This document is the contribution that EARTH GARDENERS brought to the “Network Day” of the REBEL NERWORK network, of which it is part, which was held in Rimini on September 8th 2018. The images are taken from the Power Point that accompanied the intervention.
“T’insegneranno a non splendere. E tu splendi, invece.” (Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Our vision
We are cultural animals emerging from the physical environmental evolutionary logic. The “naturalness” with which we still have to deal is our body and our psyche. We have not yet succeeded in understanding the extent to which the psyche is shaped by learned culture or by the endogenous drives, the daughters of our natural evolution. Probably some answers may come from epigenetics, a discipline that is still young because it is linked to very complex technologies.
The culture born from our hands endowed with an opposable thumb and from our brain, which has become capable of elaborating an increasingly articulated and profound thought, has made sociology take the place of zoology in the definition of our species.
If the road of humanity and its peoples is identified with that of its culture or its cultures, which in the era of globalization are flattening into one led by the markets, if (as is shown) all cultures are the result of male processing, we women do not exist. When we claim to exist they kill us. They kill us when they make us believe they are worth only for our appearance; they kill us when they take advantage of our work by paying less; they kill us when they decide if our body has to produce children or pleasure; they kill us with knives, guns and hatchets when we refuse to be “possessed”.
Yet, the first cultural forms were produced by the first australopithic harvesters and in all the primates that differentiate the use of the arts were the females the first to “get up”, to raise their eyes from the ground. The first therefore to have with the territory that lived a relationship of less dependence, more cultural. An intimate relationship, which continues in a somewhat unconscious way in women belonging to less technological societies, perhaps more conscious in others.
Women who relate to the earth and to the Earth for identity, for equal generating abilities, for equal beauty. For those skills that have made them objects of exchange, objects of possession as and together with the lands to be exploited. The identification of the female body with the body of the Earth is evident. We can attribute the same adjectives to both: violated, neglected, wounded, disfigured, dried up, burned, underestimated, despised, devalued, used, poisoned, desirable, possessed.
From this identity arises our certainty that the fate of the one is linked to the fate of the other, that the “From this identity arises our certainty that the fate of the one is linked to the fate of the other, that the “female question” and the “environmental question” are tied to a double thread. That both were generated by a culture of possession strongly linked to the ancestral animality of human societies led by males.questione femminile”.
The female “liberation” started in the middle of the last century is still very fragile and has undergone many moments of retreat caused by a crisis of uncertainty and anxiety, characteristics of our time, which reveal a profound difficulty in knowledge among the genres in which we can glimpse, far more than by looking for the “aggressiveness” of man, one of the most profound motivations of violence: the violence of those who need certainties.
We must therefore resume the path of our path of social evolution, with the awareness that the extension of the concept of “human nature” to the female gender can not be accomplished without changing the symbolic image of women in culture. In this sense it becomes useless to label this type of society as “masculine” or “macho”, because it is all the cultural construction that is the work of men. It becomes therefore very difficult to work for change: how to change a culture without using the already elaborated and shared codes? But the codes are not feminine: they belong to the same culture that must be changed.
“The widespread stereotypes that undermine women’s abilities and importance have not improved their fate, nor that of human societies. But the other myth does not offer many advantages, namely the one that emphasizes the natural innocence of women, their lack of interest in power and their willingness to cooperate and to show solidarity with other women. Females of this kind have never evolved among other primates. “(Sarah Blaffer Hrdy)
Our proposal
Currently, the government of the human social assembly is based exclusively on the power dependent on the possession and unconditional exploitation of “living objects” such as women and territories. We believe that humanity can have a future only if it succeeds in easing internal tensions due to particular interests that have become so unsustainable now that it is approximated to suicide.
We must therefore change the codes and symbols of the culture in which we are immersed and in which we risk drowning. Arduous task.
The possibility of gender equality in the Homo sapiens sapiens species is not linked to the capacity for struggle and reflection of women alone. Men must begin a serious and conscious journey of reflection on their history and their thinking, along which women should not take the role of teachers or secretaries, but of interlocutors. A common path, in which to try to keep out the roles that this culture assigns us from birth.
The massive use of the media leaves little room for ideas that are not coherent with the dominant logic; however, we believe that by using the possibilities that technology makes available to us, we can produce materials that stimulate reflections and are designed to reach both genres.
The education of the new generations is increasingly entrusted to environments outside the family and school. Social media describe young people as sometimes confused, rather receptive, not capable of deep thought but extremely sensitive. It is to them that we would like to direct our efforts: only they can make it possible to change the codes and symbols that have chained women and territories to a logic that is leading humanity towards the abyss.
We appeal to those who, along with us, want to embark on this itinerary that we hope stimulating, interesting and (why not?) Fun. EARTH GARDENERS will make available its scientific and multimedia skills, and you?
Credits:
Author: Anna Lacci is a scientific popularizer and expert in environmental education and sustainability and in territory teaching. She is the author of documentaries and naturalistic books, notebooks and interdisciplinary teaching aids and multimedia information materials.
Translation by Maria Antonietta Sessa
