woman-centered economy!

In Part 2 of this blog, coming soon, we’ll talk about how choosing the women’s economy can bring the male-dominated economy to an end, while at the same time providing for humanity’s needs.

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Footnotes

1. Lorraine Edwalds and Midge Stocker edited a very interesting anthology, The Woman-Centered Economy: Ideals, Reality, and the Space Between in 1995. This feminist anthology was more focused on creating and supporting a woman-centered economy within the existing market economy and did not have an emphasis on subsistence. There is the possibility of conjuring up multiple woman-centered economies, as I will discuss in Part 2 of this blog.
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2. “[I]nequality within countries has also been growing and some commentators now talk of a ‘Global North’ and a ‘Global South’ referring respectively to richer or poorer communities which are found both within and between countries. For example, whilst India is still home to the largest concentration of poor people in a single nation it also has a very sizable middle class and a very rich elite.” For more info.
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3. Genevieve Vaughan provided the $11.6 trillion figure for 2011 in her talk at the 2022 Maternal Gift Economy Conference. The reference she gave was for a 2012 article by D. Ironmonger and F. Soupourmas. I have not been able to locate that article as I do not have a university affiliation.
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4. The numbers I report come from my reading of the BEA graphs and are as accurate as I could make them, but please consider them rough figures.
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5. The BEA did not include detailed information on their methodology with their graphs. They say: “our estimates cover the entire economy, and most households do not have minor children present. According to the 2020 Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey, 40 percent of households had children under 18. Only half of those (21 percent of total households) had children under 13, the ages that require the most direct child care.” If 79% of the households included in the BEA statistics do not have children requiring substantial amounts of care (ie. children under 13), then parents with young children must be doing far more work that the figures they provide and that I have referred to.
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6. See p. 145 in “The Cultural Consequences of Female Contribution to Subsistence” by Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry. In American Anthropologist, V. 88, 1986. You can access the full article for free if you register as an individual on Jstor.
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7. See Table 1 on p. 144 for data on women’s contribution to subsistence in societies with various forms of subsistence. “The Cultural Consequences of Female Contribution to Subsistence” by Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry. In American Anthropologist, V. 88, 1986. You can access the full article for free if you register as an individual on Jstor.
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8. See p. 14 in Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England by Carolyn Merchant, University of North Carolina Press,1989.
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9. Labor force participation rates for U.S. women are 57% and 68% for men, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. According to the International Labor Organization the current global labour force participation rate for women is just under 47%. For men, it’s 72%.
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10. See p. 70 in “Money or Life? What Really Makes Us Rich” by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen. In Climate Chaos: Ecofeminism and the Land Question edited by Ana Isla, Innana Publications, 2019.

February 3, 2016

Mixed Economy = Subsistence Economy + Capitalism

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Economics,Jeanne Neath,Patriarchy,Subsistence Living — Jeanne Neath @ 2:54 pm

Faye, a 78 year old Inuit woman, was one of three elders left in the village of Wales, Alaska when Gretel Ehrlich visited there in midwinter of 2007. One evening Ehrlich braved the blasting snow and a windchill of 40 degrees below zero for a dinner at Faye’s house. Faye’s son provided the transportation: a snow-go (snowmobile) trip through town. Faye served a dinner of boiled reindeer meat and fermented bearded seal on pieces of cardboard. The beverage was meltwater from a nearby pond served in plastic cups. Dinner might as easily have been walrus or polar bear, year round staples provided by subsistence hunters. Reindeer meat is also a local staple, as domesticated reindeer were introduced to the Inuit by Christian missionaries in the late 1800s. Flounder was another menu possibility for midwinter dining, but Faye would have fished for the flounder herself. She described her fishing technique to Ehrlich. She’d go out onto the ice and build a small igloo to keep the wind off her back, then lay out flat on the ice with her head over a “lead”, an open lane of water, and spear the fish as they passed by. (See Empire of Ice by Gretel Ehrlich.)

Inuit woman ice fishing early 20th century

Inuit woman ice fishing near Nome Alaska in early 20th century

Dinner at Faye’s house, like the rest of Ehrlich’s stay in the Inuit village of Wales, was an odd mixture of Inuit tradition with the U.S. dominant culture, of a subsistence economy with the capitalist mainstream. An expensive gas-guzzling snowmobile delivered Ehrlich to a traditional dinner dish of fermented bearded seal served on throwaway cardboard that must have come from corporate activities in the village. This pattern was repeated throughout the village. The women still pick wild greens and berries and preserve the greens in glass jars filled with seal oil – a classic mix of subsistence and industrial goods. Subsistence hunting is still a major focus for part of the community, but it has become expensive. Hunters need to pay for snowmobiles, four wheelers, outboard motors and gasoline. Only a few dog teams are still used. There were still four full whaling teams that would set out into the Bering Strait for the spring and fall whale migrations, but instead of traditional skin boats, the whalers now used outboard motors. The whaling is more dangerous nowadays, though, because the ice is changing due to climate change. And some whalers speak only English, a language without the words needed to talk about subtleties in the changing ice.

The dominant culture has won out more completely in some sectors. As in other parts of Alaska, airplanes are the principle form of long distance transportation. You can, for example, order a pizza from nearby Nome and have it delivered to Wales by air on a regularly scheduled flight. Since the closest modern health care facilities are in Nome, the women of Wales fly there a month before they are due to give birth and stay until delivery. Midwives used to deliver the babies of Wales at home. The high school in Wales is a modern facility with central heat, flush toilets, computers, moviemaking equipment, a biology lab and art-making facilities. Most of the young people are far more enamored with electronic devices than they are with learning subsistence skills. But, the wealth of the dominant culture does not extend very far into this town of the Far North. There is little food available in the stores. Most homes and buildings are not insulated. Flush toilets are uncommon.

The Inuit peoples had a fully self-sufficient subsistence economy prior to the invasion of westerners. The villages like Wales in the (relatively) low latitudes had particularly rich cultures as life was somewhat warmer and easier there than in the extreme north. Now, the people of Wales live with a very mixed economy: part subsistence economy and part the economy of the dominant culture.

Mixed Economies

The indigenous economies of the Far North are not alone in being a mixture of subsistence and the capitalist market economy. As Rauna Kuokkanen says:

“Today’s indigenous economies often are mixed economies in which subsistence production continues to play a considerable role. Mixed economies are characterized by a mix of activities such as subsistence, commodity production, wage labor, transfers (social assistance, unemployment insurance, welfare, pensions, and other statutory or fiduciary payments), and enterprise.” (Kuokkanen, “Indigenous Economies, Theories of Subsistence and Women: Exploring the Social Economy Model for Indigenous Governance”, p. 221) )

In indigenous societies, the subsistence economy always predates the capitalist one which was inevitably imposed through nefarious means: conquest, colonialism, and “free trade” agreements between nations. The two economies often become well integrated. For example, cash from wage labor may be used to purchase materials and equipment needed for subsistence activities. Or, a hunter might trap and hunt animals for food (a subsistence activity) while simultaneously serving as a paid guide for outsiders (a wage-based activity). On the Upper Missouri River Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara women collect commodity foods and welfare benefits and then redistribute them throughout their communities. Sharing is a key feature of subsistence economies and these Native women continue that practice even though the goods come from the dominating economy.


“Subsistence is often considered the most reliable form of economy in the long run, whereas other forms are usually more short-term and unpredictable.” (Rauna Kuokkanen)


According to Kuokkanen, “subsistence is often considered the most reliable form of economy in the long run, whereas other forms are usually more short-term and unpredictable.” (Kuokkanen, “Indigenous Economies, Theories of Subsistence and Women: Exploring the Social Economy Model for Indigenous Governance”, p. 222) Not surprising! Capitalism’s goal is making a profit, not making sure everyone has their needs taken care of. But, subsistence economies generally provided all the basic needs of communities and a good life for all until capitalism interfered.

Most of the highly industrialized nations that currently dominate the rest of the earth are considered to have capitalist economies, but this is not an accurate belief. A great deal of subsistence activity takes place in every human community, not just amongst indigenous peoples. Even the wealthiest world economies are actually mixed economies and very dependent on subsistence.

What Is the Subsistence Economy, Anyway?

Gardening at Cedar Hill: Our wheelbarrow from the 1970s

Gardening at Cedar Hill, an important subsistence activity. Jeanne got this wheelbarrow in the mid 1970s when she was stabling several of her horses behind her house. We're still using this capitalist-made wheelbarrow in our garden and for hauling wood, water and everything else, in part, because nothing for sale at any of the stores we've looked at can compare. We've done major and minor repairs on it over the years.

As Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen explain, “Subsistence production or production of life includes all work that is expended in the creation, re-creation, and maintenance of immediate life and which has no other purpose.” (The Subsistence Perspective by Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, p. 20) Subsistence activities include the production of necessities like food, but also the work involved in bearing and raising children and maintaining households. In industrialized societies profit-based enterprises typically take over many or most forms of production and, increasingly, many services (e.g. auto maintenance, hair care, dog boarding). But, even in the wealthiest capitalist economies, household tasks and the work of raising children are usually done in the subsistence economy. You can easily tell whether an activity is subsistence or not. If there is no formal exchange (of money or barter), then an activity is almost certainly subsistence.

Just think about all the work you do to keep yourself and your family functioning and that no one pays you to do! All of these tasks are part of the subsistence economy. You may buy groceries, but if you ever cook a meal at home,then the cooking is a subsistence activity. Other unpaid work you do yourself to keep your household running is likewise subsistence work: housecleaning, yard work, washing clothes, house repairs or improvements, and so on. Like the Inuit, you may at times use technology arising from the capitalist economy while performing subsistence labors (e.g., using a dishwasher or vaccuum).

If you are a woman and become pregnant, all the work associated with your childbearing and nursing is unpaid reproductive work and part of the subsistence economy (though the midwife or doctor you hire to assist in childbirth is part of the dominant economy). You would not be alive at this moment if your mother had not done the subsistence work of birthing you. You may do the many, many tasks associated with raising children: nurturing, feeding, playing, toilet training, teaching skills like catching a ball or knitting, providing transportation, and on and on and on. You may provide care for a family member or friend who is sick, aged or has a disability.

You may plant and tend a vegetable garden and provide fresh food for your household and perhaps even for your friends and larger community. Maybe you sew your own or your children’s clothes. Perhaps you have a “hobby” in which you create useful tools, furniture, quilts or other goods for friends and family. Or you hunt and fish and supply much of the food your family eats. Maybe you forage for wild foods: berries, cattails, acorns, hickory nuts, pawpaws.


Alvin Toffler, author of Future Shock, is reported to have asked a group of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, “How productive do you think your work force would be if it was not toilet trained?”


If you work a paying job, you still do plenty of productive and unpaid activities on your time off. Think, what do I do that is outside the capitalist marketplace and that keeps my life and the lives of the people I love working well? Unless you are very wealthy and able to somehow obtain all your needs and desires from servants, employees, prostitutes, and corporate-provided services (a very lonely and dependent existence), your well-being, even your survival, depends on your own and/or someone else’s subsistence work. Some subsistence activities may by repetitious and boring (as are many of the jobs in the capitalist economy), but the work you do for yourself and the people you love can be deeply satisfying.

