Why this genocidal attitude toward wolves? Why yet another irrational campaign against them? Could it be that, more markedly than other animals, man ’ s wolf is, metaphorically speaking, a woman?
Anthropology
There is some anthropological evidence that Western man ’ s wolf is a woman. In the East, birthplace of the major Western religions, one symbol of the Great Mother goddess was, indeed, a she-wolf (Walker 1988, 393). Wolves, in popular imagination, bay at the moon. It has been well documented by Merlin Stone and others that the moon was another symbol of the goddess, from Arabia to Zimbabwe. The Chinese depict the raven as a wise grandmother or crone, another guise of the goddess (Hecate to the Greeks and Romans), and in the wild, wolves and ravens are companions who play tag and find prey together.
The Sioux named the December moon “ The Moon When the Wolves Run Together. ” For European-American women, there is the tradition of the historical wolf clans. The Celts had them, the Romans too. Women would go out into the forest dressed in wolfskins, sing, dance, and ritualize the wild side or celebrate the mystery of difference. They knew then how to combine the domesticated dog necessary to a smooth-running society and the freedom-seeking wolf, their existential sister, within their own hides. Best of all, it appears they were not afraid to relate to their own bloodthirstiness, power, and sensuality — antinomies to their prescribed cultural roles — and did not need to project these qualities onto nature “ out there. ”
The Native American tribes, of course, have not forgotten what the loss of the wolf would mean in the depths of the American psyche. However, the Native American relation to nonhuman animals, while respectful and spiritually rich, is still largely representative of the male hunter-prey paradigm. The question of real moral responsibility for violence against animals, and a relationship of care respect for difference needs further exploration by feminists.
Interestingly, in the lore of tribes with special interest in the wolf, such as the Sioux, women are associated with wolves through marriage or caring relationships (Lopez 1978, 121). There are stories of female shamans who are either named after or are aided by wolves. There may be an empirical basis for this association of wolves with feminine power — an alpha female usually outlasts five alpha males as leader of the pack, is the swifter hunter when she is young, and is often relied upon for her experience in the hunt.
My Á ntonia: One Woman ’ s Wolf
In contrast to male derogation of wolves in fiction and folklore, American novelist Willa Cather creates a powerful if subtle emotional alliance between Canis lupus and the eponymous Á ntonia of My Á ntonia . 5 In chapter 9, narrator Jim Burden repeats Á ntonia ’ s story of the Russian immigrants Pavel and Peter, who were once the groomsmen of an ill-starred Ukrainian wedding party sledding home through the snow:
The wolves were bad that winter, and everyone knew it, yet when they heard the first wolf cry, the drivers were not much alarmed. They had too much good food and drink inside them . . . The wolves ran like streaks of shadow; they looked no bigger than dogs, but there were hundreds of them. (Cather 1988, 38)
The horses and riders of five of the wedding sledges are devoured by the wolves. Pavel, co-driver of the sixth and lead sledge, flings the bride and the groom who defends her to the wolves in order to lighten the sledge and gain time for the two men to escape.
Although the two survive, they become social and spiritual pariahs — Pavel ’ s own mother “ won ’ t look at them ” — and misfortune follows them even to America.
Cather, interestingly, never focuses on the gruesome predation of the wolves. She couches the macabre scene in mild, even poetic terms: for example, “ they saw behind them a whirling black group on the snow ” (39). In this passage, the evocation of a painterly chiaroscuro creates a dreamy aura. This kind of softening aesthetic treatment together with the far from graphic description of the carnage serves to distance the reader from the full human horror of the episode. One might almost say Cather approaches the killing itself from an amoral or wolven perspective.
