BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Norman Bober
Thomas Breznau
Kenneth Dahlberg
Joseph C. Filonowicz
Maynard Kaufman
Judy Kobza
William Kobza
Werner Krieglstein
Paul F. Schultz
America's farm women have arrived. In the January, 1981 issue of The New Farm, there is a short article describing the belated awareness on the part of the United States Department of Agriculture that farm women are involved in field work, bookkeeping, management, even government hearings on agricultural policy. They have not begun surveying farm women on many farm-related issues.
The feminist movement has evolved out of an urban culture. Its most explicit objective has been to abolish the financial inequities of a society in which two of every five women are "gainfully" employed. (Notice the word "gainfully" acknowledges value only to those earning money!). A lesser objective has been to set aside male-female models which place women in a secondary position, and to sensitize men and women to the use of language and actions which diminish for both the expression of their full human potentials.
What does the feminist movement mean to rural America? It can mean the recognition of work sharing that has always existed. From Colonial America on women were part of the essential work force on the farm -- at least until the industrialization of agriculture began. Then women (and men) were often replaced by machines, and women were relegated to the house and garden. Where feminism has reentered the scene has been in small-scale agriculture.
The writers for this issue of the MLT Newsletter are people who have
chosen to live on small farms. We have been informed by the
issues the feminist movement has raised, and have been modified by
them. We hope you will find our reflections on our lives of interest.
- Sally Kaufman, Editor
ON GAINING SELF-AWARENESS
Without a doubt, ideas shape lives. Thinking recently about my life, I find that two ideas in particular have had a very profound impact on the shape my life has taken. One of these is the idea of going back to the land and the rediscovery of rural values. And the other is feminism (although I prefer a phrase such as "reflective self-awareness" because it includes men and because it better reflects, I think, the idea behind the word). Without exposure to these ideas and the personal knowledge that they ring true, my life would be different indeed.
Both are radical ideas; ideas which get at the roots of the ubiquitous problems faced by individuals and society. They are, then, necessarily ideas which challenge prevailing attitudes. They tend to be dangerous to the status quo and its power structure because they point the way toward a complete and thorough rejection of the conventional analysis and perception of the world and society.
We are all familiar with the life society shapes for men and women and with the constrictions and limitations which it imposes. Submitting to the capitalist system, men must be the providers and women the passive consumers of society's "goods". It is unfortunate that reactionary ideas such as these are receiving, again, such vast approval because they represent a misconceived perception of the problems and spur a non-creative, non-constructive response just when the problems are demanding a truly new approach.
The rediscovery of rural values and reflective self-awareness are ideas which elicit a better response to old problems; ones that posit the possibility of solving them. These ideas engender creative and constructive responses to personal and societal problems. Both are ideas which allow growth and balance rather than stagnation and dominance and submission (submission of the land to the short-sighted demands of agribusiness, of men to the unrealistic demands of society, and of women to men). In short, they provide relief from the narrow roles traditional society has imposed on men and women and open the way for the resolution of long-standing contradictions.
Just as rediscovery of rural values is not confined to rural areas, e.g. urban homesteading, so the feminist movement is not confined to the city. It has taken root and is flourishing in the country. Rejecting, among others, the notion of passive consumerism, women are working alone or with men in the expended role of creative producer, We are discovering the personal and societal benefits of working toward self-sufficiency. We are nurturing the feelings of strength that spring from the knowledge of how to grow one's own healthy food and to build one's own life. We are achieving self-reliance and we - along with our enlightened men - are liking it.
I trust that if men and women and ideas which ring true continue to support and sustain each other, we can weather the current storm because the seed has taken root and its growth cannot be so easily reversed by the tired ideas of the reactionary response.
Marybeth Pritschet-Davis
REVIEW OF WEALTH AND POVERTY
We are all too familiar with the roles society sets for men and women. But for those who may have forgotten some of the arguments used to justify such notions, George Gilder's new book. Wealth and Poverty, serves to remind. It is very much in vogue at the present; it is said to be our President's "other bible".
In it Gilder carries his already extreme ideas concerning men, women, society and economics to even further extremes. He sees women's rejection of their prescribed role as the primary source of our society's gravest problems. For him the result is a devastating one; one which brings men and society down with we women. In the following paragraphs from Michael Waltzer's review of Wealth and Poverty (New York Review, April 2, 1981), we see to what lengths Gilder is willing to take his ideas.