Relationships within the capitalist economy are always motivated, at least in part, by concerns such as making a profit, making a sale, keeping a job or advancing in the workplace. Only in the subsistence economy, where the only purpose is the creation, re-creation or maintenance of life, can relationships be authentic. This doesn’t mean that relationships are always wonderful in the subsistence economy – many are marred by patriarchy, white supremacy and other forms of domination – but they can be. Sharing and cooperation are central to subsistence and these practices build strong bonds between people and within communities.

Capitalism: The Parasite on the Subsistence Economy

The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalized Economy

The Subsistence Perspective by Maria Mies and Veronika Benholdt-Thomsen critiques capitalism and argues for an alternative: the subsistence economy and way of life. This is a classic feminist text.

Individuals in any capitalist economy are dependent on the underlying subsistence economy. But, the capitalist economy and the continual economic growth it requires are likewise dependent on the subsistence work of women and peasants and other supposedly “free” resources. In The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalized Economy, Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen explain this dependence, as I’ll describe over the next several paragraphs.

Marx theorized that capitalism originated following a period of violent acquisition, that this “primitive accumulation of capital” was the pre-condition for capitalism. For Marx, once capitalism was established, capital grew thru the exploitation of wage laboriers. In the 1920s, Rosa Luxemburg argued that Marx’s analysis was inaccurate and that capital accumulation depended not just on wage labor, but on the continual exploitation of non-capitalist resources, specifically peasants and artisans. Once the colonies were established, capitalism became dependent on colonialism.

Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen extended Luxemburg’s ideas further. While Marx accounted for ongoing capital accumulation and economic growth as due to workers being paid only enough to “reproduce their labor power”, and not the full value of their work, he did not take into account all of the life-producing and life-preserving work women did to create and maintain “labor power”. Women’s work appeared to be a free resource to Marx, other economic theorists, capitalists, and the state. Thus, capitalism depends on the “free” labor of women.

Based on their newfound understanding of what they called “housewifization” together with Luxemburg’s insights, Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen went on to develop their “iceberg model” of patriarchal capitalist economies. In the iceberg model, the visible economy of capital and wage labor (GNP) cannot exist without an invisible base of unacknowledged work and resources including: workers without a labor contract (e.g. homeworkers, informal sector, child labor), subsistence peasants’ work, women’s reproduction work and housework, colonies of the global South and North, and nature. Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen called these invisible elements at the base of the iceberg economy the “Colonies of the White Man”, with “white man” signifying the western industrial system. These Colonies of the White Man provided labor and resources free or nearly free of cost. The exploitation of these Colonies of the White Man was the only reason economic growth was possible. Thus, capitalism is only able to accumulate capital and create economic growth by the forceful conquering, acquisition and destruction of traditional subsistence economies and the ongoing exploitation of people’s subsistence work, including everything from housework, childbearing and child rearing to subsistence farming and production of handicrafts. Where would capitalism obtain its workers if women did not bear and raise children? Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen’s analysis makes it clear that capitalism is a patriarchal system. Without the ability to exploit women’s reproductive capacities and other labor, capitalism could not grow or even exist.

Every so-called capitalist economy is a mixed economy, but this does not mean that capitalism and subsistence are two equal economies, peacefully co-existing. Instead the capitalist economy dominates the subsistence economy and exploits subsistence work, but does its best to keep people unaware of the domination and unaware even of the continued existence of the subsistence economy. Capitalism pretends to be the only economy while simultaneously smearing subsistence as dirty, old-fashioned, and able to provide only a bleak, sad, deprived way of living. The strategy is to make people dependent on the capitalist economy and simultaneously unaware of the of how dependent capitalism and everyone in it are on subsistence.


Capitalism pretends to be the only economy while simultaneously smearing subsistence as dirty, old-fashioned, and able to provide only a bleak, sad, deprived way of living. The strategy is to make people dependent on the capitalist economy and simultaneously unaware of the of how dependent capitalism and everyone in it are on subsistence.


Meanwhile capitalism is continually expanding, taking more and more from the subsistence economy, people all over the world, and nature. Capitalism has been effective in its global quest to take land from rural people, forcing them out of their self-sufficient subsistence ways of life and into a life of poverty within the capitalist economy. Even where rural people in former colonies are able to remain on their land, they are often forced or enticed to grow cash crops for the world markets, instead of growing crops to feed their own families and local economies. The growing service economy is an example of capitalism’s tactic of increasing its scope within industrialized societies, this time by luring us into paying for work our parents and grandparents did for themselves. The capitalists want you to eat at McDonald’s instead of cooking your own meals. They want you to pay for a manicure, pay to have a party catered, and pay for your dog to go to Dog Party USA. As the service economy grows, the power of capitalism expands and the economy that produces life, the subsistence economy, diminishes. As capitalism sucks more and more people more and more deeply into its profit-making machinery, it is at the same time chewing up more and more of nature and churning out increasingly short-lasting, barely useful products.

Women’s Economy, Core Economy, Subsistence Economy?

Bushmen of Kalahari denied water by Botswana and getting fluids from watermelons

This photo from Survival International is of Bushmen being forced to rely on watermelons for vital fluid because of lack of access to boreholes on their ancestral land. Diamonds have been found on their lands and the Botswana government has done everything it can to keep the Bushmen off the land, including denying access to water. The contrast between a so-called 'primitive' society, the Bushmen, who live by giving gifts and a modern state that is so stingy it won't let the people indigenous to the land have access to water holes is eye-opening. The Survival International web site provides updated information on the status of the Bushmen's struggles and also tells you how you can help.

The subsistence economy has been called by many different names: the women’s economy, gift economy, love economy, and core economy. Each of these names emphasizes a particular aspect of what I call the subsistence economy. The names, gift economy and love economy, let us know that the economic relationships that take place in subsistence economies are based in caring and community, not hierarchy and profit. Gift giving builds goodwill within a close-knit local community, but also between communities. For example, the Ju/wasi (Bushmen) of the Kalahari in southern Africa traditionally gave each other gifts (xaro) to create ties within their own bands but also between different bands who, in times of need, depended on each other’s material support and goodwill. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas explains just how extensive the practice of gift giving was among the Ju/wasi: “With the possible exception of certain articles of clothing (the Ju/wasi did not have spare clothes), almost every object in Nyae Nyae was subject to xaro, received as a gift from someone else, to be given as a gift to another person later.” (The Old Way: A Story of the First People by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, p. 220)

The name, women’s economy, points to the way that capitalist economies typically employ men as workers, or producers of cash crops, while leaving women to carry out their traditional roles inside the subsistence economy – doing the work of the household including child raising, housework and subsistence gardening or farming. This dynamic, used in the capitalist takeover of many different cultures, has put money and power in the hands of men and increased women’s dependence on men, though also, in some instances, freed women to resist capitalism. I like the name, women’s economy, but it is time to end the men’s capitalist economy. Men are going to have to pull their weight in carrying out the work of maintaining Life, of subsistence. Hopefully, as men who are now deeply immersed in the dominant culture become grounded in subsistence economies, they will learn to relate using power-with, not power over, and regain connection to the natural world.

But, the women’s economy is also so-named by feminists because it is an economy of gift giving and nurturance, and nurturance is often the province of women. As Genevieve Vaughan explained in Ms. magazine in 1991,

The present (capitalist) economic system is based in “exchange, which can be described as giving in order to receive. The motivation is self-oriented since what is given returns under a different form to the giver to satisfy her or his need…This seemingly simple human interaction of exchange, since it is done so often, becomes a sort of archetype or magnet for other human interactions, making itself – and whatever looks like it – seem normal, while anything else is crazy… Exchange puts the ego first and allows it to grow and develop in ways that emphasize me-first competitive and hierarchical behavior patterns. The ego is not an intrinsic part of the human being, but is a social product coming from the kinds of human interactions it is involved in… The alternative paradigm … is nurturing and generally other-oriented. It continues to exist because it has a basis in the nature of infants: they are dependent and incapable of giving back to the giver…Since a large percentage of women nurture babies, we are directed toward having an experience outside exchange. This requires orientation toward interest in the other… Our satisfaction comes from her or his growth or happiness, not just from our own.”

Thus, the exchange relationships basic to capitalistm are ego-based and most comfortable to people with a “me-first competitive and hierarchical behavior” pattern – mostly men. An economic system based in gift giving and sharing suits people comfortable with nurturance – mostly women. Capitalism, based in exchange, domination, exploitation, and profit-making is an economic system that could only develop within a male dominated system – patriarchy.

Recently, the name “core economy” has come into common use, popularized by Edgar Cahn, the founder of the Time Bank movement. With his use of the word “core”, Cahn makes it clear that the subsistence economy is not a vestige of an outdated world, but is at the very center of the capitalist economy. According to Cahn, economists estimate that 40-50% of productive economic activities take place outside the market, within the core economy.

The name, “core economy”, obscures the power relationship between the capitalist economy and the subsistence economy. As Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen make so clear, the capitalist economy exploits the workers of the subsistence economy, making the capitalists wealthy at the expense of everyone belonging to capitalism’s invisible base. We need to shrink and then end capitalism, but some reformers in the Left want to find ways to use the “core economy” to help underfunded social services help people within a failing capitalist patriarchy. In Britain, for example, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) promotes “co-production,” a way for social service professionals and “clients” to work together to provide assistance in a community. The “clients” become peer providers. As explained by NEF:

“The need is clear – how to recognize the hidden assets that public service clients represent, and make public services into engines that can release these assets into the neighborhoods around them – and to do so even when public sector budgets are severely constrained whilst avoiding people becoming cynical about the role and motivation of the state.” (Co-Production: A Manifesto for Growing the Core Economy, New Economics Foundation)

The intentions of NEF seem good. They want to help people and strengthen the core economy:

“The idea of co-production points to ways we can rebuild and reinvigorate this core economy and realise its potential, and how public services can play a part in making it happen.” (Co-Production: A Manifesto for Growing the Core Economy, New Economics Foundation)

But, social services and social service professionals, like it or not, are part of the dominant economic system. Within that system, professionals inevitably have power over “clients” and power-with relationships are impossible. Social service workers cannot rebuild the core economy because, at least in their professional roles, they are outside the core economy. The core or subsistence economy can only be rebuilt by grassroots efforts and any efforts to utilize it by professionals may help some individuals, but co-opts subsistence and extends the power of the dominant economy. The dominant economy would like to fool people into thinking it is benevolent. But, we can’t afford to fall for that ploy. We must stop capitalism, not make it a little bit nicer. With the word, subsistence, we aren’t confused, thinking we just have two nice wonderful economies – core and capitalist – and isn’t it nice they can co-exist so well, ignoring the power relationships between the two and the devastation wrought by capitalism.

