{"id":628,"date":"2012-10-28T20:59:21","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T00:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=628"},"modified":"2012-10-28T20:59:21","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T00:59:21","slug":"hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write this from my New Jersey residence, on the eve of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, one thing is crystal clear to me: our culture remains sexist to the bone.\u00a0 What is worse, its sexism is of a particularly invidious variety, i.e. the misogynistic<\/em> type.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Universally, the reaction to Sandy has been one of unmitigated fear, the same fear with which we would respond to word of an invasion of the inhabitants of another planet.\u00a0 Invariably, this exhibition of raw nature has been characterized in adversarial terms, a threat to our way of life from which we need protection.<\/p>\n

This, though, is what we should expect from an incorrigibly patriarchal civilization. You see, the terms in which Western Man has described nature are the same terms that he has reserved for his vision of Woman. Anyone who doubts this claim should consider that, for millennia to the present day, the dominant image of nature is unmistakably feminine in character (e.g. \u201cMother<\/em> Nature\u201d).<\/p>\n

This is no accident.<\/p>\n

The idea of nature as something that is distinct from and antagonistic toward \u201ccivilization\u201d is inseparable from the idea of woman as something distinct from and antagonistic toward man.\u00a0 In turn, these ideas inform another, namely, the idea that, respectively, nature and women need to be tamed. <\/em><\/p>\n

The western world within which we live is as logocentric <\/em>(literally, reason-centered) <\/em>as it is sexist. Its values reflect the prejudices and biases of the men\u2014the white <\/em>men\u2014who spawned it.\u00a0 Had Western Man\u2019s obsession with rationality not blinded him to the fact that his scheme of values is as parochial a phenomenon as the dialect with which he speaks, perhaps there would have been no harm done.\u00a0 But as is the case with all forms of zealotry, Western Man\u2019s preoccupation with rational inquiry rendered him oblivious to the very possibility that the world just might consist of people who weren\u2019t interested in taking up his cause.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, through his philosophy and religion, Western Man universalized his values.\u00a0 Yet this in turn resulted in his carving up reality\u2014or his vision of reality\u2014into a series of dualisms, binary oppositions in which everything that he associated with himself is privileged above those attributes that he associated with women.\u00a0 Indissolubly conjoined with his man\/woman dualism are the dualisms\u00a0of civilization\/nature, reason\/emotion, mind\/matter, good\/evil, etc.<\/p>\n

As ecofeminist Marti Kreel observes, Western patriarchy has viewed nature and women as things <\/em>to be either broken or exploited. \u00a0<\/p>\n

The first image is that of \u201cthe beast,\u201d the \u201csymbol for all that is not human,\u201d \u201cevil, irrational, and wild.\u201d The Beast is that which must be conquered and\/or destroyed if civilization is to prevail.<\/p>\n

The second image, which Kreel traces back to Plato and Aristotle, is that of mindless matter. Mindless matter is not so much irrational as \u201cnonrational,\u201d not so much a thing to be conquered and eliminated as much as a that \u201cwhich exists to serve the needs of superior, rational \u2018Man.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The first image promotes violence against nature, women, and every other \u201cOther\u201d that Western Man defines against himself.\u00a0 The second, while promoting violence \u201cin its own way,\u201d is more subtle.<\/p>\n

As Kreel explains, Aristotle, with whom she associates the latter, thought that there is \u201ca natural hierarchical ordering to the world, within which each being moved toward fulfillment of its own particular end.\u201d This is significant, for \u201crational contemplation\u201d is the highest and best end to which any being can aspire, but only \u201cMan\u201d <\/em>was capable of doing so.\u00a0 This means that \u201cthe rest of nature\u201d is \u201cconveniently ordered to free \u2018Man\u2019 to attain this contemplative goal.\u201d<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just ancient Greek philosophy that perpetuates the objectification and subjugation of both nature and women.\u00a0 Christianity\u2014Western Man\u2019s dominant religious tradition for the last two centuries\u2014is just as guilty.\u00a0 Kreel writes that the \u201cJewish-Christian tradition has also contributed to an instrumental and hierarchical conception of nature\u201d through its insistence that at creation, God gave \u201c\u2018Man\u2019\u201d dominion\u201d over all living things.<\/p>\n

Our reaction to Hurricane Sandy shows just how environmentally insensitive, and sexist, Western Man\u2014and, tragically, Woman\u2014remains.\u00a0 But perhaps we can use this opportunity to defeat our bigoted fears and view Sandy, not as a beast to be slewed or a force to be mastered, but as part and parcel of the same nature of which we are parts.\u00a0 Perhaps we can recognize that, ultimately,Sandy is us and we are her.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And while we are at it, maybe\u2014just maybe\u2014we can finally begin to alter the misogynistic intellectual landscape\u2014the ecology of erroneous and hostile assumptions\u2014that accounts for the systematic oppression to which women continue to be relentlessly subjected.<\/p>\n

Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama will dare to speak to the inextricable connection between the mistreatment of nature and the mistreatment of women. But if they did\u2014if they even recognized it\u2014they would realize that, philosophically, there is no difference in the motivation that leads us to reject Sandy as a \u201cmonster\u201d and that which leads us to pay women 72 cents of every dollar paid to men. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One\u00a0final point: if you haven’t yet realized that\u00a0I don’t believe a word\u00a0that is\u00a0written in this article, then you haven’t read anything that I have ever written in the past.\u00a0 I just thought that\u00a0everyone could stand to benefit from a little levity as Frankenstorm is about to crash into the Northeast.\u00a0<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write this from my New Jersey residence, on the eve of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, one thing is crystal clear to me: our culture remains sexist to the bone.\u00a0 What is worse, its sexism is of a particularly invidious variety, i.e. the misogynistic type.\u00a0 Universally, the reaction to Sandy has been one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nHurricane Sandy and Our Sexism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As I write this from my New Jersey residence, on the eve of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, one thing is crystal clear to me: our culture remains sexist to the bone.\u00a0 What is worse, its sexism is of a particularly invidious variety, i.e. the misogynistic type.\u00a0 Universally, the reaction to Sandy has been one…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-10-29T00:59:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism","og_description":"As I write this from my New Jersey residence, on the eve of the arrival of Hurricane Sandy, one thing is crystal clear to me: our culture remains sexist to the bone.\u00a0 What is worse, its sexism is of a particularly invidious variety, i.e. the misogynistic type.\u00a0 Universally, the reaction to Sandy has been one…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2012-10-29T00:59:21+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html","name":"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-10-29T00:59:21+00:00","dateModified":"2012-10-29T00:59:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2012\/10\/hurricane-sandy-and-our-sexism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Hurricane Sandy and Our Sexism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - 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