it is not the word ECOFEMINISM that spooks, its KAIROS does

          . My latest readings have made me aware of the rise of a Spanish and South-American literary movement which consistently addresses issues of male supremacy, women’s rights, socio-cultural liberation, the endangered state of the Earth, and does not fear to propose inspired post-colonial visions for the future. I don’t know if this movement has a unifying name but it carries all the attributes of ECOFEMINISM. And I have come to believe that the contemporaneity, the relevance, the overall artistic sensibility of ECOFEMINISM, potentially offer an enlarged perspective for our imperiled planet. 

The names of some writers I refer to are Gabriela Wiener, Cristina Cabezon-Cabrera, Gabriela Morales. In common, they share an unbendable spirit of resistance expressed in their sarcasm, their humor; a clear and current knowledge of their social milieu; a working knowledge of the ways and means of politics and polity, including  consequences … and a great ability to project instincts and intelligence into the future … There – there, there are no limits to such an explosive imagination!

          . Last Friday morning, I was listening to a program on ‘France Culture’ (the French Public Radio cultural station): an interview with Emilie Hache, about her new book titled (my translation) ” OF GENERATION”. ‘A research about its disappearance and its replacement by Production’. This subtitle says it all.

In the interview Hache shows how EXTRACTIVISM and PRODUCTIVISM, besides exhausting the planet’s resources, have thoroughly neglected to consider their (re)GENERATION. Particularly and more specifically, the Generation of species, including the role of women’s oppression and male domination in this process. Looking into history, Hache observes how antiquity and pre-medieval cultures were conscious of the generation of species, from humans to animals, to vegetal(s) and minerals … to spirits, fauns and demi-gods …  She traces today’s neglect to monotheistic, messianic, christian religions (in that they believe in sin, redemption and eternity … in this order). And she asks: how come some present matrilinear societies are, on the contrary, so actively aware of Generation.
The jacket cover reads “… This book very much contributes to ECOFEMINISM, as it identifies the Generation question beyond that of women and the nature of modernity.” 

          . This reference, by Hache, to Generation and Production inevitably brings me back to the work of Roswitha Scholz on the concept of  Value-Dissociation. . Scholz contends that the whole capitalist economy is  based on value. The value of things  – natural and/or manufactured, the value of people – slaves and/or women. The VALUE of women, she writes, is predicated on the brutal DISSOCIATION between the role of men and that of women in prosperous societies. Men produce whatever is deemed necessary to feed an economy of ‘DESIRABILITY’ * (my assessment). Women, meant to respond to it, are left with the cosmetic and domestic tasks. Beautiful as they must be, they generate, raise and educate the next waves of docile workers. Yet, in this alpha-male system, even domesticity and docility are undervalued and therefore do not require recognition, much less compensation.
Of course, Roswitha is one among many who show patriarchy as a system where   men are the self-appointed warrantors of productive labor, overly exploitative of people, and extractive of the environment. But I highly appreciate the unique way she reveals the intersection between two rather abstract notions: Value and Dissociation.  Bringing a level of conceptuality to the debate makes it quite a dynamic one; she vastly broadens the field of research and cross-referencing.  Cleaving the multiple complementarities contained in these two words exposes the immorality, the corruption of the mind it represents to atomize everything social – Woman, Man, State. Everything Nature – animate, inanimate … including Spirits! 

At a time when study after study and personal experience show how the PARCELLATION** of human societies is the main source of individual and group violence, of depression and despair, of gloomy predictions for a future which some call the end, the ECOFEMINISM label fully covers each and every point developed above. It brings along, with its very deliberate and subtle political/civic intents, a load of inspiring visions, humor and grinding realism. Our Spanish-speaking authors, particularly with their over-the-top stories, always seem to conclude their books in liberating crescendos where, if I remember correctly, water takes an inundating importance! And where gender, pronouns and identity surf joyously!

* DESIRABILITY: the very astute word Bernard Arnault – the Luxury Industry global leader – has appropriated to qualify his production of watches, perfumes, hats and handbags … everything knockoff-able and superfluous, as long at it makes envy instinctual.       

** If one of the consequences of social PARCELLATION is gloom – a vision of the future some call the end – what better proof does the cohort of the depressed need to understand that individual civic responsibility carries a collective destiny? 

*          *         *

There are updates to this essay. And after all, they may have as much importance as the essay itself. Here they are:

. Last Friday also, I received a copy of David Graeber and David Wengrow‘s book ‘The Dawn of Everything’ … On page One, right under the title of Chapter One, I discovered a quote by CARL JUNG! My heart skipped a beat. It reads:

“This mood makes itself felt everywhere, politically, socially, and philosophically. We are in what the Greeks called Kairos – the right time – for a ‘metamorphosis of the gods’, of the fundamental principles  and symbols.”

C.G. Jung, The Undiscovered Self (1958)

Why so much emotion? Because Jung has always forced me to dig deeper into the more individual roots of KAIROS. There is an obvious kinship between Jung’s “metamorphosis of the gods” and my own discreet but loaded reference to  ‘spirits, fauns and demi-gods’ … I may be over-estimating my own writing here but we (Jung and I) have been foraging in the same (un)conscious for the last 50 years!  The ‘fundamental principles and symbols’ he refers to used to inform a lot of my creative work, and still do.  Although I am not fluent in Jungian vocabulary anymore, I have kept it vibrant in the depth of my psyche! Above all, I respect the ardor of everyone’s interior life. Some call it the soul. I do too … when I am short of more accurate words! 

. Read in the May 28 issue of Heather Cox-Richardson Newsletter: 

” … today, Melinda French Gates, co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, announced $1 billion in new spending over the next two years “for people and organizations working on behalf of women and families around the world, including on reproductive rights in the United States.” Only 2% of charitable giving in the U.S. goes to these organizations, she wrote the New York Times, and for too long, a lack of money has forced organizations fighting for women’s rights into a defensive posture while the enemies of progress play offense. I want to help even the match.”

Also,

. Read in the May 2024 issue of le Monde Diplomatique (French monthly, published globally in multiple languages. A respected journalistic reference), the quick review of a book entitled “Femmes des Pyrénées – Une identité perdue et retrouvée” (“Women of the Pyrénées – an identity lost and recovered“). The author, Isaure Gratacos, tells us that until the French Revolution, in that region of South-Eastern France, it was the birthright of the older sibling to lead and administrate the affairs and legacy of the family, WHETHER MAN OR WOMAN. This local, ancestral rule, like others which are still current, establish(ed) the equality of women and their autonomy. Today’s attempts at challenging patriarchy can only gain from knowing that, in cultures where women are/were free, body and mind, they are/were also men’s equals, the “Diplo” critic writes.

Let me extrapolate: in cultures where women will be free body and mind, they will also be men’s equals.

. Last minute: South Carolina may, as of now, be under the thumb of an all white, all male Supreme Court. Is there any more Generation freedom left for women in this State?

All I am doing here is show how, within a short few days, I have picked up a number of facts which tell me that if there is a reality to Kairos, it is today.

              KAIROS IS TODAY

Charleston SC, 05-30-2024