Subsistence is a word of power! Those of us ensnared in capitalist economies fear subsistence because we have been subjected to a lifetime of propaganda against subsistence. I use the word subsistence because it makes people in the industrialized world uncomfortable. As Starhawk points out in Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics: “the words we are comfortable with, the words that sound acceptable, rational, scientific, and intellectually sound, are comfortable precisely because they are the language of estrangement.” Estrangement is the consciousness of separation, separation from nature, other people, parts of ourselves. Estrangement is the consciousness that creates and allows domination, power over relationships. The subsistence economy is a gift economy and a women’s economy. These are all excellent names and should be used often. But, at a time when the runaway consumption of a crazed capitalist economy is creating rising seas, deadly droughts and razed mountaintops, a focus on subsistence, on an economics of Life is critical.

Conclusion: Ecofeminist Transformations in Troubled Times

Compost pile

Compost is one of the critical needs of an ecofeminist society. If we want life to continue we need for each of us to do the subsistence work of building the soil. We can caretake the earth, each of us helping to restore small areas of land and eliminating toxic industrial agriculture. The pitchfork is the same vintage as the wheelbarrow pictured earlier.

As Bennholdt-Thomsen explains, “Subsistence is the sum total of everything that humans need to survive: food and drink, protection from cold and heat, caring and company. If subsistence needs are met, life can continue.” The globalized, white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy continues to take more and more from our planet, more than she can possibly give, and convinces many people in the middle and even working classes that we each need more and more. We have taken so much that we are now in great danger from climate chaos, deteriorating ecosystems, and a failing economy that can’t be trusted by ordinary people. If you pay any attention to all to the mainstream discussion of climate change, you’ll notice that much of the talk is now about adaptation to climate change, making communities more resilient in the face of an unknowable future of climate disasters and repercussions cascading across the globe. Because most governments in the industrialized world have failed for close to 30 years (and are still failing) to stop use of fossil fuels, the looming question is how do we survive the forces that have been set in motion. We need to focus on survival, not on getting more and more stuff. Meeting survival needs – and meeting them well – is what subsistence economies are made to do.

We are fortunate that we do have mixed economies and aren’t just stuck with capitalism! We don’t have to start from scratch and re-invent a whole new economy. We already have a great base – the subsistence economy – to work from. Margaret Thatcher famously said, “There is no alternative” to neoliberal capitalism. But as Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen tell us, “Subsistence is the alternative.” The task at hand, economically speaking, is to grow our existing subsistence economies and shrink capitalism down to nothing.

We can each of us start right now. We make dozens of choices every day about what we buy and do – and don’t buy and don’t do. We can choose: capitalism or subsistence economy? Capitalism or subsistence economy? What do you want? As individual women we have great power to make changes.

But, that power can be magnified by working together to rebuild our subsistence economies and local communities. A grassroots Transition movement is currently afoot globally to make the shift off of fossil fuels in local communities and pare down consumption. But, we can use ecofeminist values and understanding to create Ecofeminist Transitions that rebuild local communities and restore nature, eliminating domination in all its many forms. Obviously women must take power if we are to eliminate patriarchy. But, the power we take must be that of power-with, not power over, so that the communities we build are liberated from white supremacy, male domination, scarcity and wealth inequality, and all the oppressions we presently suffer. Building the subsistence economy and our ability to survive and survive well is key to the Ecofeminist transformation of society.

March 2, 2015

Power With Nature: Low Energy, Low Consumption, The Good Life – Part 4

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Global Warming,Jeanne Neath,Patriarchy,Subsistence Living — Jeanne Neath @ 3:50 am
Hurricane Sandy

Hurricane Sandy, Ocean Grove Pier - New Jersey, October 29, 2012.

In Part 1 of my Power With Nature blog, I quoted a pro-nuclear environmental activist who dismissed my concerns about high energy use and high consumption, saying: “I don’t really see a massive change in lifestyle; if you want to go live off the grid and grow all your own food, etc. good for you, but don’t expect the vast majority of Americans to join you.” This fellow, like many other environmentalists, seemed to assume that a change in lifestyle would entail hardships that most Americans would never accept. In his case, the risks of nuclear power were less a concern than loss of his and others’ lifestyles.

Many Americans, especially those in the middle and upper classes, do seem very attached to their material comforts and, for some, a life of material excess. And most everyone is so dependent on society for the necessities of life (e.g. shelter, water, food, heat) that they can barely conceive of a different way of life. This dependence becomes very evident each time disaster strikes an area (like Hurricane Sandy) and suddenly all electricity, food, communication, clean water, and easy transportation disappears. These are frightening circumstances and especially so for people who lack financial resources, physical capabilities and strong local communities to help them survive the crisis. But, increasing disasters – whether from climate changes or financial crashes – do not seem to shake the faith of many middle class Americans in the all too fallible capitalist patriarchal social system they rely on. Instead of fearing – and modifying – their dependence, most people fail to question what they consider to be a superior way of life.

Canada Lynx

Threatened Canada Lynx. This lynx has feet like snowshoes to help it navigate the snowy climate it is adapted to. There are fewer than 1000 left in the U.S. where they live in northern latitudes and high spruce-fir forests. Warming from climate change will force lynx populations further and further north. Should warming eliminate the cold climate they need, this species could move from threatened status to endangered or extinct.


Habitat loss. The sixth extinction. Climate change. Maybe these words are too abstract and middle class America is not getting the message in a hard punch to the gut (yet). I keep asking myself: How can so many middle class Americans think they have “the good life” when that way of life is creating a mass extinction (i.e. killing much of life on earth) and is leaving their descendents with a much poorer world?


Meanwhile, this “superior” way of life is threatening every person on the planet, including the privileged middle and upper classes, with losses far greater than a loss of creature comforts like air conditioning or a wedding in the Caribbean. Habitat loss. The sixth extinction. Climate change. Maybe these words are too abstract and middle class America is not getting the message in a hard punch to the gut (yet). I keep asking myself: How can so many middle class Americans think they have “the good life” when that way of life is creating a mass extinction (i.e. killing much of life on earth) and is leaving their descendents with a much poorer world? There seems to be an ethical problem here. And it isn’t as if life in capitalist patriarchy is actually a good time. We Americans are all living with the consequences of domination and that is never much fun -as I will discuss shortly.

Sold Out?

Are middle class Americans so self-centered, ignorant or shallow that they can be bought off by material goods? I don’t think so. After all, the rich and powerful decision-makers, mostly men, are the ones in control and this society is largely a reflection of their desires and visions. The middle classes are culpable for supporting the ruling class, but most of them are just going along with the status quo. A major consciousness shift and major commitment are required to do otherwise. There are good reasons why many people don’t make that shift.

Red Wolf

Endangered Red Wolf. Red wolves once roamed the forests here in northwest Arkansas, but now they are one of the world's most endangered members of the dog family. We think that some of the local coyotes may have a trace of red wolf blood as the species intermixed to some extent as the red wolf numbers dwindled. The red wolf once ranged through the eastern and southcentral United States, but the wolves were considered dangerous predators and populations were purposefully decimated by the early part of the 20th Century, much as has happened with the gray wolf. A captive breeding program has had some success and now over 100 red wolves roam their native habitats in eastern North Carolina.

Start with the fact that the rich and powerful control most of the institutions that shape consciousness (such as the media) and then stir in the power of the paycheck as a behavior modifier. As much as Americans want to see themselves as individualistic, our lives and thoughts are greatly shaped by our society. Thus, capitalist patriarchy creates ecological disaster and has shaped its populace to stand by and let it happen, sometimes denying reality altogether. The social influences corralling so many Americans into going along with the agenda of capitalist patriarchy go well beyond simple manipulations of our attitudes and behaviors. Even our inner selves are shaped by patriarchy and its patterns of domination. Today I want to focus on just one of the ways our psychological functioning becomes distorted: the suppression of emotion and creation of emotional distance between people and between people and nature. Without a great deal of emotional distance we could not watch bulldozers at work or tolerate the destruction of lands and the lives of people who depend on those lands for their survival. This emotional distance makes it possible to ignore the pain of others and avoid feeling the loss of nature all around us. We all need strong and sound emotional cues to make the shift in consciousness necessary for confronting and changing society.

But, wait! Patriarchy is just a human created social system. Our ancestors, the male ones I expect, started this monster that is patriarchy and it has snowballed with the growth of capitalism, but we can stop it. First step, explore how patriarchy shapes our inner selves to a) create the emotional distance that separates us from other people and nature and b) go along with the program of ecocide.

At the Core: Training Male Dominators

A society based in domination requires people who can dominate and people who will submit. In this patriarchy, men are trained as dominators through learning masculinity and women are trained for submission through learning femininity. But, everybody learns submission as children (who are constantly bossed around by adults) and also domination (as most everyone will fight back to gain some status in the pecking order). In Unmaking War, Remaking Men, Kathleen Barry explains that there is a “core masculinity” instilled in boys and men across many different cultures, classes, and races. Learning core masculinity trains boys and men to become dominators.


The social influences corralling so many Americans into going along with the agenda of capitalist patriarchy go well beyond simple manipulations of our attitudes and behaviors. Even our inner selves are shaped by patriarchy and its patterns of domination.


Endangered Mexican Wolf

Endangered Mexican Wolf. Once ranging parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, by the 1970s the Mexican Wolf, a subspecies of gray wolf was nearly extinct. In 1976 this wolf was listed as an endangered species. A captive breeding program was established and in 1998 11 Mexican Wolves were released in the in Apache National Forest in southeastern Arizona. Now there are about 83 Mexican Wolves living in the wild. Even with such a small population in the wild, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, responsible for managing the wolves, will still issue permits to private individuals, such as ranchers, to kill wolves found preying on their livestock and limit the areas where wild wolves can roam. Green groups are suing FWS over rules like these.

This is how it works, according to Barry. Boys learn from an early age the frightening fact that their society is willing to sacrifice them in war. Training in masculinity helps boys and men handle their fears and the knowledge that their society considers them so unimportant as to be expendable in war. They learn to suppress their feelings and distance themselves from their fears. This disconnection is central to core masculinity. As expendable people, men are not supposed to protect themselves (i.e. stay away from war), but are supposed to protect women and children instead. This is not a very good deal for men and provokes rage that is turned against women. Misogyny is thus built into core masculinity. Men learn that the worst thing they can do is to be unmanly, like a woman. When men do join the military, training in core masculinity escalates to the point that many men lose the ability to empathize with anyone except their buddies.

Training in masculinity can be more or less effective, so individual men are not all equally cut off from their emotions, women hating, and unable to empathize. Similarly, while some women embrace femininity (and submission), others adopt at least some “masculine” characteristics, sometimes including emotional distancing, in an attempt to gain power and status. But, when women accept the submissive role, they are also pushed into suppressing or, at least, subordinating their emotions. As Dana Crowley Jack explains:

“Depressed women alert us to their experience of self-loss within unsatisfactory relationships. Seeking love and closeness a woman attempts to create intimacy by altering herself to meet what she perceives to be the needs of the man she loves. But, the act of altering herself – of putting herself ‘as a person out of the picture’ – results not in the emotional and spiritual rewards of authentic intimacy, but in a diminished self.” (Silencing the Self: Women and Depression by Dana Crowley Jack, p. 54)

I think I followed both the “masculine” and “feminine” strategies growing up as an only child in the 1950s. In my family both my father and mother assumed that my father, a veteran of World War II, was most important and had the ultimate say (though my mother did stand up for herself and my father was basically a nice guy). My mother had a tendency to become very emotional, highly agitated in times of high stress and I was frightened by her intense feelings at those times. At what must have been an early age I began emulating my father, who was much more emotionally controlled than my mother. Like my dad, I distanced myself from my own feelings. I didn’t want to take on what I saw as the low status of traditional femininity. But, later in my life, when I did start allowing myself to feel my emotions, I still found it very difficult to act based on what I felt or to let others know my feelings. More on this shortly.