The analogy becomes even more resonant when one considers that the female wolf leaders are equal in power, status, and opportunity to alpha males. A Jungian like Clarissa Pinkola Est é s ( Women Who Run with the Wolves , 1992) might also want to point to a “ wild wolf woman ” archetype or center of psychological energy (which itself may be cultural in genesis) in the girl-child ’ s psyche that cries out for expression. But one need not subscribe to Jungian notions to discern in this scene the secret need for a young girl to connect with her sensory life. Notice that Á ;ntonia fails to identify with the victim bride. Rather, in her imagination, she “ sacrifices ” the powerless maiden again and again, to the “ wolves ” — that is, her own creaturely nature — the nature of that which is playfully free to be herself, sexually, artistically, emotionally, and to validate the sensory life as a trustworthy mode of cognition. Unfortunately, as contemporary feminist observers like Carol Gilligan (1982) have pointed out, it is this instinctual nature that typically gets deracinated and withers away in girls after puberty. Á ntonia ’ s secret pleasure in wolves reminds women of the danger of relying too heavily upon the kindness of human society. It is better, she seems to be saying, to recognize and feed one ’ s inner wolves, than to have them loom up behind you in the dark, frightening the horses and the men who might just throw you to the pack.
However, in assessing the events leading up to the killing, the author definitively enters the realm of ethical judgment. Cather places the full weight of moral responsibility first upon the drunken drivers, who are grievously remiss in their duties to their passengers, and then upon Pavel. The heaviest burden of blame falls upon Pavel because, in contrast to the wolves, predators who simply act like predators, this character eschews his common humanity with the bride and groom, and behaves like an amoral animal bent on survival.
In other words, wolves may be trusted to act like wolves, whereas humans may not be trusted always to act like rational, ethical humans, especially toward women. This story obliquely suggests that the bride was in the grip of a society that devalued her and, in the crunch, preyed upon her for its own survival. The townspeople may have been shocked at Pavel ’ s cold-bloodedness, but how many of their families had betrayed their daughters into dreary or abusive marriages for economic or social advantage or repressed women ’ s wild, natural creativity in order to preserve the status quo?
There is a dual lesson for animal ethicists in this story. In developing a deeper ethical relationship to difference, it is incumbent upon us to take into consideration the survival needs and behaviors of wolves before we condemn or punish them for their rapacity. And we must recall our own rapacity, usually less pure in its motivation, and far less forgivable in the face of our supposed ethical development as a species.
There is one more clue to Cather ’ s sympathies with the wolf/beast/instinctual life in her surprising ending to the chapter. One might imagine that the girl Á ntonia and her friend, Jimmy, might be terrified by this tale of death in the snow. It is quite the contrary. They cherish it and repeat it with a secret, even sensual, thrill:
For Á ntonia and me, the story of the wedding party was never at an end. We did not tell Pavel ’ s secret to anyone, but guarded it jealously — as if the wolves of the Ukraine had gathered that night long ago, and the wedding party been sacrificed, to give us a painful and peculiar pleasure. At night, before I went to sleep, I often found myself in a sledge drawn by three horses, dashing through a country that looked something like Nebraska and something like Virginia. (41)
Á ntonia, the young girl, had obviously been sufficiently impressed by the story to preserve it in her memory and pass it on to Jim. Yet again, one might suppose a little girl to be traumatized by this nightmarish yarn, and to try to repress it. Why does Á ntonia take such voluptuous pleasure in the story of the Russian wolves?
In framing an answer to this question, it is not proper just to assume an essentialism or equival
ence between nature and little girls. Rather, I would argue for a child ’ s — in contrast to an adult ’ s — purer or more immediate response to the demands of instinct because she has not yet been “ socialized ” or acculturated out of it. The animal nature represented by the wolves may symbolize to Á ntonia her existential freedom to be, to create, to range the wilderness, outside of the restrictions of a patriarchal, turn-of-the-century society oppressive to female Others.
Notes
1. Coined by Fran ç oise D ’ Eaubonne in 1974 as a call to arms for a feminist ecological revolution, ecofeminism is an umbrella term covering a variety of feminist theoretical positions in the field of environmental ethics. While some ecofeminists are concerned about the interconnected domination and abuse of women and nonhuman animals in Western rationalist culture and elsewhere, others think discussions about animals, including the eating of animals, are irrelevant to ecofeminist discourse.
