Reading Notes for March 25 - Part 3

Elizabeth Dodson-Gray : "Green Paradise Lost"

Summary by Marta Cuboni

The main body of this text is a presentation of Dodson-Gray's theories about the way genders are assigned to natural and cultural phenomena, in keeping with hierarchized social structures (male dominance / female submissiveness). She draws heavily on other authors and their theories in order to frame her two-part argument: 1: that societies have developed along binaries of male/female and domination/submission, and 2: that this development has depended on male perceptions of women and nature being mystically interconnected, and for this reason necessary subjects of men's control. The theoretical framework she writes from is difficult to identify because she cites large sections of work by scholars in many disciplines and only presents her own theories (almost) as afterthoughts to these recapitulations.

The first section of this chapter is reminiscent of the 'left hand column' of Kristeva's writing in that it is very fluid, and associative, combing personal narrative with deeper philosophoical questions. From this wondering, Dodson-Gray introduces her topic: how the arisal of society, and the lifestyle of civilization has meant abandoning a synchronicity with nature.

Every paragraph or section of this chapter is like a building block, and Dodson-Gray lays them out one on top of the other, from the foundations to construct her argument.

• The first building block/ evidence she claims involves the fact that all keeping of records, all recording of history has been male sponsored. Through this universalization of the species and the Genesis myth of creation ("that de-births the origin of the species, taking women away as birth givers" p. ??) a hierarchy was established making men more important that women.
• Next, the actual thesis of the chapter emerges: while civilization, society and culture are all considered male-sponsored inevitable destinies women are placed in opposition to this, lumped in with nature (because both are abherrent to natural [male] logic and order) and as aresult both are denigrated.
• Dodson-Gray lays out the building blocks of her argument by: quoting psychologist Dorothy Dinnerstein theories which seek to explain male attitudes towards women and nature as based in a fear of death and a need to dominate, both of which stem from the memories of infancy; claiming that after a period of strong, unconscious identification and continuity with mother male and female children reach self-awareness and undergo different processes of development >> The girl is encouraged to imitate the mother as a feminine figure representing her own destiny while the boy is made to break with this identification and henceforth reject anything feminine within him.

>>The memory of being dependent on a mother is thus distorted by negative associations of femininity and vulnerability that must be repressed in order for a male child to acheive a masculine identity.

>>This is then carried over and governs the way men treat the ecosystems of the biosphere among the many manifestations of a "cult of toughness" because a male establishes his identity of superiority by demeaning and colonizing anything feminine in the outside world, or feminizing things in the outside world in order to demean them.

*Dodson Gray uses the social structure of marriage to combine the elements of her argument: the interrelation of women and nature becasue of both having a power which men depend on; the trauma that this dependence inspires in men leading them to denigrate both women and nature and the pattern of civilization that involves hierarchies of men subjugating their submissive wives (who can be mother-like except they are non-threatening and without power) and man subjugating nature.