Lost! Emotions, Empathy, Humanity

Leatherback Turtle

Leatherback Turtle. This 1100 pound sea turtle nests on the beaches of Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Despite the turtles' size their young are delicate. Leatherback Turtles are listed as critically endangered by IUCN. The temperatures on the beaches where they nest determine the sex of the offspring and climate change may bring an imbalance between the sexes, or make the sand to hot for survival of embryos and eggs.

What a loss to be unable to fully feel emotion! What happens when life takes a difficult turn and those unfelt and unexpressed feelings come bursting out, perhaps as uncontrollable rage, as happens for many men? Or maybe those strong feelings still don’t come to the surface. This happened to me. I started the process of learning to feel and recognize emotions only after I fell into a deep depression. I’d gotten married (to a man) right after college because it seemed like the next step I was supposed to do. Normally, emotions provide people with key information about what they want in life. But if your emotional compass is deeply buried, it is easy to follow social prescriptions rather than your own heart. Since I was out of touch with my emotions and not very aware about the option of living as a lesbian I trailed along the path prescribed by patriarchy. But, once married I wasn’t too clear where I was going. I knew I did not want to have children. I was enrolled in graduate school and working hard at my classes and that provided some direction. I became friends with several lesbians and began to experience a pull toward a lesbian life, but I had been raised Catholic and the social pressure to stay married was very real. Since I could barely feel or recognize emotions most of the time, I didn’t understand my dilemma very well and couldn’t resolve it. Hence the very deep depression that almost landed me in a mental hospital. My depression finally receded when I started to find and act on my feelings, slowly and painfully gathering the courage to extricate myself from a marriage that was not consistent with my (then) hidden lesbian self. But, I still had difficulty, even in my lesbian relationships, with revealing all of my feelings. I feared I would lose my lover if she knew all of how I felt. Eventually I realized that being myself was the most important thing I could do and that I had to go with my emotions, no matter how inconvenient or scary they seemed.

Being cut off from your own feelings is certainly helpful in carrying out acts of domination, but not in forming and keeping intimate relationships. I haven’t read any of the men/Mars, women/Venus type of books, but it’s clear that the real story is that men’s training as dominators hobbles their ability to be emotionally close and capable of intimacy in relationships. Many men, with their training in core masculinity and horror of being like women fail miserably at empathy with women, even the women and girls they are supposedly close to, their mother, girlfriends, wives, and daughters. Difficulty feeling and expressing feelings is problematic in itself, but even small acts of domination – expecting to be served, speaking disrespectfully, dominating conversations, raising one’s voice – create distrust and makes a power with relationship unachievable. When fear, abuse and violence enter into a relationship, as often happens in patriarchal society, the possibility for intimacy completely disappears as it is impossible to be open with someone you fear. Emotional distance allows acts of domination to take place, but participating in relationships of domination creates emotional distance.

The ability to feel one’s own feelings is essential to the ability to empathize with others. Empathy is likewise essential to intimacy. Kathleen Barry describes the complexities of human interactions based in empathy:

“In our interactions, if we are present, that is to say not distanced or dissociated, we are subjects to ourselves – feeling what we feel, bringing those feelings and our senses into the interpretations we are making. If we extend that feeling and sensing, that felt experience to another, not only do we act from our own subjectivity but we enter theirs. Interaction deepens as our subjectivities connect until we can put ourselves in the place of another and interpret what a situation means to that person.”
“By carefully attending to words being said, feelings and gestures and expressions that come with words, not flinching, being there fully, subject to subject, we restore each other to our shared human consciousness and affirm the value of human life. We are melting away objectification. That is the interaction that humanizes us, sparks our souls…. In this kind of interpreting the meaning of the other, we have found our empathy, the route to our souls. It is the nature of being human.” (Unmaking War, Remaking Men by Kathleen Barry, p. 49-50)

So, here we are, some of us, so well off in the industrialized world, living “the good life’, with all this stuff and creature comforts, but there’s this small problem: many of us, especially men, can’t feel very much and can’t get very close to anyone else either. We find it easy to discount whole groups of people when we close off our feelings toward them. Domination and oppression could not exist in any form without the dominator’s abilty to distance themselves from those they dominate, the “others” who aren’t important. And the “others” are not just women, but the whole tragic list of victims of capitalist patriarchy, including the peoples of the global South, people of color, people with disabilities, people living in poverty – and nature herself.

Lost and Found: From Power Over to Power With Nature

Endangered Bog Turtle

Endangered Bog Turtle. The scarce and tiny bog turtle makes its home in the wetlands of the eastern U.S. Already listed as an endangered species by the IUCN, the shifting weather patterns associated with climate change are likely to dry out or flood its habitat, which is already badly fragmented due to development.

Living here in the woods, I am able to get through most days without cringing at some new assault on nature. But, it is guaranteed that as soon as I get out on the highway I will experience one episode of destruction after another. There are always road kills, beautiful deer, raccoons, fox squirrels, skunks, an occasional barred owl, dogs and cats. Some days the county will have mowed the roadside (and sometimes my favorite plants) or run their giant chipper against all the tree limbs within 15 feet of the road, leaving the battered pale remains sticking out from the trees, visible for miles. Sometimes there are massive excavations, as new pipes are laid or the road expanded. Right now they have dug up a huge area along the White River and there are trenches eight feet deep and no plant life left. Another day there will be a truck full of caged chickens on their way to be slaughtered, with feathers strewn across the highway and an occasional dead chicken fallen out of the truck and landed on the side of the road.

These are all minor devastations, physical and emotional, compared to the truly grand assaults on nature going on in some places, from mountaintop removal to tar sands moonscapes to water contamination from oil spills and fracking. None of these activities could be carried out by people who care about the life and beauty they are destroying, who feel at home in nature. Naomi Klein has described the culture of fossil fuel extraction as “one of extreme rootlessness”:

“The workforce of big rig drivers, pipefitters, miners, and engineers is, on the whole, highly mobile, moving from one worksite to the next and very often living in the now notorious ‘man camps’ – self-enclosed army-base style mobile communities that serve every need from gyms to movie theaters (often with an underground economy in prostitution).” (This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, p. 343)

She goes on to describe the mentality of the workforce:

“…beneath the bravado of the bar scene are sky-high divorce rates due to prolonged separations and intense work stress, soaring levels of addiction, and a great many people wishing to be anywhere but where they are. This kind of disassociation is part of what makes it possible for decent people to inflict the scale of damage to the land that extreme energy demands. A coalfield worker in Gillette, Wyoming, for instance, told me that to get through his workdays, he had trained himself to think of the Powder River Basin as ‘another planet’.” (This Changes Everything by Naomi Klein, p. 344)

These largely male workforces seem to have much in common with the military: the emotional distance needed to kill people or to kill the earth.

But, even the people not on the frontlines have to close off their feelings toward nature in order to enjoy the material benefits that are possible only because the natural world has been pillaged. Nature is our home and our lives are so much less than they could be when our emotional and sensory ties to nature are severed. By beginning to restore our caring feelings about nature we can move toward a power with nature connection and one day, perhaps, be able to meet nature as “equal face to face subjects” as the Native Americans in New England did (see the quotes from Carolyn Merchant in Part 2 of my Power With Nature blog). Power with one another and power with nature give us a connection worth far more than all the mansions, Mercedes, large screen televisions, and air conditioning units that people dream of. I am dreaming of a far different world and a life much more like that of indigenous peoples who know that the Earth is their mother and source of all that matters.

The “vast majority of Americans” have lost almost everything, and don’t even know it or feel it, tragically attached as they are to a bankrupt way of life. But, “the good life” awaits!

February 13, 2015

Power With Nature: Low Energy, Low Consumption, The Good Life: Part 3

Deer tracks in snow

Deer Tracks In Snow. Note the regular diagonally spaced steps. The snow is deep enough that the deer's feet are dragging as she steps.

The careless use of vast amounts of energy by people in industrialized societies is completely at odds with how other animals live their daily lives, practicing the art of energy conservation. I first learned that energy conservation is a key element of animal behavior through my studies of animal tracking. Let’s suppose you want to track a whitetail deer. Maybe you caught sight of a doe and fawn and would like to follow them to get a closer look. Maybe you are a wildlife photographer, even a hunter. You’re on the ground and you are in luck because the earth is damp and you see a few clear heart-shaped tracks. You start following along, but then the trail hits a patch of earth that is harder and drier and suddenly you can’t see the next track. What are you going to do to find those next “missing” tracks so you can get another look at that spotted fawn?

Deer track

Deer Track. Note that there are two tracks visible in the photo. The easily visible track is from the rear foot. The track underneath is from the front foot. In this case the front foot made a track, but then the rear foot came down almost on top of the front foot. The track from the front foot is visible just above the rear foot track.

One of the most useful pieces of information I learned early on about tracking was that 90% of the time animals are moving in their most efficient, normal, slow gait. So, if you know what the typical slow gait is for a given animal and you spot one track, you have some basis for predicting where the next track is likely to fall. If you can identify even a single whitetail track and you know that deer are usually moving at a walk (the energy efficient, normal, energy conserving gait for hoofed animals), then the next track for an adult whitetail is likely to be 18-21 inches ahead of the first and at a slight diagonal. (See Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking for more information.)

If you have a string of visible tracks you can confirm that the deer was walking by observing the diagonal pattern and measuring the distance between the visible tracks. Then you can look for that next “invisible” track by measuring ahead and looking closely for any disturbance at the spot where the deer was likely to have stepped. Often on close inspection you’ll see at least a portion of a track and then you can move on to the next “missing” track. But, even if there’s just one visible track to start with you stand a 90% chance that your deer was walking and you stand a good chance of finding the next track.

Not all animals use a walk as their efficient, slow gait – wide-bodied animals like raccoons and skunks are most likely to pace while rabbits and rodents do a slow gallop. But, the principle can be applied to any species if you just know what gait is the typical energy conservation gait and the distance typically covered. You can track animals this way because all animals practice energy conservation and normally move in the most efficient way for their particular body structure. Of course, there are the exceptional moments – the other 10% of the time – as when your deer catches your scent and bounds off, flaring that white tail!

Danger! Heeding the Warnings of the Birds

Wren

Carolina Wren.