2. For more on speciesism — according a higher ontological value to the human species than to others — see the Nel Noddings and Josephine Donovan exchange in Signs 16, no. 2 (Winter 1991): 418 – 25. The debate over the definition of speciesism and its acceptability in any form in the discourse of ecofeminism is a complex and ongoing controversy, which has crucial implications for the issues of sexism and racism. It is also beyond the scope of this essay. However, both ethicists who accept the propriety of basing human moral prescriptives upon species differences and those who seek attentiveness to species difference without making hierarchical evaluations share a common interest in developing a stronger theory of human relationship to difference. This is especially so in regard to the questions of which animals we eat and the conditions of their captivity and slaughter.
3. Robert Sessions (1991) makes a good case for the compatibility of a deep ecology that generally does not acknowledge the androcratic sources of Naturism and an ecofeminism that does. To this end, Sessions suggests a slight shift in perspective among the deep ecologists, who seek a quasi-mystical oneness with nature and look to traditions like Taoism or thinkers like Spinoza for theoretical support. Rather than focusing solely on ideal unity, Sessions says, humans should try for a sense of community with the animal nations. Although there is unquestionable value in transpersonal unitive experience, I think for many women a sense of “ community ” with wolves is, in fact, a more immediately realizable goal.
4. In nineteenth-century America the argot used for wolf killing was identical with the jargon of “ Indian killing ” : “ loafer, ” “ renegade, ” the phrase “ the only good Indian/wolf is a dead Indian/wolf. ” In my view, this is another piece of linguistic evidence of the psychological linkage forged by men between the despised Other and the wolf.
5. Another work of fiction that depicts an interesting woman-wolf connection is Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ’ s Reindeer Moon (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1987).
Reinventing the Wolf
In light of the foregoing examination of women ’ s religious, philosophical, anthropological, and gender identification with wolves, I would like to propose that ecofeminists find our own images of the wolf, based on its fierce maternity (one may nourish ideas and projects other than or in addition to child bearing); strength in solitude; sensitivity to small but important changes in the environment, emotional or physical; intelligence, sensuality, playfulness, resilience, and powerful hunting instincts (one may hunt for truth or value in life, as well in physical nourishment); and, as Á ntonia understood, enjoyment of freedom and sensory richness.
Konrad Lorenz even saw the rudiments of a political ethic in the social organization of wolves, based on cooperation rather than domination, something akin to Riane Eisler ’ s feminist “ win-win ” model (Eisler 1987).
In any case, there is no need to idealize the she-wolf; just accept her, imaginatively, as one of our planet ’ s own, the way Romulus ’ s and Remus ’ s wolf mother accepted them, trans-species. Of course, this is easier to do with wolves when they behave like us. When they do not, we might try stretching our moral space to let in the differences. This goes beyond the bare minimum of according humanlike rights to nonhuman members of our planetary community.
In “ The Will to Believe, ” William James offered a radical empiricist epistemology in which human minds are seen as centers of creative activity. Our will (faculty of attentiveness) to know makes things more knowable (see Myers 1986, 202 – 3). Perhaps if we are attentive to the wolf in all its nonhuman differences, we may enlarge the field of what we know in the phenomenal world.
And, finally, a deep concern: If American women do not attend to wolves and their fading spirit, if we do not will them continued existence, admire and long for both their familiar and feral qualities, as did the Nations and the ancestors, if we do not take collective moral action to save them, then the wolves will surely leave us. Since the extinction process, worldwide, has already begun, it is time for us to ask ourselves, “ Why wolves? ”
* * *
References
Anderson, Bonnie S., and Judith P. Zinsser. 1988. A History of Their Own: Women in Europe from Pre-History to the Present . Vol. 2. New York: Harper & Row.
Bass, Rick. 1992. The Ninemile Wolves . Livingston, Montana: Clark City Press.
Cather, Willa. 1988. My Á ntonia . Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Originally published 1918.
