🚀 go-pugleaf

I have been reading the exchanges about feminist geography with growing
disbelief! I am amazed that what started off - as far as I can tell - as
a serious question should have degenerated so quickly into rhetoric and
rather childish abuse!

One of the primary concerns of geography as a discipline, to my understanding
of the term, revolves around the creation, comparison and use of "world
views". These world views translate our perceptions of our human and natural
environments into a variety of models that we can then manipulate, analyse,
investigate, engineer, create GIS databases of, etc, etc...

There are many billions of people on this planet (how many now? I have lost
count!), and each will have their own individual "world  views", based on
their individual circumstances, surroundings, culture, etc. However, from
this multiplicity of possible world views, we can start recognising classes
and categories of belief.

Feminist geography, according to my understanding, is one attempt at extracting
the common points of one such class of belief - in this case, it is an attempt
at defining and describing a female-focussed "world view".

This is not as outrageous as it may seem, even to the most rabidly macho of
male chauvenists. Throughout history, women have frequently been considered
as "different" within our various societies. In Britain and much of Europe
in the mediaeval period (up to about the 1600s at least), it was popularly
thought that women were "too close to nature" by virtue of their biology,
and so were for some reason "incapable of rational thought", "unreliable
in decision-making" and all sorts of other myths (and there are a few
neanderthals who stil persist in this view. Some at least seem to have
subscribed to this list :-).

Also, women's science tended to be much more "domestic" in orientation,
and not surprisingly so - women had greater (vested) interest in things like
childbirth, and in rural areas often were adept at using plants for
healing and so on. These skills were corrupted by male-oriented society
into symbols of witchcraft and used as reasons for oppression. These
arguments WERE often used to keep women suppressed in society: it is not
simple rhetoric or academic speculation.

So, even 400 years or more ago, the perception that women had of the world
they lived in would have been very different from that of their male
contemporaries. Women had less access to reading skills and formal learning
in general; they had fewer property rights; they had less opportunity for
travel and generally broadening their horizons. So, it may be said that
women throughout history will have had somewhat different "world views" than
men. But, while the male view of the world stood at least some chance of
being captured and recorded in text for posterity, the women's views were
less likely to be handed down, except indirectly and by inference.

What has this to do with feminist geography today? Quite a lot I would
have thought! Today in many parts of the western, "Developed" world, women
have a very different perception of the space they live in - particularly
urban spaces - than men. Because the perceived risks and barriers, as well
as the perceived goals of society, are often different. Women are more
likely to be constrained in their movements than are men. They are likely
to have very different ways of navigating through (particularly unknown)
territory. They also tend to have less imperialistic views of the world
than men do (that is a generalisation I know).

Women in other cultures - particularly eastern ones - will have particularly
"different" world views from those of their male companions. ANyone who has
to live their life under a yashmak, and ask permission from their husband
or father before being allowed to leave the house will obviously view the
world differently from someone who has far greater freedom of movement and
of action. (Though my own brief visits to Islamic countries has shown me that
our "western" view of such relationships is much too simplistic and overlooks
a lot of other issues, so I would be hesitant about expressing any value
judgements on the merits or demerits of the way life is organised under such
regimes). Recognising and understanding the causes of such different world
views are important to appreciating the complexity of the world we live in.
To my understanding, such differences are also the subject matter of "feminist
geography".

It is also instructive to point to the strong links - political as well
as conceptual - between the feminist movement and the environmental movement.
Women seem to have more concern with "local" issues, and also seem to have
a greater appreciation of the need to view policy-making and decision-
making in the longer term (perhaps due to the traditional role of women as
the protectors of future generations?). Also, many of our domestic consumer
goods are designed and produced by essentially male-dominated societies,
and targetted at women connsumers. Not always with good results.

Jimmie Eflin asks:

> What I can't understand
> is the differences among the various feminisms (e.g., why is it that only
> women can be feminists, at least in the opinions that have been expressed by
> some to me?).

Well, there are all sorts of variations in detail and viewpoint in any of
the social movements: between marxists, between stockbrokers, etc. And so
there are different views within the feminist movement. Some feminists
(and no, I know lots of men who would claim to be feminists, and lots of
women who would not like to be called feminists) believe that there are
no differences (other than the obvious biological ones!) between men
and women. In other words, they see the two as being completely equal in
terms of merits, intellectual capabilities, emotional states, etc. Then
there are others who are more militant, and who believe that women are
in fact "superior" than men in some way (it could be intelectual superiority,
it could be in terms of value judgements, etc). Other feminists believe
that men and women are "different but equal", and that each has its own
set of strengths and qualities that together add up to a greater whole, but
they suggest that the women's contribution to society has been suppressed
by the more dominant male...... So there are all sorts of flavours and
degrees of feminism. Just as there are different degrees of environmental
militancy from the hard core Earth First! brigade to the "milder"
environmentalists of the Council for the Protection of Rural England or
the Audubon Society.

And, finally, I would applaud and second Jimmie Eflin's views that

> The not-so-simple question that got this chain going is a good
> one for all of us to use for reflection....and perhaps for increased understan
   d-
> ing.

I notice that most (not all) of the traffic relating to this issue has come
from men so far. Are there any women on the list? Any feminists even? I for
one would be interested in your comments and observations (and critique) of
this question.

Darius Bartlett
Department of Geography
University College, Cork,
Ireland.