Animals’ consistent practice of energy conservation allows a savvy observer to read more from a habitat than just animal tracks. Jon Young, a tracking and nature awareness teacher, explains in his book, What the Robin Knows, that it’s possible to detect the hidden movements of animals through a landscape by observing the behavior of the birds and learning “bird language”. Don’t worry! This isn’t like learning Latin. But, birds do have a distinct set of behaviors and vocalizations that they employ when danger threatens. Birds are constantly monitoring their surroundings, watching all the animals in the vicinity and making loud alarm calls when an animal that poses a threat comes too close. Like other animals, birds normally practice energy conservation so a careful observer can detect when the birds are disturbed and acting in an atypical (non energy conserving) manner. Jon Young calls normal, relaxed, energy conserving behavior “baseline” and explains that all the birds in an area may be in their normal relaxed state and together producing the sounds and appearance of baseline for their area. In other words, individual birds (or other animals) can be in (or out) of baseline, but so can a location. As soon as one bird moves out of baseline others pick up on the presence of a threat, like a hawk or cat, and may follow the first bird to also sound an alarm call, fly to a safer location, or otherwise alter their own behavior from baseline. Tom Brown Jr. calls these cascading effects the “concentric rings” of nature because a single bird’s alarm call can have an effect reverberating far out into the landscape as the birds and other animals continuously react to each other’s behaviors. (See Tom Brown’s Field Guide to Nature Observation and Tracking for more information on concentric rings.)

If you, as an observer, know what baseline for an area sounds and looks like (at a particular season and time of day), then any changes can let you know of the appearance of a threat. For example, one morning several years ago Paula and I heard the Carolina wrens that make their home near our house raising a huge ruckus out in our “back 40” near the blueberries. These wrens are normally fairly noisy birds, but the alarm calls they were making were much louder and more persistent than their normal calls. When we went to see what was disturbing them, we found a large timber rattlesnake coiled up just below the wrens (who were flitting about well above the snake and outside of striking distance). Large snakes are a primary predator for the eggs in bird nests and these wrens were not happy about this snake, clearly no longer in their normal energy conserving mode. Several years before this rattlesnake incident we had tried, unsuccessfully, to help another pair of Carolina wrens guard their nest, which was right in front of our house, from a black rat snake.

Timber Rattlesnake

Timber Rattlesnake photographed at Cedar Hill by Paula. This is a snake photo from a different day than the wren incident. We often have visits from one or sometimes two rattlers in July or August.

According to Jon Young, all the various species of birds and animals in an area pay attention to any variations from the sounds and sights of baseline and use this early warning system to protect themselves and conserve energy:

“Energy conservation explains why animals have evolved to place such a high priority on the voices and body language of the birds and other animals in the vicinity. This principle lies at the heart of bird language… The birds, the deer, and the squirrels will always heed warnings long before the danger gets there, if at all possible (and it usually is). This whole dynamic is exactly why studying bird language works so well. It’s just much easier and energy-efficient for every creature if there’s time to casually hide or fade into the shadows.” (p. 16-17 What the Robin Knows)

So Paula and I were not the only ones warned of the presence of that timber rattler. Every bird and mammal in the area were likewise informed that potential trouble was afoot.

If Energy Efficiency Drives Evolution, You Have to Wonder…

Trackers are not the only ones to realize that the need for energy conservation drives animal behavior. Tom Wessels, an ecology professor at Antioch New England Graduate School explains the role of energy efficiency in key biological and ecological processes and principles such as natural selection and coevolution, specialization and biodiversity:

“In nature, energy is the bottom-line currency and, unlike human currencies it is rock solid: a kilocalorie of energy always remains the same fundamental unit. Since energy is a finite resource in ecosystems, natural selection always favors individuals or populations that develop energy-efficient adaptations or behaviors and selects out individuals or populations that are energy wasteful. Coevolution is always pushing species to become more energy efficient.” (The Myth of Progress, p. 85)

According to Wessels, coevolution is “the process by which species adapt to each other so that they can more successfully coexist” (The Myth of Progress, p. 144). Wessels uses the example of two very similar songbirds that typically share the same forested habitat(s): black-capped chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches. Both species hunt for insects off the same trees. But, the nuthatch has developed a long beak that allows them to extricate insects out of the crevices in tree bark and a long back toe and claw so they can walk down a tree trunk searching for insects. Very tricky – walking down the trunk! The chickadee sticks to the twigs and leaves of the tree and has smaller rounded wings allowing it to hover at the ends of branches for its insect dinners. Its short beak does not allow it to get into the deep bark fissures that draw the nuthatch. The two birds have coevolved to have complementary niches and so can share the same trees and not compete.


You have to wonder: if energy conservation is a guiding force of evolution, then what does it mean for humanity to develop a global culture that is completely dependent on an enormous outlay of energy?


According to Wessels, competition is wasteful of energy and not beneficial to species:

“In the natural world species don’t seek competition, and more important, no winners emerge from its struggles. Although an individual or a species may prevail from a competitive interaction, they lose energy during the competition – more energy than if the competitive interaction had never occurred, so even those who prevail can’t be considered winners. It is such energy losses that cause species to move away from competition through time, through the coevolution of specializations that reduce the nature of the competition, such as dividing the foraging areas on a tree or being active at different times…” (The Myth of Progress, p. 82 )

Biodiversity and well integrated, energy efficient natural communities result from coevolution. Wessels continues:

“Coevolution is responsible for two important outcomes in ecosystems beyond reducing the size of species niches: energy efficiency and species that provide important services to each other. Together these allow for the development of highly integrated, stable communities. As species become more specialized, their efficient use of energy increases. This allows more species to exist in an ecosystem as the finite amount of energy is divided into smaller shares. There is also no waste in the ecosystem; every byproduct released by one species is a critical resource for another.” (The Myth of Progress, p. 87)

Globalized capitalist patriarchy’s use of terawatts of energy is clearly in violation of nature’s usual pattern where the need for energy conservation and energy efficiency guides animal behavior. As I’ve discussed, conserving energy is a required behavior for animals to survive. You have to wonder: if energy conservation is a guiding force of evolution, then what does it mean for humanity to develop a global culture that is completely dependent on an enormous outlay of energy? As Jon Young tells us:

“There’s nothing random about birds’ awareness and behavior, because they have too much at stake – life and death. Random behavior is a waste of energy, and any species that consistently squanders energy is ruthlessly eliminated from the game of life. (I can think of only one exception, and maybe this biped species will eventually pay the price.)” (What the Robin Knows, p. 10)

From the perspective of people of the industrialized world, entrenched in overconsumption and an energy squandering way of life, the idea of living in an energy conserving relationship of power with nature probably seems somewhere between absurd and impossible. But, which is more absurd, a way of life that is causing the sixth extinction and potentially human extinction (or perhaps even an end to life on earth) or finding a way to return to power with nature?

December 21, 2014

Power With Nature: Low Energy, Low Consumption, The Good Life – Part 2

Red Fox

Red Fox

In 1994, Paula and I traveled to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey to take a week long introductory course in “primitive” survival skills and nature awareness from Tom Brown Jr., “The Tracker”. Tom Brown was well known for his exceptional abilities as a wildlife and human tracker which he had learned, along with many other skills, as a boy and young man from Stalking Wolf, one of the few remaining elders of a band of Southern Lipan Apaches. The class we took covered skills from shelter building, to making tools from rocks, to starting fires with a bow drill, but for me the most eye-opening experiences were all related to learning a way to connect to the natural world without domination. I discovered through this introductory class and several subsequent courses that most of the ways I normally moved through my days both cut me off from nature and had me trampling roughshod over the earth.

Take the simple act of walking, one foot in front of the other. Brown taught us to “fox walk”, to walk slowly feeling the earth through our feet with every step, always perfectly balanced. He brought the lesson home in a later class when he took all his students for a long hike through the New Jersey Pine Barrens wearing blindfolds. We had to search out where to step next, using our feet as sensors and constantly aware of every nuance of the earth we traversed.I discovered that my usual “white man’s walk” was really a matter of lurching from one foot to the next, always out of balance, always assuming that a flattened earth was going to be there to support the next step and that there was no reason to be concerned about what that next step might be doing to the earth underfoot. My “white man’s walk” was perfect for concrete, completely insensitive to the earth, and left me disconnected, unable to feel the ever-changing earth underfoot. Brown told us that by fox walking we could move through the day in a dynamic meditation, a meditation you can live your life in, especially if we also learned to use “wide angle vision”.

Perhaps because the “white man’s walk” is so precarious (unbalanced), I discovered that Tom Brown’s suggestion to look up as we fox walked was good advice. When I observed myself at my usual walk I found that I spent a good deal of the time looking down and seeing the ground, not the living landscape that surrounded me. What’s more, I found myself very busy with my own thoughts when my gaze was directed downward. When I looked up, the internal dialogue blessedly shut up and I was able to engage my senses as I walked along, smelling the damp earth, hearing the bird calls, feeling the wind and seeing the flights of the crows and occasional hawk overhead.

Brown advised us to use what he called “wide angle vision” to take in the entire panorama available if we expanded our view to the full field of vision we were capable of. By not focusing on a particular object or small area we could engage the rods in our eyes and see things more like a deer does; instead of a very clear view of a constricted area or object we would be able to notice any movement occurring anywhere in our entire field of vision and have greatly enhanced night vision as well. Brown said with practice we’d be able to see the blink of a bat’s eye off in the trees (though I have to confess that this I have never achieved). Perhaps most important, the earth came to life with a dance of birds and squirrels moving through the trees, leaves carried by the wind. Instead of seeing an objectified landscape I could begin to feel and become part of the living earth.


By teaching us what amounted to an entirely different way to be in our bodies and minds – walking to feel the earth, fully engaging all of our senses, softening our eyes to view the full field of vision, and quieting the churning of our thinking mind – Brown was providing us with the tools to form a very different kind of relationship to nature than is commonly practiced in the modern world.


By teaching us what amounted to an entirely different way to be in our bodies and minds – walking to feel the earth, fully engaging all of our senses, softening our eyes to view the full field of vision, and quieting the churning of our thinking mind – Brown was providing us with the tools to form a very different kind of relationship to nature than is commonly practiced in the modern world. Although Tom Brown is of European American ancestry the skills he taught came through Brown from his teacher, Stalking Wolf, an Apache who was raised among a band that had evaded capture by American or Mexican forces and lived free in the old ways, shunning any of the technologies of the invaders. Many of the ways of being I learned from Tom Brown must be common to many (perhaps all) gathering/hunting peoples.

It isn’t difficult to intuitively grasp how the quiet, well-balanced fox walk, highly tuned senses, quiet mind, and awareness of the natural world would be essential for people hunting wild game, avoiding predators and needing to know and be able to find dozens, perhaps hundreds, of plants that provide shelter, food, medicines and many of the tools needed for daily life. If you are someone interested in academic documentation (as I am also), Carolyn Merchant’s book, Ecological Revolutions, fully documents the practice of sensory immersion and participatory consciousness in gathering/hunting (and also horticultural) tribes in New England and contrasts Native American consciousness to that of the colonists and, later, the capitalists who took over New England.

