Discussion: the hunt + the use | part 2
Book: Sisters of the Earth
Author: Susan Griffin
Story: The Hunt + The Use
Pages: 282-286
Welcome to part 2 of my discussion on The Hunt + The Use by Susan Griffin. Today I'll be talking about the second section of this excerpt, The Use. If you haven't already, please read part 1 here.
In part 1, I discussed the blend of woman and animal as one being, eventually torn apart, as an interpretation of Griffin's "The Hunt". Similarly, the language in "The Use" suggests the blend of woman and land as one being. Again, starting out as wilderness, she is broken, abused, cleared of identity, and reborn into man's ideal.
“He breaks the wilderness. He clears the land of trees, brush, weed....he has turned waste into garden.”
Interestingly, when I was contemplating what to write in this discussion, I came across an opinion piece on an ultra-conservative Facebook page known for pretending to be an educational organization. The piece was written as a response to Earth Day, in an attempt to dissuade readers from participating in Earth Day activities and instead "resume thinking about how to improve the planet for human beings". The author listed ways that humans have "improved" the earth by using fossil fuels, draining swamps, clearing forests, and building roads.
There are two misconceptions wrapped up in here. One, the thinking that we somehow make the planet a better place by removing all that is wild. The wild is seen as “waste”. Two, the thinking that we somehow make the planet better for humans by removing all that is wild. The wild is seen as a "hazard". Likewise, Griffin describes a similar mindset of the man in "The Use". The land, (female, wild) must be tamed, subdued, and mastered.
Thoughts to Consider: How does this domination over woman and wild relate to “The Hunt”? Why is wildness so often seen as dangerous, confusing, taunting?
And just like we see the deer-woman grow docile in "The Hunt", so too does the land. She is made submissive, underneath him, his to take from, shape, and destroy. There is an interesting parallel to relationships here. After the initial clearing and taming of the wildness, there is a tenderness and trust. She trusts him with her body and gives to him freely.
"She opens her broad lap to him. She smiles on him. She prepares him a feast. She gives up her treasures to him. She makes him grow rich. She yields. She conceives. Her lap is fertile. Out of her dark interior, life arises."
The man's view of her progressively changes throughout the story as well. After he has tamed her and witnesses the gifts provided by her soil, he is in awe of her. Yet, he still doesn't understand her, nor does he try to. Although she is no longer wild, she is still a mystery to him.
"He counts her yielding as a miracle. He sees her workings as effortless.”
“Her powers are a mystery to him.”
Thoughts to consider: How does this relate to gender roles in society? How does this relate to men’s oblivion to women’s bodies, to their role, to their value? Does this lack of understanding or willingness to learn about the other contribute to misconceptions, lack of appreciation, or lack of empathy?
Because he maintains ignorance to her workings and refuses to learn from her or try to understand her, he starts to think all that she gives to him is by his own hands as if she is powerless, barren, fruitless without him.
"Whatever she brings forth he calls his own."
And yet, when she finally stops producing for him, she is to blame. He takes the credit for the yield but blames her when there is none. He considers her a mystery and then blames her for his lack of understanding. He has refused to see that this relationship between man and woman, between human and land, requires reciprocity. That the woman-land cannot continue to give endlessly. She cannot continue to sustain him and her from nothingness. From her stripped bones. From her worn out soils.
“...she withholds from him.”
“Without reason, she refuses to yield. She is fickle. She dries up. She is bitter. She scorns him.”
Instead of learning from the error he has made, he demands more from her. Instead of learning about how she thrived when she was wild, he insults her. He ignores her needs and instead uses the knowledge he does have to make her produce more. He looks at the soil as a “lifeless place of storage”. He thinks he has mastered her, that she is no longer a mystery, that she is only an object for him to manipulate.
“Over and over he can plant the same plot of land with the same crop.”
