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By mistake, I sent the following to Teresa Flores
personally, when I had intended to mail to the entire list. The discussion
of essentialism is relevant to the long, but funny and dead-right post by mille
voce: REAL WOMEN DON'T REMAIN TOKENS.
Teresa, I welcome your lead in a discussion of essentialism as an opportunity to sort out my own confusion over the subject. I agree with your take that "women do have a different biological and ecological function in nature than men." I also agree that "we cannot say that something is socially constructed alone, there must be biological bases for these constructs." I think our biology predisposes us for social roles which undeniably have ecological function. For all species, including man, the sociology of the group has co-evolved with the biology of the individual. It makes no sense to assume a genetic basis for one, but none for the other. Before we take this discussion much further, though, maybe you should clarify what you determine to be "feminist ends." My disappointment with the feminist movement, in general, has been that I see "progress" defined as the entitlement/freedom of women to take on the traditionally "masculine" behavioral tendencies, namely the exploitation of nature and fellow man. Obviously, ecofeminists distinguish themselves from other feminists in this respect. What exactly are the feminist ends to which you refer? For any movement to succeed, it helps if factions can agree on basic fundamental issues. That isn't happening in the women's movement right now. Polly |