Cole, Eve Browning, and Susan Coultrap-McQuin, eds. 1992. Explorations in Feminist Ethics: Theory and Practice . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Curtin, Deane. 1991. Toward an Ecological Ethic of Care. Hypatia 6, no. 1 (Spring):71.
Daly, Mary. 1984. Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy . Boston: Beacon Press.
Dillon, Robin S. Care and Respect. In Cole and Coultrap-McQuin, 73 – 78.
Donovan, Josephine. 1991. Reply to Noddings. Signs 16, no. 2 (Winter):423 – 26.
Eisler, Riane. 1987. The Chalice and the Blade . New York: Harper & Row.
Est é s, Clarissa Pinkola. 1992. Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype . New York: Ballantine.
Friedman, Marilyn. 1992. Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community. In Cole and Coultrap-McQuin, 89 – 97.
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a Different Voice . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Koltuv, Barbara Black. 1986. The Book of Lilith . York Beach, Me.: Nicolas-Hays.
Le Guin, Ursula K. 1989. Woman/Wilderness. In Dancing at the Edge of the World , 161 – 64. New York: Grove Press.
Leopold, Aldo. 1966. A Sand County Almanac: With Essays on Conservation from Round River . New York: Ballantine.
Locke, John. 1952. Of Property. Chap. 5 in The Second Treatise of Government , ed. Thomas P. Peardon. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.
Lopez, Barry Holstun. 1978. Of Wolves and Men . New York: Scribner ’ s.
Myers, Gerald E. 1986. William James: His Life and Thought . New Haven: Yale University Press.
Noddings, Nel, and Josephine Donovan. 1991. Comment and reply. Signs 16, no.2 (Winter): 418 – 25.
Rigterink, Roger J. 1992. The Surgeon Moralist Has Determined That Claims of Rights Can be Detrimental to Everyone ’ s Interests. In Cole and Coultrap-McQuin, 40.
Sessions, Robert. 1991. Deep Ecology vs. Ecofeminism: Healthy Differences or Incompatible Philosophies? Hypatia 6, no. 1 (Spring):90 – 108.
Walker, Barbara G. 1988. The Woman ’ s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects . New York: Harper Collins.
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Marian Scholtmeijer
The Power of Otherness: Animals in Women ’ s Fiction
Contextualizing the Problem
In her introduction to Buffalo Gals and Other Animal Presences, Ursula Le Guin raises the issue of talking animals in literature and conceives of the alienation of the Other in the following superb analogy:
In literature as in “ real life, ” women, children, and animals are the obscure matter upon which Civilization erects itself, phallologically. That they are Other is . . . the
foundation of language, the Father Tongue. If Man vs. Nature is the name of the game, no wonder the team players kick out all these non-men who won ’ t learn the rules and run around the cricket pitch squeaking and barking and chattering! (10)
Le Guin ’ s image is lighthearted: phallological civilization is a game, and the indifference of “ these non-men ” to the rules of the game leads merely to their being barred from the field. There are benefits to such lightheartedness. It mocks reified attitudes toward the Other, renders those attitudes absurd, and prepares the way for dismissal.
Change the arena, however, and deadlier implications emerge. Change the arena, for example, to the site of the bullfight or rodeo, to the slaughterhouse, to the dissecting table, to the zoo — or to any place where humans use the otherness of animals as the rationale for cruelty and exploitation, and the issues become much more resistant to ridicule. The injustices suffered by women — the suppression, silencing, and violence — are arguably an extension of the more easily identified abuse of animals. The otherness of women from an androcentric perspective finds a correlate in the more radical otherness of the animal from an anthropocentric perspective. On both scores — the magnitude of abuse and the extent of alienation — the analogue of animal otherness is an idea that can serve to free women from the equivocation that might lead them to collude with their abusers. If the object of feminism is to defeat androcentric culture, then animals offer an ideational model for ontological defiance. Despite abuses up and down the scale, animals have not come over to the side of their oppressors.
Animals and Women Feminist The Page 30