Among the many changes that occurred in New England as power and occupation shifted from Native American tribes to colonial farmers and then to market-based capitalism was a great change in the relationship between humans and nature. As Merchant explains:

“Indians constructed nature as a society of equal face to face subjects. Animals, plants, and rocks were alive and could be communicated with directly. For eighteenth-century New England farmers, nature was an animate mother carrying out God’s dictates in the mundane world. Plants and even rocks grew on the earth’s surface, but were created for human use and could be harvested as commodities. Nineteenth-century scientists, industrialists, and market farmers reconstructed them as scientific objects to be analyzed in the laboratory and as natural resources to be extracted for profit.” (p. 23 Ecological Revolutions)

This shift from the Native American relationship between humans and nature as “equal face to face subjects” to the colonial farmers view of nature as created for human use and then the capitalists’ complete objectification of nature is what I consider a shift from power with relations to nature (power sharing between equals) to power over nature (domination).

The relationship of humans to nature in globalized patriarchy is clearly a power over relationship; we bulldoze the land to transform it into cities and roads, fish out and trash the ocean, pollute the earth, burn fossil fuels causing the climate to breakdown, and are bringing about the Sixth extinction of life on earth. When we respond to the environmental crises we cause, our solutions are almost always based in power over, often under the guise of “managing” the earth. In 2008, 28 scientists from three continents met in Sweden and identified nine planetary ecological boundaries they believed we either had already violated (climate change, nitrogen pollution, biodiversity loss) or were in danger of violating with unknown, but likely drastic repercussions (see The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans by Mark Lynas). Obviously these scientists were concerned with preserving the earth, but their idea was to keep humanity from not crossing these potentially cataclysmic boundaries, not to end human abuse of nature and truly restore the earth. Their hope was that humans could manage the earth to stay on the right side of these deadly boundaries.

As the outcomes of our power over relationship to the earth become more and more deadly, the power over based “solutions” proposed become more deadly also – and preposterous. The plans of mad scientists to geo-engineer the planet’s climate by various means such as blasting sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere to create sulphur-based aerosols to block sunlight and cool the earth (at a cost of $50 billion annually) are now being taken seriously. We have become so used to living with top down structures and the managers who administer these hierarchies that we think we have become the “God species” capable of managing the complexities of the entire earth. Yet, we can’t even manage the traffic in our cities!


The best model available for re-establishing power with nature comes from the people who for millennia maintained relations based in power with nature, the gathering/hunting bands.


The best model available for re-establishing power with nature comes from the people who for millennia maintained relations based in power with nature, the gathering/hunting bands. Some of these bands survive today, although the pressures placed on them by globalized capitalist patriarchy are extreme – theft of land, forced removals, forced enculturation, and exposure to the diseases of modern societies still continue (See Survival International for more info). Information on the lifeways of hundreds of gathering and hunting peoples are available in the historical and anthropological records and can help us to relearn power with relations to nature and each other. The gatherer/hunter way of life was practiced by all of our ancestors for thousands and thousands of years, far longer than human “civilization” has existed. As “equal face to face subjects” with nature, gatherer/hunters did not view themselves as above nature or as separate from nature. As equals, the animals were important models for gatherer/hunters. In North America, for example, the fox could show people how to walk, the heron how to stalk. Gatherer/hunters survived by knowing nature very well and by fitting in with how nature functions, not by attempting to force nature to their will. For example, as Elizabeth Marshall Thomas has explained about the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa:

“But unlike agricultural and industrial peoples who want to influence the natural world, the hunter-gatherers wanted to join with it and use its powers. This, too, is one of the most profound differences between these hunter-gatherers and the rest of us. During a drought, we might visit a place of worship to pray earnestly for rain, trying to persuade our deity to alter the environment and make it rain. Not the Ju/wasi. They would feel the change in the air, notice the behavior of the clouds that built in the western sky, know that rain was coming, and make themselves ready to join with the oncoming storm and participate in its power. There was a rain song, for instance, and with it, a rain dance. But the dance was not meant to bring rain or make rain. No, it was used to gather the power of the oncoming rain and use that power to help people. (p. 267, The Old Way: A Story of the First People, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas)

Our best hope for restoring the earth and restoring human societies is to practice power with nature and power with relations among humans. We can, through this practice, draw back from the precipice we stand on and re-learn how humans can fit in with nature’s way of doing things. One important way of ensuring survival by fitting in with the natural world is through the practice of energy conservation, a way of life common to all the other animals of the earth, as I discuss in Part 3 of my blog “Power With Nature: Low Energy, Low Consumption, The Good Life”.

October 30, 2014

Power With Nature: Low Energy, Low Consumption, The Good Life – Part I

Chevrolet Volt

Chevrolet Volt achieves 99 miles per gallon equivalent running on electric power.

A man in an environmental group I belong to recently told the group that he had driven to the group meeting in his Chevrolet Volt (a plug-in electric car). The trip was over 50 miles and the car had used only a fraction of a gallon of gas. (According to Consumer Reports the Volt gets 99 mpg equivalent on electric power.) Even more impressive, most of the electricity to run the car had come from the solar array on top of his house. I was curious just how much electricity was required, as according to calculations I’d made, the solar panels at Paula’s and my house could never come close to running a car. I asked how many solar panels they had. Over 50 panels operated his house and two electric cars, with a small percentage of his electricity still coming from the grid. I just had to ask how many watts the 50+ panels provided. The panels weren’t all identical, but were all over 200 watts each. So, over 10,000 watts worth of solar panels!

Izuzu Trooper

Troopers are energy efficient in their own way. Our 1994 and 2000 Troopers were each purchased used and each has travelled over 200,000 miles. That long life means that massive amounts of energy and materials have not been used to manufacture more new vehicles.

I guess there will be no Chevrolet Volts getting charged up here at Cedar Hill where our array of ten mostly antique solar panels range from 35 watts up to the two newish 100 watt panels we bought two summers ago. Our solar budget is around 600 watts (on a sunny day), a tiny fraction of what the 50+ panel guy has. Never mind. A Chevy Volt would not survive a minute on our rough road and our cherished, but elderly, Troopers are energy efficient in their own way – each one has already travelled 200,000 miles and that long life means that massive amounts of energy and materials have not been used to manufacture more new vehicles. We consider ourselves quite fortunate to be able to operate a refrigerator here. We lived without one for eight years when we first moved here and had far fewer solar panels. Most of the year Paula gets to piece her quilts using an electric-powered 1949 Featherweight sewing machine. But, today, right around summer solstice when the days are long and solar power is normally at a yearly high, she’s back on her human-powered 1921 vintage treadle sewing machine thanks to what seems like weeks of endless clouds and rain. (We’re grateful for all the rain, but come on sun goddess!)

Paula's 1921 Singer treadle sewing machine. This sewing machine is entirely woman powered. You can use the foot treadle or add a hand crank - Paula has both options.

We don’t get 90% of our electricity from solar here, but 100%. We’re off the grid and we live on an exact budget determined by the sunshine (though we have resorted to a gas generator on rare occasions, usually when a carpenter required more energy to operate her tools than we could provide). I have a stack of “to do” stuff piled up next to the computer because there is no way we have enough electricity to turn the darn thing on. This electricity shortage is kind of annoying, but I also love it. I get to skip doing all that computer work (for now) plus my life is keyed into the seasons, the weather, in one more way and I’m just a little more disconnected from the mainstream culture, a culture I find more than a little troubling. We’re obviously far from perfect at conserving energy and reducing consumption – just look at those two fossil fuel burners sitting in the driveway – but we are certainly trying.

But, moving on toward my point… The 50+ solar panel guy generated a kind of visceral excitement amongst many members of my environmental group when he talked about driving his hundred miles per gallon solar-powered Volt to the meeting. Here was someone in the flesh living the sustainability dream – he could drive where he wanted, live the “normal” American lifestyle, but with fossil-free solar energy. (We won’t think about what energy and materials it took to manufacture that Volt or all those solar panels.) I could almost hear (some) people’s inner thoughts – “Yes! This is what we want! We can still have it all!” This 50+ panel vision for a sustainable future reminds me of the high energy/high consumption renewable energy paradigm that Vandana Shiva talks about in her book, Soil, Not Oil. According to Shiva:

“Most of the discussions and negotiations on climate change have been restricted to the commercial, consumption-oriented energy paradigm rooted in a reductive, mechanistic worldview and consumerist culture. Within this paradigm there are two dominant approaches: the approach of global business, especially the corporations that have promoted the fossil fuel economy, and the approach of those seeking renewable alternatives to support an energy-intensive consumerist society.” (p. 4, Soil, Not Oil)

Shiva offers an alternative to the high energy, high consumption paradigm based on a “people’s perspective in the Global South”. She tells us we must “power down energy and resource consumption” and “power up creative, productive human energy and collective democratic energy to make the necessary transition.” (p.4) In other words, she calls for less energy use period, but more human work and creativity, all taking place through political structures based in decentralized, living democracies that spread social power to ordinary people.

When I talk about my own attempts to live a relatively low energy lifestyle people are often impressed that we have solar electricity and live entirely off the grid. But, when they realize the extent of so-called deprivation that Paula and I live with – no running water, no flush toilets, no rototiller, no lawn mower, no tractor, no air conditioning, and, when it gets too cloudy or the days too short, no computer, no DVDs and sometimes no electric lights – most people (in the U.S) assume that they could never live the way we do. They also typically dismiss our way of life as irrelevant, assuming that so few people would choose a low power way of life that it makes no political difference whatsoever that we choose this way of life. For example, one fellow who was convinced that society needs nuclear energy in order to preserve the lifestyle of people in developed nations told me, “I don’t really see a massive change in lifestyle; if you want to go live off the grid and grow all your own food, etc. good for you, but don’t expect the vast majority of Americans to join you.” Other people say what we are doing is just individual change and not very politically relevant – kind of like changing your lightbulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescent or LED. A good thing to do for the environment, but too small a change to matter. These critics are entirely missing the point; we are engaged in revolutionary change here at Cedar Hill, working to rebuild society from the bottom up.


If you want to create a non-hierarchical, bottom-up society your goal is to do away with the whole power over, top-down power structure and all forms of domination, replacing power over with power with.


As I recently discussed in my blog, “Stuck in the Mud”, many people think that social change can come only by influencing society’s decision-makers to make changes from the top down. People not at the top can influence what happens by applying various sorts of pressure on the top: lobbying, letter writing campaigns, protesting, boycotts, online petitions, civil disobedience and so on. But, if you want to create a non-hierarchical, bottom-up society your goal is to do away with the whole power over, top-down power structure and all forms of domination, replacing power over with power with. Power with is the concept commonly used by feminists (and now others) to denote social relationships where power is shared between equals and people cooperate to create outcomes that benefit everyone involved. Obviously, the top of a top-down structure is not going to be real keen on eliminating its own power altogether, so there isn’t a whole lot of point to pressuring the top.


Obviously, the top of a top-down structure is not going to be real keen on eliminating its own power altogether, so there isn’t a whole lot of point to pressuring the top.


Political work looks different when your goal is creating a power with, nonhierarchical society. You can work to abolish the top-down structures and/or work to build the society you want. Both strategies are essential. Since building a power with society from the bottom up requires that ordinary individuals (the “bottom”) do the building, the work we ordinary individuals do as individuals, as “families”, as communities to build power with, non-hierarchical households and community structures all counts as revolutionary action.