"Wealth and Poverty is a diatribe and a panegyric. It is a diatribe against egalitarian reformers, welfare bureaucrats, social workers, academic radicals, upper class 'defectors', liberal editorialists, fashionable publishers, civil rights workers, and feminists - above all, feminists, who turn out to be the deepest and most dangerous enemies of capitalism. It is a panegyric for entrepreneurs, businessmen, risk-takers, investors, the thrifty poor, and aggressive males - above all, aggressive males, the true source of capitalist wealth. Gilder believes that welfare only makes the poor poorer, sinks them in the mire of dependency and moral decay. If they are ever to escape, what they need above all is the 'spur of their poverty' ... what the wealthy need by contrast, is more money. Their spur is greater and greater wealth, low taxes and capital gains. All the complex ills of the U.S. economy today come down to this: we take too much money from successful businessmen, and we give too much money to the poor.
The refrain is familiar enough, and it makes for a defense of privilege that occasionally rises, as we shall see, to lyrical heights. But Gilder's book does have its peculiar features, and chief among these is his view of Man and Woman. Even here, it would not be difficult to trace the sources of his argument; what is peculiar is the feverish pitch and the rising note of hysteria with which he presents it. The male of the human species, it seems, is not by nature a capitalist; he is not HOMO FABER either, not a worker, producer, wage-earner. He is (even you and I) a hunter, fighter, sexual athlete, player of games. He is irresponsible, irrepressible, a hedonist of the fleeting moment - until he encounters Woman. The crucial civilizing role is played by the female, not only in some prehistoric age but here and now, everyday. Male energy is harnessed by womankind, like a roaring river by a dam. Only married men are likely to be responsible workers and potential capitalists, connected to the future through the wombs of their wives.
But when Man encounters not Woman but Feminist, the divinely or biologically ordained order is shattered. Instead of being enticed into home-making and wage-earning, he is driven back into the forests or into the macho culture of the streets. And the effect is the same when the welfare state, beset by feminists, feeds money into the hands of women, depriving their husbands and lovers of the confidence and authority that only female dependency can provide."
One hopes that this current unreasonable and reactionary view of the state of affairs will quickly pass. Our problems as individuals and as a nation are too pressing to dally long with such nonsense.
Marybeth Pritschet-Davis
PASTORAL REMEMBRANCES: JUNE 1, 1979
After two days of rain, June's here with a smile-sunshine, blue sky, and fresh, cool air. And a nice breeze soughing in the pine woods and rustling the popple leaves. I never saw a popple tree till 1 came to Wisconsin. It's a kind of cottonwood with a tall, straight, silvery trunk and lemon-drop leaves that dance and quiver in the breeze (and turn the brightest yellow in the fall). The woods here are thick with them. They grow fast and in almost every kind of soil. They are the "commoners" the woods, and most northcountry people look down on them, finding them inferior to the pine and the maple and the oak. But they are graceful and lovely and they have covered up the ravages left by generations of woodsmen who have cut down the Wisconsin woodlands. . .
We just got back from a ride on the ponies--about six miles through the woods and along the Newood River that runs near the farm. We saw a hawk's nest in a jackpine tree. Paul climbed up and found three eggs in it, mottled brown and as big as chicken eggs. The mother hawk was in a nearby tree, protesting loudly. We discovered a beaver pond, dammed up along one side, with a lot of gnawed trees lying about. And we saw two deer—one lying almost hidden in the river grass and the other, running across the grassy road. . .
It looks more and more as if I must return to teaching for awhile, for as lovely as it is here in the countryside, as usual, the human-relations aspects are not. . . We are finding more and more unspoken conflict with those whose traditions we are violating. . .At this point, there seems no other way than to earn some money to buy our own land, here or someplace else. If only people could just live and let live when differences emerge. . .
******
When Sally Kaufman asked me to write "something on rural women" for the MLT newsletter, I didn't know that soon I would be moving from our Indiana farmhouse (to which we came from Wisconsin), back into the city to focus on my graduate studies. Having now made that choice for myself, it seems somewhat ironic that I should speak for and to women who have chosen the country. Memories and questions-rather than convictions- fill my thoughts these days, and so it is of these that I shall speak.
