Woman the Hunter

[razzle]

Anybody read Woman the Hunter, by Mary Zeiss Stange? Fascinating book.

[amieK]

I just checked out the reviews at Amazon.com. Might provide a good counterpoint to some of the eco-feminist psychobabble I was exposed to in my CanLit course.

I enjoy the opportunity to explore issues from many differing perspectives.

Might read this over Christmas break but can't guarantee I'll be going out to shoot Bambi's mother at the end of it. lol

Regards,
amie

[amieK]

Quote from the amazon.com editorial review:

Stange charges that ecofeminism romanticizes nature and casts women as victims, absolving them of culpability in environmental depredation, from the responsibility that all humans ``are up to our elbows in blood.'' Hunting, on the other hand, confronts ``the painful paradox of life itself: Some of us live because others die.'' This ``blood knowledge''--a spiritual interconnectedness most often manifested as affection and respect for quarry--results in a sense of mutual obligation between people and nature that can't be bought at the grocery.

When I renounced vegetarianism 7 years ago, I told a friend of mine I wanted to help her butcher her chickens when the time came around. I felt like if I was going to eat meat then I better face up to where it came from. She never did call me though.

amie

[razzle]

yup, that's much of her most interesting thesis. She further helped me understand what's going on with the romanticization of native american/First Peoples in regards to issue of nature--the creation of the "eco-indian" is a bizarre invention largely of white academia, and no closer to the truth than any Noble Savage myth.

She also addresses the information I've read before in my anthro of food research regarding the inherent sexism in the analysis of data about "hunting" and "gathering," which applies to paleo and LC eaters as it skews the understanding of just how much meat is in HG diets. That is, "hunting" is what men go and do, by definition and "gathering" is what women do, by definition, even if it means the women are shooting game, fishing, netting birds, gathering insects, and otherwise providing protein foods. Interestingly enough, women end up providing 60-85% of the food HG tribes eat (big game hunting is often unsuccessful and the men come back with nothing but fish stories). If in an argument against LC or paleo eating, someone says "80%" of HG diets are vegetables, what they may be saying is they've read that 80% of HG diets are "gathered"; because of the bizarre defintions of hunting and gathering by anthropologists, "gathering" means woman-hunted, and so they are all eating over 50% animal products.

Anyway, fascinating book and well worth a read for any paleo eater. Thanks for responding, amie.