Since building a power with society from the bottom up requires that ordinary individuals (the “bottom”) do the building, the work we ordinary individuals do as individuals, as “families”, as communities to build power with, non-hierarchical households and community structures all counts as revolutionary action.


The revolutionary change called for by this time of environmental devastation includes not just a change in our social relationships, but also changing our relationship with nature from power over to power with. And as we will soon see (in Parts II, III and IV of this blog) a power with relationship to nature requires a low-energy, low consumption way of life. One way or another, by choice or by nature taking her turn at power over, “the vast majority of Americans” are most likely headed toward a low power future. The sooner we abandon the fantasy that we can use renewable energy to continue a high consumption lifestyle, the better off we will be on every dimension. Our attempts to dominate each other, constantly seeking status and material benefits, create great unhappiness. We cannot feel good about ourselves under a power over social system, as power over destroys feelings of genuine self worth for both the people “above” and the people “below”. A life of power with relationships to other people and to nature is the greatest hope for Americans and everyone else on this struggling planet and certainly for our relatives in the natural world.

May 25, 2014

Stuck In The Mud

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Global Warming,Jeanne Neath,Patriarchy — Jeanne Neath @ 11:21 am

“Oh, goddess! Did you hear the news about the West Antarctic Ice Sheet? Scientists have been warning for a long time that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (the little ice sheet compared to East Antarctica) may collapse and now they say it’s happening. A bunch of glaciers that flow into the Amundsen Sea have already melted so much that the collapse of one whole section of the ice sheet can’t be stopped. Even if we stopped using fossil fuels right now, the whole damn thing will melt away. Even worse, it’s likely to take the rest of West Antarctica with it. That would mean 12 feet of sea level rise over several centuries. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report is projecting sea level rise between 4 inches and 3 feet by the year 2100, but they pretty much ignored both West Antarctica and Greenland melting in making that estimate, because they ‘lacked sufficient data’. Well, some of the data is in now and even NBC News is reporting that a three foot rise is looking like a middle of the road estimate. There goes New York City, New Orleans, Miami Beach…”
[See NBC News report and Mother Jones]

This undated photo courtesy of NASA shows Thwaites Glacier in Western Antarctica. Thwaites is about the size of New Mexico and Arizona together and is so connected to surrounding glaciers that it helps trigger loss elsewhere.

“I’d really like to do something to get us off fossil fuels. But, it all feels so hopeless. Our culture is killing off all these different species. The frogs are dying of a fungus we’ve somehow spread all over the place. But, when this climate breakdown gets really underway… They’re starting to call this the Sixth Extinction, but it isn’t a meteor taking out the dinosaurs this time. No, we’re causing it and we may well end up like the dinosaurs.”

“I know what you mean. The problem just feels too big. There’s just not that much we can do. I want to do something, but I just can’t think of anything that can work. The ice sheet melting is unstoppable no matter what now. But, this culture – it feels just as unstoppable to me. I mean, I’ll keep signing petitions and protesting Keystone XL and all that. But nothing feels like it makes a real difference.”

Change From Within, Change From Without

I don’t know about you, but I can’t begin to tell you how many conversations I’ve had that sound something like the one I’ve reported. But, not everyone is stuck in the mud, suffering from a stuckness of spirit like the women talking above. People who believe that the “system” can be changed from within know they have plenty of work to do. For example, where I live some folks are invested in the Citizen’s Climate Lobby, working to get a carbon tax passed by Congress and to convince conservatives that a carbon tax will benefit them . They may succeed. The ones I know have great determination.

Then there are the people who are determined to force change by applying pressure from outside the “system.” Some of them want specific major modifications (like not piping tar sands oil through the U.S.). Others are focused on broader revolutionary change. Again, near where I live, folks in Oklahoma with the Great Plains Tar Sands Resistance have been using nonviolent guerilla tactics such as chaining themselves to heavy equipment to slow down the laying of tar sands pipelines . Some of these protestors have been camped out for what must be years now, dedicating their lives to stopping this environmental destruction. On an international level there is the 350 movement, organizing marches, demonstrations, boycotts and all manner of non-violent actions to attempt to garner the attention of powerful decision-makers across the planet. Another international movement, Deep Green Resistance, is in its early stages of organization and they are advocating an end to civilization, patriarchy and industrial society, including the use of violent action. None of these folks – the lobbyists, educators, non-violent protestors, or resistance fighters – are stuck in the way others of us are.

Trapped on the Ice, Stuck in the Mud

So, who is it that is stuck and why? Obviously there are people who are clinging to an old patriarchal world, powered by fossil fuels, distributing astronomical wealth and power to a small elite and distributing privilege to a middle class (and military) whose work and support keeps the system functioning. When I say we’re stuck, I’m not talking about the elite or the people who happily support the status quo. And, as I already explained, I’m not talking about the activists who lobby Congress or march on New York City or commit acts of civil disobedience and believe that these strategies will actually work. Nor, am I talking about the resistance fighters. It’s the rest of us. Call us the inactive activists. We know all too well how bad things are, from climate breakdown to biogenetic engineering to racism to nuclear energy to poverty to female sex slavery to extinction to ecosystem breakdown and you can name the rest, if you have room for the list. We’re conscious of at least some of these problems and, on one level or another, fighting, or at least hoping, for change. But, lobbying and protesting and even sabotage seem inadequate to the great change we know is needed. We know that changing light bulbs (a la Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth) or getting a carbon tax passed or even leaving the coal in the ground is not enough by a long shot. (You could stop all fossil fuel use today and the oceans would still be full or plastic and depleted of fish, the corporations would still be churning away turning nature into profitable products, men would still be raping and beating up women, and you get the picture.) We “inactivists” don’t have a strategy or even a vision for bringing about the level of social change needed to create societies that would nurture, not destroy, the earth (and us humans too). And maybe that allows some of us in the “developed” world to just take it easy, to do a little political work here and there, but to settle into enjoying our privilege and our earth-destroying lifestyles.


It’s hardly surprising we’re stuck given the depth of destruction created by globalized patriarchy, the failing natural systems, and the level of social change needed.


It’s hardly surprising we’re stuck given the depth of destruction created by globalized patriarchy, the failing natural systems, and the level of social change needed. The fossil-fuel driven, power mad, patriarchal world is self-destructing and that makes the whole situation overwhelming. Even the middle of the road three foot sea level rise prediction for this century will put some or all of major cities like New York City, London, and New Orleans underwater, not to mention huge sections of nations like Bangladesh and Holland, and entire island nations such as Tuvalu. How many governments are going to survive massive migrations as people flee areas made unlivable by drought, wildfires, storm surges, and permanent flooding? What happens when the glaciers providing water to the peoples of India, China, Peru, Bolivia finish melting away, causing rivers critical to billions of people to dry up? Which ecosystems are going to finally collapse as the extinction of that critical frog, micro-organism, or keystone predator comes to pass? What happens when the global food supply shrinks drastically due to a drought in a really bad location – say the main agricultural areas in China?

The globalized, industrial patriarchy will self-destruct, but will that happen quickly enough to stop the accelerating climate breakdown, loss of species, and loss of ecosystems (including the human-modified ones that produce food for 7 billion people)? What ways of life, social structures, technologies, economies, governments will replace the failing globalized and national systems? How can we stop this destructive way of life fast enough and come up with new ways to live? These are the kinds of problems that are overwhelming people who have plenty of political consciousness, but little to no faith in the ability of lobbying, marching, or civil disobedience to bring significant change to established political, economic and social systems. No wonder some of us are stuck!

Bottoms Up?

Back in 1989, EPA director William D. Ruckelshaus asked:

“Can we move nations and people in the direction of sustainability? Such a move would be a modification of society comparable in scale to only two other changes: the Agricultural Revolution of the late Neolithic and the Industrial Revolution of the past two centuries. Those revolutions were gradual, spontaneous, and largely unconscious. This one will have to be a fully conscious operation…”

Global society is faced with an enormous challenge – comparable in scale to the agricultural and industrial revolutions – and must make the big changes called for. Meanwhile most national governments and huge powerful corporations are, not surprisingly, resisting change, denying the extent or even the existence of the challenge we face. But, then, who would expect that the powerful, mostly male, elite who run governments and corporations, would want to shed their most treasured and central principles– domination and greed. Let’s face reality, Exxon is not going to cease its concern with providing a profit to stockholders (and millions of dollars to the CEO) in order to bring us back to 350 ppm carbon in the atmosphere. Some more truly democratic governments (unlike the U.S. where corporations control many politicians) may take some real measures to address climate breakdown (like the much needed carbon tax), but will never challenge capitalism, industrialization or runaway technological change.


What is there to do when you realize that a system based in domination and greed cannot address the problems that result from human practices of domination and greed? You can’t reasonably lobby that system or protest it because its investment in destructive practices lies at its very core.


The major institutions of modern society are all based in the exercise of “power over” or domination. They are top-down structures that use hierarchy to enable the people at the top to exert control over people below them and control over society. Our large-scale, top-down political and economic systems favor dangerous technologies that work with a large-scale, top-down approach. For example, most governments, especially in the developed and rapidly developing worlds, support and promote large-scale, industrial agriculture and not small scale market or subsistence farmers.

The activists who are lobbying and protesting governments may or may not lack full awareness of the extent of our problems, but they must at least have hope that those governments can adequately respond to the challenges we now face. Their quarrel is likely with specific laws or specific government or corporate activities and not with the top-down, power over structure of these institutions, the structure that generates all the problems. In contrast, those of us who are stuck do have a full understanding of the extent of the challenges we face, but lack hope that the top-down, power over “system” can respond. What is there to do when you realize that a system based in domination and greed cannot address the problems that result from human practices of domination and greed? You can’t reasonably lobby that system or protest it because its investment in destructive practices lies at its very core.

What actions are available to the activist once she realizes that the top-down system cannot rescue us? There are two that I am aware of: abolish the system or create a new way of living from the “bottom-up” that is based on “power with” and not on a top-down system (or power over/domination in any form).

February 5, 2013

Motherhood, Only if Chosen!

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Patriarchy,Paula Mariedaughter — Paula Mariedaughter @ 6:38 am
Paula,1950.

Paula, in 1950 Miami Springs, Florida, surrounded by the tools of womanhood in that historical era.

I am thankful for the women before me who worked to secure my right to make motherhood a choice! Compulsory motherhood is central to male control of women, that is, patriarchy. Access to birth control gave me the chance to explore my heterosexual self. Six years later, at 28, I was actively involved in the women’s liberation movement. I fell in love with women. I found these women exciting, funny, articulate, determined, talented, and sexy. Lesbians became my people. Only because other determined, strong women proceeded me, was I able to make this choice. I am thankful for their courage to stand together against all the institutions of patriarchy, including church, state, science and educational institutions.