And just like that, the poisoning begins. Griffin lists off a number of fertilizers and environmental toxins that have been used wildly in industrial agriculture. This includes phosphorus, a common fertilizer known for causing eutrophication. This eutrophication leads to algal blooms, which in turn leads to the suffocation of fish. Nitrogen, another fertilizer mentioned, can leach into ground water and can be particularly harmful to children. Iron sulfate, used as both a pesticide and herbicide, is harmful to aquatic life like rainbow trout. Calcium cyanamide, a fertilizer, is toxic to fish and birds. It can also cause developmental, thyroid, and reproductive issues in humans. Copper sulfate, used as an herbicide, fungicide, and root killer, can sterilize water bottoms, killing off lifegiving resources needed by aquatic life. It can also be harmful to wildlife drinking from contaminated water. Diethylstilbestrol (DES), a growth hormone used in cattle, is an endocrine disrupter that can cause uterine tumors in human and non-human animals, even at low doses. It can also increase abnormalities and affect development in fish.
Thoughts to consider: How can we use ecological knowledge to inform our agricultural decisions? Can traditional agricultural techniques and agroecology reduce the negative impact we have on the land?
Griffin ends with the land being essentially drugged. She takes without asking questions, glazed eyes, desperate, starving, clinging. Just as the deer-woman's wild identity is erased from her in "The Hunt", the land-woman's wild identity is erased from her in "The Use". She no longer knows herself, no longer trusts her instincts, her wisdom. She is devoid of hope and full of pain. She has become completely dependent on him.
“The edges of what she sees, and what she wants, and what she is saying, are blurred.”
“She says that the first pain is gone, or that she cannot remember it, or that she cannot remember why this began, or what she was like before, or if she will survive without what he gives her to take, but she does not know, or cannot remember, why she continues.”
And so, he gives her more drugs. Her soils are overburdened and disturbed, no longer able to keep out the invasive weeds that creep onto her skin. There are more drugs for that. No longer balanced or able to care for herself, she is infested with pests. There are more drugs for that.
And so he feeds her dieldrin, an insecticide that bioaccumulates in aquatic invertebrates and is toxic to bees. He gives her chlordane, a pesticide toxic to birds, bees, earthworms, and aquatic life. It is also toxic to humans, altering the immune system during development and causing liver cancer. He fills her with malathion, an insecticide that is toxic to aquatic life, including amphibians like Woodhouses's toads. It decreases the thyroid function of tadpoles, increases the mortality of some mammal species, and is toxic to birds. Malathion is also highly toxic to bees and other beneficial insects.
He also feeds her dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT). Developed in the 1940s, DDT is persistent in the environment and accumulates in the fatty tissues of animals. It is responsible for killing fish and all the insects that crawl, hop, or fly in its path - beneficial or not. This synthetic pesticide, banned in the US in 1972, is still used in India, China, North Korea, Ethiopia, South Africa, Uganda, and Swaziland. It bioaccumulates in fish and earthworms which are then eaten by birds including American Robins, Brown Pelicans, Peregrine Falcons, and Bald Eagles. Its affect on eggshell stability and subsequent decline in successful offspring played a pivotal role in its ban within the US. DDT is also associated with breast cancer and an increased risk of diabetes - not just in a person directly exposed to DDT, but a woman's child, and her grandchild too.
We are poisoning the planet and these poisons not only attack the wildness that is so often characterized as feminine, but it attacks the human female too, punishing her and her offspring for generations for the crimes we have committed to the earth.
Thoughts to consider: As women have long been associated with and demonized for wildness, what role is available to us in the reclamation of and reparations to wild places? Is ecological poisoning related to ancestral trauma?
"Even with his back turned to her she yields to him. And in his mind, he imagines that he can conceive without her.”
“What he possesses, he says, is his to use and to abandon.”
She - land, woman, nature, is a possession. Once a masterpiece, a mystery, a gift he was in awe of, he has turned her into a trinket, a piece of blank paper to color on, to cut, to throw away. How much land has man stood in awe of one day, only to use and abuse the next? How many women, once vibrant, once glowing, have had their lights dimmed by men?
Dive further into this piece with these 3 questions.
This piece brings attention to a very utilitarian view of nature, particularly within the realm of agriculture. In what ways can agriculture be changed by applying intrinsic value of the natural world to the way we grow food, fiber, and other crops?
What forms of agriculture show the most potential in shifting from a utilitarian approach to a reciprocal relationship with the land?
Just as the land is fed poison after it is no longer balanced enough to take care of itself, what poison are women fed after their independence and self-esteem have been stripped from them?
After reading "The Use" what new thoughts or feelings do you have about the female connection to nature?