Susan Griffin: "Woman and Nature. The Roaring Inside Her."

Susan Griffin's 1978 book Woman and Nature. The Roaring Inside Her represents the second wave of (American) feminism, or, rather, to be more precise - it is an Ecofeminist classic. Started in the 1970s, Ecofeminism (ecological feminism) is a philosophical, social and political movement combining, as the name suggests, ecology and feminism on the premise that there exists a parallel between social (patriarchal) oppression of women and exploitation of nature (representing masculine attitude).

Griffin elaborates on the conjunction of man and culture vs woman and nature with a view to breaking the negative associations visible in the traditional binaries of the western culture: man/woman, culture/nature. And so, she declares that the book was written for those of us whose language is not heard, whose words have been stolen or erased, those robbed of language, who are called voiceless or mute, even the earthworms, even the shellfish and the sponges, for those of us who speak our own language. The acclaimed poet and writer, feminist Adrienne Rich characterized the work as treating about memory and mutilation, female anger as power and female presence as transforming force.

Woman and Nature consists of four books, titled "Matter" (How man regards and makes use of woman and nature); "Separation" (The separation in his vision and under his rule); "Passage" (Her journey through the Labyrinth to the Cave where she has Her Vision); and, finally, "Her Vision" (Now she sees through her own eyes (wherein the world is no longer his) - the separate rejoined). Two voices are heard (rather visible;) in the book: the paternal voice of patriarchal thought, a voice that claims to be objective, detached and bodiless, recognized here by phrases such as It is decided or The discovery was made - it is a voice of science and (male) logic. The other voice (marked by italics in the text) is her own and other women's, and voices from nature. The two voices are in a dialogic relation. An excerpt from "Matter" will sufficiently demonstrate how the two voices differ and how the women's voice breaks the authoritative dominating patriarchal discourse: "...it is hoped that the theory of mutation may make it possible to discover the exact moment when men became immortal. (Yet we read the words 'animals our fellow brethren in pain, disease, suffering and famine', and we hear that they may share our origins, that 'we may all be melted together')." With this trick, Griffin attempts to inscribe the female voice which undermines and questions the male voice. One might even risk a parallel with what the French representatives of l'ecriture feminine did to patriarchal discourse (I am thinking, for example of Kristeva's "Stabat Mater"): "Ablation. Abrasion. Mountain of accumulation. Aeolian deposits. Afforestation. Testimonies. Over and over we examined what was said of us. Over and over we testify. The lies. the conspiracy of appearances. There are fissures. There are cracks in the surface. We realize suddenly we are weeping."

Reading this book, one can't help getting emotional (and angry at times), as Griffin scrupulously follows the development of (male) Western civilization and history, all the time indicating its efforts to stigmatize and eradicate women from its course. Men's discoveries and inventions which allow them to control the natural world are intertwined with the accounts of witch trials:

" 1638 Galileo publishes Two New Sciences

1640 Carbon dioxide obtained by Helmont
1644 Descartes publishes Principia Philosophiae
1670 Rouen witch trials.
1687 Newton publishes Principia
(She confesses that every Monday the devil lay with her for fornication. She confesses that when he copulated with her she felt intense pain. She confesses that after having intercourse with the devil she married her daughter to him.)
... 1704 Newton publishes Optics
1717 Halley reveals that the world is adrift in a star swirl
1745 Witch trial at Lyons, five sentenced to death.
1749 Sister Maria Renata executed and burned
1775 Anna Maria Schnagel executed for witchcraft."
In this way the history of western civilization becomes the history of torture perpetrated on women. One can't help wondering how it was possible for man to make those milestone discoveries and to believe in such superstitions at the same time.

Finally, Griffin offers a new division of time bringing into focus those who have been erased from history. As a result, an alternative history is written: that of women's suffering and their struggle to gain human dignity (so often barely acknowledged in history books):

Hydra (The Dragon). The century during which Ales Mansfield was called a witch. The age when Katherine Kepler was tortured. The year when Ales Newman, Alice Nutter and Alizon Device were accused of belonging to a coven. The week when Anne Redferne, Anne Whittle, Elizabeth Demidyke, Jeanet Hargreaves, Katherine Hewit and Jeanet Preston were burned at the stake. The time that was governed by fire.
Taurus (The Bull). The decade ruled by Reine Louise Audre, Queen of the Markets. The time in which she led a march of eight hundred women to Versailles. The year during which women demanded that the grain speculators be punished, demanded that conditions at the marketplace be made better, that priests be able to marry, that women receive better education, that male midwifery be put to an end, ... the day of the month celebrated because that was when women brought down the Bastille.

P.S.1. I heartily recommend this book to all women and to those who doubt in discrimination against women; and to a student of mine who, disappointed at his result from British History exam, complained about the absence of questions concerning The Hundred Years' War and the fact that he had to learn about "a suffragist" (Emmeline Pankhurst).

P.S.2. I will call reading this book my private participation in Poznan Climate Summit;)