My mother, Marie Donovan Neilson, did not have these choices. Marie was a “war bride” in 1944. My father William Paul Neilson, was shipped to the Phillipines as part of the force preparing to invade Japan. He left knowing my mother was pregant with me. After his safe return in 1946, two more babies arrived in quick succession. After her third child in five years, mother asked her doctor to “tie my tubes”. His condescending reply was, “Now, Marie, you know I cannot do that. You’re a young woman still.” Her body, her life, her marriage, all suffered form this man’s callous disregard for her wishes to limit her exposure to motherhood.

Mother,1958.

My mother, Marie Donovan Neilson, wearing her new dress and smiling at my dad, Paul, on Christmas morning 1958, Miami Springs, Florida.

Our family in 1958.

Our family on a Florida vacation trip in 1958, Paula, Karl and mother in the back, with Marsha and Lea (the youngest) in front. Photo by dad.

Yes, there were two more pregnancies—one resulted in a miscarriage and one was a perfect towhead girl. Four children to love, nurture and care for—she gave us all her love. I am thankful to this woman who loved and nurtured me. She gave me strength and courage. I wish she had not died at 62. I have so much I’d like to say to her….

I am thankful for all the other women today who dare to defy the commands of patriarchy! Compulsory motherhood is the goal of every effort to limit access to birth control, family planning services, and abortion. Creating and nurturing a new life within one’s own body needs to be a chosen experience. Carrying a child full term is more dangerous to a woman’s health than having an abortion in the first trimester. Every preganant woman risks loosing her life. Or she may experience long-term health problems resulting from pregnancy. These risks should be taken by her own choice!

Women who dare to question compulsory motherhood deserve my praise. Women who dare to question compulsory motherhood will be ridiculed and condemned by many people as selfish and unwomanly. Patriarchy is the root of overpopulation and climate change–domination is the central tenant of patriarchy! Without this supreme value neither overpopulation or climate change would be our issues today. Ecofeminism makes this connection! I mentioned by mother’s personal experience because it is one vivid example of how overpopulation is linked to patriarchy! I mentioned my choice to be a lesbian because it, too, links to a solution to overpopulation–a lesbian’s feritlity is totally controlled by herself (unless she is raped.)

I am proud of every woman who questions the “breeder role” assigned her by the patriarchy. Every woman is indoctrinated with the cult of motherhood from birth to our death. Women labeled “childless” have failed in the basic expectiation of woman in patriarchy. When we women question all this, we resist patriarchy.

When we women question the patriarchs, the power of resistance is both personal and political! Demanding the right to think, talk, write and explore questions about mothering is an act of resistence I support and promote. We “childless” women made our complicated choice for complicated reasons. We women, mother and nurture on many planes. We add our creativity to the universe and nuture in many ways whether or not we have been mothers to a human child. I am thankful for the creativity of women because it keeps me alive and thriving.

June 14, 2012

Gumption and Grit Grabs the ONF Board’s Attention!

Filed under: Ecofeminism,Economics,Paula Mariedaughter — Paula Mariedaughter @ 12:12 pm
On strike at ONF, June 11, 2012.

Ozark Natural Foods, our coop, was shut down by striking employees on June 11! Yes the doors are locked on a Monday morning!

“Closed until further notice,” the voice on the answering machine for ONF informed me! The staff of Ozark Natural Foods was on strike demanding the resignation of two of the board members who have in recent months participated in firing Alysen Land, long time general manager, attempted to change bylaws and hired an unscrupulous lawyer. Gumption and grit fueled their actions! Many of the staff had sent letters and signed a petition in support of the general manager, and voiced their opinions at board meetings and owner meetings. Most all of the staff are also vested owners of the coop and believe strongly in the cooperative model of doing business.

These women and men were as frustrated as I have been in trying to communicate our desires to the seven people on the board of directors of ONF. This new board (seated in April, 20012) has been dealing with trying to fix the poor decisions of the previous board. (Note: five of the board members are holdovers; two are newly elected including the president.)

On strike at ONF, June 11, 2012.

Staff members carried signs expressing their demands to the board.

After the last ONF’s owner’s forum on June 2, I wrote this to a friend:
“The board has, in fact, set itself apart from the member/owners. It all feels very patronizing–the board seems to believe they must hoard information and make the decisions for the peasant membership–all the while hiding behind “legal vulnerability”. (Remember the legal system is set up to protect the status quo, and those in power benefit most from the legal system.)Delay, postpone and stall seems to be working! The situation seems very discouraging–unless someone takes up the banner and does protests outside the store or something.”

Bold action!

Well, someone did take a bold move–the staff closed the store! In the letter posted on the ONF website and in the flyer handed out in front of the store, the staff described their frustrations and their demands of the board. Sixty staff voted on Sunday, June 10 to close the store and to hand out information on Monday to all who came to the store (see a copy of this letter below). They announced their intentions to the media on Sunday evening. The interim general manager Mike Anzalone, who worked under Alysen Land as store manager, was one of the strikers.

Monday morning was bright and sunny. The staff erected four ONF tents to shield them from the blazing sun and from the rain predicted later in the day. The tents lent a festive feel to the somber, yet determined, action these women and men chose to take believing they were acting in the long-term best interest of their coop. I agree. Their letter lists no demands for raises or improved working conditions. Arkansas is not a state known to be sympathetic to the needs of employees. And these workers did not even have the protection of a union. Each of the staff took a personal risk because they believed the board was not hearing the voice of the owners and the staff.

Staff explaining their actions to shoppers

Dialogue between ONF staff members and concerned shoppers.


President of the board with staff.

President of the Board of Directors, Joshua Youngblood, (on left) talking to staff members before the Monday afternoon meeting to discuss the demands of the striking workers.

Early Monday when we heard about the strike, Jeanne and I headed to town. We had been to board meetings and owner forums. We created a handout in May and passed it out to other shoppers–one of these is still on the bulletin board. I called everyone I can think of to ask them to email the board. All this seemed futile, until the employees united and made their strong voices heard.

We talked to the strikers and listened to their stories. I also spent about two hours talking to shoppers and owners who came to ONF. I explained that as a long-time owner, I had gone to the meetings, read the previous board minutes for the last year and still felt like I only had a small piece of the puzzle. That’s why you will see me standing with the sign. Most people were supportive and understanding. Some even asked how they could help.

The personal is political and the political is personal!

As an ardent radical lesbian feminist I observed several principles during all this. We know that, “The personal is political, and the political is personal.” I interpret this to mean that each of my personal choices—say to not eat meat—has additional political implications. A vegetarian diet uses far fewer resources to keep this one human alive. Animals will not be mistreated to offer me meat calories. Long-term healthcare costs are generally lower for non-meat eaters, etc. Additionally, all my political choices have personal implications and responsibilities. When I advocate for reducing our carbon footprint as a nation and as a species, it means my personal choices are going to be affected—no more jet plane trips, choosing to live without using air conditioning in my home, etc.

Come sit with us...

Come sit with us.... It was a long, stressful day for ONF staff who tried to make the best of the situation..

Taking a personal risk of losing one’s job because you believe your risk may correct a political situation in a positive way is a powerful statement. Taking personal power is a heady choice as we have seen in those involved with the Arab Spring uprisings. Exercising personal power is a risk. Collective action can change your world!

Positive outcome

The ONF Board of Directors has not taken retaliatory action (although I have heard that some on the board suggested this). In fact, the board by a four to three vote has chosen to rehire Alysen Land as general manager for the next year! I am pleased. The staff is relieved. However, her boss will be this severely divided board of directors. It will not be an easy year, but if feels like a hopeful move on the board of director’s part. I appreciate each of the directors who voted to hire the best person for this job. Their job has not been an easy one. The next few months will present more challenges. We, the owners at ONF are the only “boss” of the board. We need to be informed and involved in order to keep our coop strong.

I believe the board could benefit from radical feminists’ concept of power. We differentiate between “power over” and “power with”. “Power with” is the essential willingness of people to work together to create solutions to all the situations that face humans. “Power with” models depend on consensus decision-making where the voices and concerns of all are heeded as important and valid. The hierarchy that produces more attention to “prominent citizens” and “powerful men/women” is not reinforced. “Power over” models depend on top down rule-making and depends on fear to keep people in line.

Avoiding a discontented minority

We live in a culture where the “majority rules”. Consensus may take more effort to achieve. But those of us who believe in the consensus model are well aware of the damage the dissatisfied minority usually creates in ongoing disputes where the majority attempts to impose their decision on the others. This is my fear about the current situation with a severely divided board of directors. I know that the current president has made determined attempts to have the board “speak with one voice”. I have no easy answers. My observations are that the current methods of decision-making and communication are not working. Spontaneous cooperation is our goal. Let’s brainstorm about what would help make us all more willing to spontaneously cooperate.

On strike at ONF, June 11, 2012.

Paula's first strike experience was in 1971 striking as a flight attendant against Trans World Airlines (TWA)--she needs to keep up her striker credentials!

The staff wrote this letter to the public explaining their actions. The letter was posted on the ONF website and passed out during the strike. Many of you may not have had the chance to read it. I value this letter because it is strong, simple and clear.

Letter from the Coop staff addressed to Co-op owners:

We, the staff of your co-op, Ozark Natural Foods will no longer stand by while your voices and the will of the staff remain ignored.

A group of owners asked for a special meeting in order to discuss the conduct of Linda Ralston and Sue Graham. The owners were denied that meeting. The owners chose to meet anyway. Those owners met quorum; voted to remove both board members, and submitted those results to the board of directors. Linda Ralston and Sue Graham remain seated against the will of the membership.

The majority of the staff wrote letters to the board of directors and overwhelmingly signed a petition for the reinstatement of Alysen Land. That request has not been acknowledged.

We, the staff of Ozark Natural Foods, believe that our co-op is in crisis. We will no longer stand by while we are hushed like children and told to be quiet while the adults in the room decide our fate.

As of the close of business on Sunday, June 10, in the spirit of passive resistance, the doors of the co-op will be locked; and before you we will sit down. We refuse to work under these conditions. We refuse to continue as if nothing is wrong, while the basic tenets of co-operation are being ignored. We will fight for the co-operative principles, for transparency, and for the voices of the ownership and the staff to be respected. Because we insist that the vote of the ownership be respected, we sit before you with a single goal:

We demand the resignation of Linda Ralston and Sue Graham.

We believe that it is impossible for our board of directors to carry on a reasonable relationship with this management team, with the staff, and with our ownership until Linda Ralston and Sue Graham resign. We believe that in their absence, Alysen Land will be returned to her postion as General Manager; that John Eldridge will be removed and an attorney who is willing to defend our bylaws will be hired; that our mortgage will be paid in full as we promised the ownership many months ago. We believe that in the absence of Linda Ralston and Sue Graham, our ownership and our community, rather that personal agendas, will once again become the focus of our board of directors.

We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this will cause to you and to the interruption in your ability to get wholesome food for your families. But we believe that the very nature of co-operation is now in jeopardy. We ask you, our owners, our friends, our family, our community to please sit with us in protest.

We ask that you contact all of our board members and plead for the resignation of Linda Ralston and Sue Graham. We hope for a speedy resolution so we can return to being your community owned co-operative grocery store.

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