This week, I finished Woman on the Edge of Time and read two more chapters, “‘Forever New Frontiers’: Extraterrestrialism and U.S. Militarism in Space,” and “‘The Power Is Yours, Planeteers!’: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Children’s Environmentalist Popular Culture,” from Noël Sturgeon’s Environmentalism in Popular Culture.
During my discussion with my independent study advisor this week, she asked me to write a critical reflective essay on the themes that I have been working with this semester, analyzing how they do or do not coincide. I have also been working towards a potential project for the Women’s and Gender Studies Symposium later in the semester, and a final research project for this class. With all this in mind, this week I would like to focus on childhood, family and environmentalism within Piercy’s idyllic Mattapoisett, with analysis from Sturgeon.
In Marge Piercy’s utopian future, children are raised by a set of three “mothers” (the gender neutral term for parent) until age 13 (or whenever they find it appropriate) at which point they go off by themselves and have three months of mutual silence between former mother and child, so that the young person can effectively and independently transition out of childhood. They can choose to pursue a healthy relationship with their parent after that time, should they desire. Children are born in “brooders,” which are wombs outside the body programmed to produce genetically random (although the genetic conditions are decided democratically by the community) babies, who are then accepted as the child of the three mothers. Although the three mothers have the more formal responsibility for child-care, everyone in the community is responsible for the children, and all participate in the education, feeding, and social raising of all children.
This family structure alone poses a serious challenge to all current mainstream notions of what a “natural” family is. As it is currently defined and legitimated in a variety of ways, legally, socially, and scientifically, the family has three main qualities: a romantic pairing, biological relations, and socially designated roles that remain static throughout the lifetime of all members. To be more specific, it is assumed that families are created either through a romantic pairing (more specifically, marriage, although liberalization of sexuality has complicated this), or through the biologic birth of a child. Both of these scenarios create a family in “natural” (unquestionable, reasonable, obvious, predetermined) ways. This family is a permanent organizing feature in individual’s lives (medically, in education, job access, location, travel, immigration, family status, wealth), which then creates lifelong dependence on a romantic or biological occurrence. Current mainstream policies and social truths do not allow for choice in family beyond who to engage in a romantic partnership with. Even within this “choice,” there are economic, social, and legal incentives to romantically and permanently pair with another individual, particularly one with whom you can be privately biologically reproductive.
Piercy’s utopia is very deeply imaginative in the ways that it diverges from our current truth of a natural family. Every aspect of the family is based on choice–mothers choose to become mothers, and choose their co-mothers. Their choice is not based on romantic attraction, but is often based on complementary skills or qualities. They choose when to begin the gestation process, and when the baby is born, they again choose to mother that child. In Mattapoisett, Jackrabbit transitioned between mothers, even before per transition into post-childhood. One mother no longer felt able to adequately care for and provide love for their child, as young Jackrabbit was too free-spirited, which frustrated that mother. Another person stepped in to fill that role. After the transition into responsibility, individuals may choose their continued role with their mothers, as well as the community within which they reside. Economic structures that depend on community work and equality of resources make it possible for individuals to choose where and how they live, uninhibited by restraints imposed by familial resources, citizenship, education levels, and status (currently all determined by the romantic/biological family).
Noël Sturgeon points out the ways that current liberal environmental messaging to children relies on the “natural” nuclear patriarchal family structure as a solution to the “unnatural” environmental destruction and degradation, which is also associated with deviancy from gender roles. She points out the ways that the Lion King, relying on the feel-good high-production music and animation, creates the villainous Scar, who is both feminized and racialized throughout the movie, which she illustrates creatively and clearly in a variety of ways. Scar also works to separate young Simba from the patriarchal path of his father, by blaming him for the death of his father, creating conditions in which he would no longer become king (fulfilling his father’s role.) In the movie, it is obviously natural that Simba would take up his father’s social, economic, and political position due to their biologic relation. That his uncle would take the position queers the idea of a nuclear family–younger brother, Scar, is not tied to Mufasa except through their (biologically) absent mother, thus they have no reason that they should be connected politically, while Simba is an obvious candidate as the biologic son of Mufasa’s romantic pairing. This queer idea is obviously unnatural and villainous.
Sleek, cunning, and feminine Scar is associated with poor morals, and is painted as an environmental monster in his disregard for the life and resources of the animals under Mufasa’s patriarchal kingdom. His followers are the heavily racialized and mentally-handicapped hyenas, who with indiscriminate violence and lust, fulfill his villainous mission of domination. Who is to save the naturally functioning kingdom? The natural son, fulfilling his father’s position in the world. He is able to make a difference in the world (saving the land and resources of his constituents) by replacing his father as the patriarchal leader, and beginning his own family. Thus, the “natural” patriarchal nuclear family is offered as a solution to the “unnatural” environmental threat (as Lisa Sturgeon states explicitly).
Sturgeon also points out the ways that environmentalist media for children encourages children to engage their parents about their consumption patterns. While this gives a semblance of agency (“the power is yours, planeteers!”), it also de-agentializes children, making their only available path to creating change one of consumption–either their parent’s consumption, or their future consumption as they fulfill their parent’s social, political, and economic roles. In contrast, children in Piercy’s utopia work on problems themselves. Children learn through play and work, following community members into the field, laboratory, etc. to learn about how to create, operate, build, and grow. While current liberal environmentalism tells children that they have the power to make a difference, Piercy gives children the opportunity to create change. Children can contribute to scientific discoveries, agricultural techniques, and technological advances. They are part of decision making, and are given responsibility over their homes and work. They are taught extensively, and also given the opportunity to learn within that knowledge. Their path to creating change comes from within themselves, not through following patriarchal family structures.
I would like to continue exploring these issues, particularly how the family has been naturalized, creating it as an accepted norm, rather than a site that can perpetuate or promote violence in its very structure, by reducing the ability to create change, and creating dependence on arbitrary social constructions that determine the opportunities and resources of an individual.
I am also interested in utilizing some of these themes to create a final research project. As a current and future educator, I am very interested in the ways that ecofeminist theory can be utilized to disrupt the naturalization of racist, colonialist, and cisheteropatriarchal forces in childhood and education, particularly in homogenous areas. I am interested in potentially exploring and creating a lesson plan or in-depth analysis of how naturalization of family and homogeneity functions to reinforce global power dynamics through an environmental justice/ecofeminist lens.
speakallowed 