Lisa, I applaud your concern over the issue of meat and dairy
consumption. Becoming a complete vegetarian is one of the best as well
as applicable ways to "think globally, act locally". Through our eating
habits we can affect every crucial environmental issue in our world
today. I encourage everyone to think about this alternative lifestyle as
a way to do their part in our global community. This way of eating is
very fullfilling and delicious, it is not "rabbit food". It is
surprising how many of our favorite foods can be made meatlessly. This
is a healthy way of eating and will make you feel you are doing your part
as a responsible world citizen.
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Feb 5 04:39:29 MST 1995
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 1994 12:45:21 +0100
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Adelaide Chichorro Ferreira)
Subject: views from nature
James Roper wrote:
"Now, out of curiosity, is this kind of a discussion a "male thing" or do
women out there have any problems with this issue?"
This is the first time I participate on this debate. I was quite
silent till now and all I know is that I wouldn=B4t have come to the decisio=
n
of saying something about this issue if Jim hadn=B4t asked the question
above. It=B4s rather strange, but that=B4s how it is... By the way, let me
present myself: I=B4m from Portugal and I work at the University of Coimbra
at the department of German Studies.
I think we=B4re dealing with different views of nature. One that is
particular to men, another one that is more typical of women. And the views
we have about reality are always conditioned by our own ways of looking at
it. Men have had a different pair of glasses throughout history: nature is
for them a place of struggle and fight. Women don=B4t necessarily see things
this way. Women have been telling their kids stories where lots of animals
appear. If we consider the mythology of story-telling, animals are seen in
a humanized condition. They talk, they play with each other, they are nice
and friendly, etc... Lots of women, especially those that have something to
do with educational activities, tend to see animals (maybe rather naively)
as, above all,living things, not as some sort of target to get hit or to
get used for some purpose. Well, I do eat meat, although much less than
some years ago, but I know I wouldn=B4t bear killing an animal. So that=B4s
where men are normally needed. What I want to say is that we cannot blame
them altogether for having a different view of reality, I guess.
Once I wrote an article for the portuguese press about hunting. We
have about 300 000 hunters in our country in a population of 10 million
people. I said that hunters could not divide the whole country just among
themselves, which is still happening, because in my opinion they were a
minority. That is: they should only kill 1/33 of the total number of
rabbits in Portugal. What I wanted to say was: just because they were
"active" (they also get very visible publicly) it did not mean that women
(who have to stay at home with the kids while their men go hunting, and who
normally don=B4t have the possibility of honestly saying how they feel about
it), did not have the right to "use" nature in their own particular way,
that is, just to enjoy the existance of living beings.
I think we have to try and harmonize these different views of
nature, and to try and give more visibility to the somewhat "silent" one.
But it is not easy, as it is also "natural" that women tend to remain
silent. I mean, silence does not mean agreement, but how can silence be
heard in a democracy?
Adelaide Chichorro Ferreira