In the urban centers of our nation, women individually and collectively are seeking, demanding, and in some cases achieving social, political, and economic footholds in a terrain once claimed by men. In the countryside, where conservative, male-dominated traditions endure, women-particularly those rurally born and raised-are isolated from the mainstream of social change. Those who seek change usually leave the farms; those who stay on are content with things as they are. And they resist and resent a woman who doesn't know her proper place. What is a woman's place in the countryside?
The city offers women autonomy and the opportunity to contribute to society outside the domestic sphere. The city has broken our bondage to tradition, and in so doing, has united many women in a common cause. But the urban women's struggle for sexual and economic independence often overshadows our human need for mutuality, community, and rootedness in the natural world. And so some women have left the cities to go back to a rural way of life, to reenact a new covenant with the earth.
But we can't go back; we must go on to some place new, towards something not yet realized. Where is this new place? How do we get there? And to whom shall we turn for guidance? Our road ahead has many forks and bends.
In Country Women, a handbook for new (women) farmers, Sherry Thomas and Jeanne Tetrault have this to say:
One of the most fundamental facts of country life is that one is always learning... In the country, there is room for a women's renaissance, the space and time is there for a total redefinition of ourselves, our relation to the earth, our relation to each other... We have the skills, the enthusiasm, the resources to build our dwellings, raise our food, take care of our most basic and real needs. This self reliance fosters an incredible strength. It is a hard and demanding way to live, but one rich and sustaining.
In the country we have room to grow. In the country, women can renew an age-old association with nature. We can find a new balance, a new harmony, in our relationship with men. One thing is clear. In the country, women must help one another, for the map has not yet been drawn to show us how we must go.
- Luise Gilk
9 May 1981
Splash, splash
Gentle rains fall and then
the warmth begins
slowly, then suddenly, clouds move away
and radiant sunshine floods and warms
the earth
flowers look up, new life stirs in
mother earth
woman like earth in new life
is radiant, gentle but strong, loved by man
giving him courage, motivation, strength
to be, to love, to nurture with
her, new life in all men.
THE LAND TRUST HOMESTEAD ING FARM: REFLECTIONS OF A WOMAN ON LEARNING HOMESTEADING SKILLS
This season's spring crop of student homesteaders yields as many women as men on the Land Trust Homesteading Farm. The homesteading goal of living as self-sufficiently as one can plays a major role in attracting young women to life on the farm. Some have been exposed to farm life before, have grown up seeing a farm's operation, but, as one woman said following her stay at the farm, "There were lots of practical things I didn't know how to do." Her father's farming skills had not been passed on to his daughters as they had to his sons. Lacking the know-how she felt, as many of us do, a certain displacement. She and others have come to the farm to acquire skills.
Duplicating men's skills is not the motivating desire of the women on the farm, but rather to acquire skills with which to craft our own work. Mastering these skills fosters an increased inner strength. For some the skills learned will become an occupation. An increasing number of women travel the countryside working for other farmers until they can &et up their own homesteads. As they move they do odd jobs when the need arises. In this way they free themselves from the leaden grip of an economic system which for years held no active place for women. Now that the walls of that system are crumbling under the entropy of capitalism's voracious profit motive, increasing numbers of feminists are refusing to provide the patch-plaster to help maintain business-as-usual. Many see homesteading as a way to tunnel under and around a petrified economic system that cannot meet the needs of human beings.
The models in our society are male models. Living on the farm in a circle which includes men, comparisons gnaw at us. One women's pride in fixing a machine is dampened by her awareness that a fellow male student could have fixed it in less than one-quarter time. This forces constant confrontation with the larger cultural issue of human equality. Experiences such as this also sharpen women's determination to chisel out a cooperative model in which men and women share activities. We seek to be viable parts of a whole rather than to contain the whole within us.
In the activities of homesteading many women see a way to refurbish a sense of the wholeness necessary to human existence. Living close to the land, working with nature, it is easier to recognize the interconnectedness of our lives. Working each day with basic necessitites - growing one's own food, building one's own shelter -- provide a special vantage point from which to view the world. The landscape becomes a part of us by being connected visually through the taste, feel, smell and sight of our own lives.
Corpus Callosum
more a woman now
more a man
women are a part of Man
yet men are born of Woman
let the fissure of the brain be healed
we are the commissural fibers
who unite the cosmic hemisphere
of the divided Creator Spirit
let the fissure of the soul repeal
- Paul Gilk