The Good Mother
From Gaia to Gilead
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11240920 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Ellen Cronan Rose (0000-0002-7985-4417, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1991 |
| Volume | 12 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 77 |
| Publication date | 1991-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Frontiers A Journal of Women Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0160-9009 • E-ISSN: 1536-0334 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/3346579 |
| OpenAlex | W2335721639 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 6 |
| References cited | 1 |
Close reading of current environmental literature suggests that lurking just below surface of quite justified concern about increasingly disjunctive relationship between humans and nature is a knotted lump of unexamined anxiety about gender, sexuality, and reproduction. Certainly it is reasonable to worry that pollution of ecosystem and unchecked exploitation of planet's resources may imperil both human reproduction and reproductiveness of planet itself.1 But in certain discourses that deploy concept of this legitimate concern is charged with particular emotion by what might be called reproductive anxiety. I will be discussing scholarly and popular presentations of British chemist James Lovelock's hypothesis (named Gaia for Greek earth goddess) that this planet is a living organism, as well as selections from a recent anthology of essays by environmental feminists (ecofeminists) who find inspiration in the myths and symbols of ancient Goddess cultures in which creation was imaged as female and Earth was revered as sacred.2 In male rhetoric about mother earth, it will be easy for women readers (especially feminists) to detect men's terror of maternal power and their strenuous effort to deny or neutralize it, their guilt at having offended mother, and their desperate need to assure themselves of both their importance to her and her overwhelming concern for them. But although contemporary Western women may not manifest same anxieties about mother earth as their male
Linguistics · Earth Systems and Cosmic Evolution · Environmental, Ecological, and Cultural Studies · History · Philosophy · Psychology · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices
| Unique citing works | 6 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,18 |
| Citation span | 1993 - 2024 (32) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |