Editor’s note: Most of the world’s science is conducted in service of profit and militarism which both depends upon for its creation and results in ruin for the natural world.
In this article, Evan Richards draws links between the destruction of our planet, “anti-aging medicines,” patriarchy, and rejection of biological reality.
By Evan Richards
“The assumption that women and nature exist for the use and convenience of men has generated technologies undreamed of”
— Patricia Hynes, ‘The Recurring Silent Spring’ (1989)
In April, the BBC headlined an article titled ‘Rejuvenation of woman’s skin could tackle diseases of ageing’. The BBC’s Pallab Ghosh writes that “Researchers have rejuvenated a 53-year-old woman’s skin cells so they are the equivalent of a 23-year-old’s” with the eventual aim being “to develop treatments for age-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and neurological disorders.” It is added that “the technology is built on the techniques used to create Dolly the cloned sheep more than 25 years ago.”
Throughout this article I will argue that the BBC is pushing unnecessary “high-publicity” and “high-drama” techno-medical solutions that are distracting and harmful. Overall, health is being weaponised by science to justify unnecessary experimentation that maintains patriarchal values. I argue that a radical-feminist conception of health is needed now more than ever.
“We see the same world. But through different eyes”
— Virginia Woolf, ‘Three Guineas’
First, it is important to look into the myth of objectivity within science and medicine. The subject of medicine is one that is often boasted about and leveraged against those who resist industrial patriarchy. The topics of health, psychiatry, therapy, and science are dominated with liberal rhetoric, with critical voices being routinely left out. As Janice Raymond wrote: “technological progress has become a sort of secular religion and anti-technology, a control mechanism for marginalising criticism”. Through the doctrine of liberalism, theories of “neutrality” and “objectivity” reign supreme to rationalise man’s irrational systematic plunder of the earth.
A friend of mine described the liberal mentality well: “subjective things like ‘good’ are decoupled from their subject. ‘Good for industry’ simply becomes ‘good’. Good for whom? The bears? The salmon? The birds? The humans who have lived there for generations? Supremacist thinking doesn’t just claim the supremacist’s feelings trump all others; the most insidious part is that it completely erases other feelings. They just don’t exist, you’re not just the only one who matters, you’re the only point of view”. Through institutions such as religion and science, objectivity makes what is good for a small elite of rich white men become “good” for everyone else. The subjective experiences of those lower on the hierarchy are ignored.
Take the famous words of Francis Bacon, “knowledge is power”. Here we deal with abstract knowledge, separated from patriarchal society. In saying “knowledge is power” Bacon gives the game away as knowledge becomes defined as that which makes man powerful. Knowledge that does not serve power, but only to heal the land is habitually disregarded as “knowledge”. The knowledge of soil, seeds, biodiversity, bees and butterflies is ignored in favour of the knowledge of chemical fertilisers, pesticides, GMOs and how to increase the profit of agricultural monopolies. Throughout this article, the same problems arise as the myth of male reason attempts to justify unnecessary experimentations, which guise the true goal of possession and control.
“It is instructive to look back on the history of eschatological technology, reproductive as well as otherwise, formerly touted as salvific, but often saving no one.”
— Janice Raymond, ‘The Marketing of the New Reproductive Technologies: Medicine, the Media and the Idea of Progress’ (1990)
Derrick Jensen said that “we in this culture have come to conflate this way of life with all life on the planet”. Health under civilisation is centred on human people, non-human people (often called ‘resources’) are not accounted for. Such blind reductionism will inevitably be destructive as humans cannot live without the vibrant ecosystems that sustain the web of life. Therefore, as Andrée Collard pointed out, “if health were a genuine concern, scientists would turn their minds to restoring healthy conditions for all life.” Patriarchy fixates on isolated problems, naming them diseases. It then focuses on cures over prevention, reflecting the patriarchal mantra of control which “derives from the fear of being subject to nature”.
Unlike the patriarchal sciences, feminism sees everything as interconnected. Robin Morgan said that if patriarchy could be summed up in a word it would be “compartmentalisation”. Patriarchy splits and divides, creating contradictions, and turning reality into antagonistic categories. Reason is split from emotion, culture is split from nature, the mind is split from the body, sex is split from love and science is split from art.
Patriarchy’s lust for division is so uncompromising it even split the atom, spelling out the needless deaths of thousands and poisoning the world into a perpetual schizophrenia of nuclear apocalypse. Through the artificial manufacturing of these splits, patriarchy seeks to elevate man above nature. The scientist under patriarchy is hence always apart from nature, separated in a lab, able to observe nature “objectively”. A radical-feminist conception of science on the other hand recognises that we are instead a part of nature. As Janice Raymond wrote, a radical-feminist kind of science “is thus ecological” as “it recognises that everything is related to everything else.”
Mary Daly had written in 1978 that “scientists are priests of patriarchy”. Indeed, as Sandra Harding wrote “science is a social problem because the society that shapes it is a social problem.” In Daly’s words, “the development of modern technology… Has facilitated movement beyond mere passive expectation to active enactment of the envisioned horror show.” Vandana Shiva, writing in her book ‘Staying Alive’ published in 1988, focused on “science and development as patriarchal projects”. It is this “modern reductionist science” which must be replaced with a feminist science.
“By definition, un-health cannot bring about health”
— Andrée Collard, ‘Rape of the Wild’
Under patriarchal medicine, the health of Mother Earth is not acknowledged in the production of medicines for humans. Given that the etymology of health means to be whole, any medicine which is dependent on the destruction of the environment, is obviously not healthy. For example, premarin based estrogen replacement drugs which come from the rape and abuse of horses, are not healthy. If those horses were not strapped down and routinely violated, civilisation could not provide them.
When you see the world as a whole, not isolated and fragmented, your conception of health is sustainable. However, because patriarchy does not recognise the interconnectedness of our world and our bodies, its projects of “health” are reversed. In the end to be healthy means to escape one’s body (transsexualism / transhumanism), in the end to be healthy means to escape the Earth (space travel) and live “freely” encased in metal or uploaded into ‘the cloud’. Scientists through doublethink will annihilate us in their conquest for health.
“Men don’t age better than women, they’re just allowed to age”
— Carrie Fisher
An Everyday Health article on the history of Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT) has a section titled “Forever young? Anti-aging Momentum Begins”. In the article, it references a professor of obstetrics and gynaecology, Gloria Bachman, who said that hormone therapy improves the look of the skin, breasts, and muscles, therefore playing an important role in boosting a woman’s self-image and self-esteem. Underlying the concern for women’s health is an endorsement of patriarchal beauty values. Tying self-esteem to youth, rather than criticising an sexist and ageist culture, does not boost self-esteem, it damages it leading to harmful beauty practices. The cure is not medical-technology that ultimately serves male degraded lust for artificial beauty, the cure is radical-feminism and a women’s movement that challenges an ageist and sexist culture.
It is no surprise that this research targets women. For one, paedophile culture is a driving motivation behind it, shown clearly when organisations such as the Lifespan Extension Advocacy Foundation advertise that “age is just a number”. Paedophile culture affects all women, as Alicen Grey explains, “on the one side you have the infantilization of babies and little girls, on the other side, you have the sexualising of adolescent and infantile qualities in adult women.” This technology will therefore enforce authoritarian beauty expectations, there is a reason “rejuvenation of women’s skin” was the title and not men’s. The science is focused on women, because patriarchy seeks to control women.
For the sadistic priests of patriarchy who are “irritated by mystery” and who desire to “penetrate the unknown”, the yearning for control is endless. The BBC article is particularly dangerous, yet simply follows in a long-standing tradition of the malestream media to promote and advertise these phallocratic technologies, when, as Janice Raymond points out, “failure is often recognized after the fact of damage”. To promote the childish excitement of men like Professor Reik who work for the Wellcome Trust, with no critical voice, allows these projects to become greater catastrophes than they already are.
“I think it is important first to recognise the difference between ageing, which is a physiological process, and ageism, which is a form of oppression.”
— Barbara MacDonald, ‘Look Us in the Eye: The Old Women’s Project’ by Jennifer Abod.
The threats are biomedical as doctors, engineers, scientists and technocrats who experiment on women’s bodies in the goal of gaining “knowledge” ultimately gain control over women’s bodies as women become increasingly dependent on them, unable to live autonomous lives. The threats are also social, as what this technology ultimately achieves is the preservation of an ageist and sexist world. Just as transsexualism achieves the perpetuation of sex-role-stereotyping, these technological “solutions” achieve the maintenance of paedophile-culture, where women ageing is taboo.
This blame shifting from society onto the body, guised under the concern for women’s health, violates bodily integrity through genetic engineering and sustains the patriarchal world. Janice Raymond wrote in 1979 that “we are witnessing in the transsexual context, science at the service of a patriarchal ideology.” The patriarchal doctrine of sex-role-stereotyping creates the problem of transgenderism to begin with, placing sex as the enemy. Here, the patriarchal doctrine is immortality, naming age as the enemy.
“If tomorrow, women woke up and decided they really liked their bodies, just think how many industries would go out of business.”
— Gail Dines
The threats lie in sadomasochistic beauty rituals, there to keep women in a constant state of objectification. Mary Daly said that “the use of beauty… Functions to keep women in a state of being touchable, malleable, pouroverable”. Women are, in her words, made “the touchable caste.” This technology would keep women trapped in the male gaze, never ageing, unable to grow old. An experience which is already the norm. Given patriarchy’s prescription that women must be young and fertile, the abuse of women who do and do not conform and buy into these new technologies, will increase. Given the crippling beauty standards women are already coerced to perform, the prospect is undoubtable. Paedophilic male entitlement to women’s performance of artificial youth will only grow.
This objectification of women goes in tandem with the wider cultural rise of pornbots and development of reproductive technologies in society. This is the continued procession of “robotitude”, a term coined by Mary Daly to stress “the reduction of life in the state of servitude to mechanical motion.” Mary Daly’s prophetic insight in 1978 exposed how “the direction of phallotechnic progress is toward the production of three-dimensional, perfectly reformed “women”, that is, hollow holograms.” As she revealed, “the march of mechanical masculinist progress is toward the elimination of female Self-centering reality.”
“Prevention is the imperative need”
— Rachel Carson, ‘Silent Spring’
The BBC article says that the aim of this research and technology is to develop treatments for “diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and neurological disorders”. This comes under scrutiny however when we realise that half of U.S. cosmetics already contain toxic chemicals that cause these problems in the firstplace. The drive for acquiring youth in the beauty industry already proliferates age-related diseases itself. Exposure to chemicals such as Phthalates for example, found in makeup, “has been explicitly linked to obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in several studies”, the very problems these scientists claim they wish to cure. One would think if the goal was to combat disease as advertised, one would put energies into fighting this problem first before going ahead with the high-risk technology used for cloning sheep.
Nonetheless, these scientists march on in their crusades. It is no surprise that these methods also increase cancer, as it says in the BBC article, “the technique cannot immediately be translated to the clinic because the IPS method increases the risk of cancers.” It continues, “but Prof Reik was confident that now it was known that it is possible to rejuvenate cells, his team could find an alternative, safer method.” The rhetoric of addiction permeates all liberal-scientists.
Patriarchy creates the problem and sells the “cure”. The problem of toxic beauty is never seen as part of the equation, the knowledge of feminists who have written extensively on challenging harmful beauty practices is not regarded. Any solution which does not increase the power of the sociopaths in charge is shunned. The problem is always instead a lack of data, a lack of research, and a lack of test subjects. This myopic, mechanistic and reductionist worldview of modern-day science has allowed the Father to be blind in his abuse, addicted to the torture of the Earth, thinking only of himself, he spells out the demise of all.
“Death has become an imposition on the human race and is no longer acceptable.”
— Alan Harrington, ‘The Immortalist’
The need to read Janice Raymond and revive a radical-feminist conception of medicine whilst rigourously investigating the risks of genetic engineering and pharmacogenomics is stronger than ever. Transhumanists have always been uncomfortable with that which is outside of their control, death is seen as an imposition on humanity that we need to be liberated from, our flesh and bodies are seen as meat-avatars, prisons, limiting us of our creative potential. As the trans-identifying-male Natasha Vita-More stated, “our bodies will be the next fashion statement; we will design them in all sorts of interesting combinations of texture, colors, tones, and luminosity”. This comes from the patriarchal mind/body split, fostering a scientific faith in immortality. As Derrick Jensen wrote “a fear of death and a yearning for immortality is a primary motivator of much human supremacist science”. Transhumanists have always seen age as their enemy, and sought to control it.
The section on ‘Longevity’ from Andrée Collard’s book, ‘Rape of the Wild’, is stupendous in its analysis of this necrophilic endeavour, which makes life dependent on industrial civilisation. That is, dependent on torturing animals, mining rare earths, and of course dependent on phallocentric theories of scientists and doctors. A resistance movement is needed, otherwise there will be something worse even than the gift of death, there will only be the non-presence of the machine.
Evan Richards is from England, and is a volunteer with Deep Green Resistance.
Image from ‘Look us in the Eye: The Old Women’s Project’, a documentary by Jennifer Abod (great watch!).
Amazingly powerful piece. So well said, they will not stop unless they are made to stop their anti-earth, anti-nature and anti-human activities. Their god is profit and power, their arrogance is supreme. The author of this piece is entirely correct, together we have to take more action, collectively, to resist.
“Radical feminism,” as represented in the above, is just as racist and sexist as that which it condemns. “White” “men” are no more responsible for the rape of nature than are yellow women, black men, brown women, or red men.
Regardless of color or gender, we all choose to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. There are millions of women who enjoy pornography and are leaders of industrial capitalism, just as there are millions of blacks and East Asians who are ass deep in destroying the world.
Do the names Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton, Idi Amin, Barack Obama, Mao Zedong, or Indira Ghandi ring any bells? Not a white man among them!
The problem is who you are, what you believe, and what you do, not how your skin reflects light, or what type of genitalia hang from your groin.
Yes, men of all colors are far more responsible historically for the ills of the world than are women. But technologies have erased the gender gap in terms of physical strength. Today we also have black female fighter pilots, and yellow female nuclear scientists — as well as white women like the one who was recently sentenced for the sex trafficking of young girls (whose name escapes me).
There are also millions of white men who are psychologically incapable of rape. “Radical feminism” is just another term for bigotry by the historically oppressed, who have now been “liberated” by industrial capitalism. Today we have people of all colors and both genders driving the planet to ruin. The destruction of the natural world is now fertile ground for non-whites and women, too.
Instead of focusing on the color of people’s skin, being “white” or any other color best describes one’s attitudes and actions, and one’s view of life. There is certainly a white culture, and it is certainly the biggest problem out of all the other cultures. All the people you mentioned are “white” regarding their actions and attitudes, even though their skin isn’t white. Same with women who act like men and suppress their female and feminine attributes, except that’s about men & women as opposed to skin color.
@Mark_Behrend you resort to sweeping statements too much to convince me. I laughed when you stated: “But technologies have erased the gender gap in terms of physical strength.” Not true. Rigidly gendered roles continue despite the promise of technology in erasing a gender gap.mAnd as for your huge claim ““Radical feminism” is just another term for bigotry by the historically oppressed, who have now been “liberated” by industrial capitalism,” I fail to see how industrial capitalism has liberated me–a radical feminist. Take care! Your own bigotry is obvious.
I think that the more fundamental and thus bigger problem is technology itself, and the desire to use it (for whatever reason(s)) instead of living naturally. (By “technology” I don’t mean natural acts like using sticks or stones.)
I also view anthropocentrism as being self-centered and selfish, not necessarily reductionist, though that can obviously be a factor. There’s also the problem of promoting the quantity of life instead of the quality of it, another human failing. The root cause of this problem is humans’ failure to evolve mentally and spiritually. That evolution would preclude anthropocentrism or other self-centered ideas, feelings, and attitudes, but only a tiny percentage of humans have focused on mental and spiritual evolution.
“Reason is split from emotion, culture is split from nature, the mind is split from the body, sex is split from love and science is split from art.”
In spirituality this is called “false dualities,” and is an erroneous way of looking at life. It’s also what makes the large majority of religion actually anti-spiritual, because one of the foundations of spirituality is oneness, and religion advocates false dualities like body & soul and heaven & hell.
“In the end to be healthy means to escape one’s body (transsexualism / transhumanism), in the end to be healthy means to escape the Earth (space travel) and live “freely” encased in metal or uploaded into ‘the cloud’.”
This is a perversion of trying to evolve mentally and spiritually. Ideally, it would be great if humans could evolve into non-corporeal beings, like energy-based beings instead of the matter-based beings that we are. That doesn’t mean humans should be come some kind of android or other artificial “life.” Instead, humans should just focus on expanding our consciousness and go wherever that leads, probably millions of years from now (not that I expect humans or much if any life on Earth to be around much longer because of human destruction of the natural world, but that’s another issue). Regardless of the end result, I would disagree that there’s anything wrong with “escaping” through mental and spiritual evolution, though it’s not an “escape” any more than growing into adulthood from childhood is an escape. But of course the unnatural escapes mentioned here are not evolution; instead they’re examples of lack thereof, more like de-evolution.
Humans in “developed” countries (consider the true meaning of that term) live about twice as long as they would in nature. That’s the real problem here. Many if not most of us reading & writing here should already be dead of old age, but because of our environmentally and ecologically destructive society that provides an unnatural overabundance and unnaturally large variety of food, and to a lesser extent because of industrial medicines, we live until we’re unnaturally very old. This fact is fundamental to this discussion and should always be considered.
As to the death issue, as they teach in Buddhism, all things are impermanent. Everyone dies, whether you’re a human, a moth a sun, or even a galaxy. If you don’t want to die, don’t be born. The obsession with avoiding death is just more egotism, falsely thinking that one’s individual self is the end-all and be-all of existence, and that one’s individual self is separate from the rest of existence. No one wants to die, but people should accept the fact that they will, and not destroy the planet and kill the life here in order to try to avoid dying.
Men and women think very differently – men tend to think linearly and women, cosmically, holistically. There are other differences too. What you just did is typical patriarchy but you don’t it. Because patriarchy is like water to fish. So I’ll explain from the feminine side – which has not been heard for eons. This is what you did – you see things in terms of instances instead of ratios. It’s a common pitfall in patriarchy. You cannot equate the Margaret Thatchers of the world to the ratio of men who have led people to war and destruction. The factor you are referring to is that there are always exceptions to the rule. Not that I like rules but let’s say exceptions to the median. The exceptions are usually small percentages (ratios) and the median is usually very large like 80% or so. So yes there are black women fighter pilots but looking at the ratios, it’s really so small as to be not worth mentioning in comparison. You can’t base your thinking in terms of false equivalencies is what I am saying. I agree however that the narrative needs to change. The word “feminism” sounds industrial, we need a new word and I think that would explain the female aspect very nicely – egalitarianism. This is for everyone, not for just women. Like what men did, they excluded the other half of the human species. Men need to wait a while before they can be described as “intelligent”. Except for a handful of men who recognize what i say is right on.
“Therefore, as Andrée Collard pointed out, “if health were a genuine concern, scientists would turn their minds to restoring healthy conditions for all life.””
Good quote for a solid beginning to change direction. Don’t laugh but my 2¢; is my idea for real equality within the human species will only be successful with a complete redo, complete changing of systems to change practices of inequality. As my mom would say, “time to go back to the drawing board.” What I say is “you can’t fix broke with broke.”
Global protection is on auto drive to keep the global hierarchy secure. This is built in to all current systems/practices we live by. Aka; even if Hillary on had won she would serve a white patriarchal system, and not improve a way for females of any race.
All allowances for subculture expressions are designed to better assimilate to patriarchal systems of power. Allowance may be an ultimate control to ‘allow’ recognition of problems while keeping the status quo of a patriarchal system.
Complete change of systems are needed to change patriarchal rule. We need to decolonize because we love bee’s more than ourselves kind of thing, and then our ideas of gender shouldn’t be an issue
Like racism, patriarchal control is built into the systems so we all perform by mandatory default to keep secure the positions of power. Even with our objections to specific injustices, we continue to perform the illusions of the insidious toxic mimics of choice to change, but in
reality is it keeps the system the same. Insanity?
Brilliant article. Wow, mind blowing. Thank you Evan. Derrick Jensen’s articles are awesome too. I happened to friend him on facebook. I reached out to him, and let him know about the work I do which is writing about a new framework which caters to everyone. Not a feminine framework but an egalitarian framework (we don’t replace one form of supremacy with another!) And he was didn’t want to know about it. I was shocked. He acted superior, snooty, hostile. He insisted I show credentials before spending his precious time. He didn’t ask me anything about the work I had done which was a critique of his “Declaration”. He was hostile, accusatory and dismissive. demonstrating that patriarchy is programming, conditioning, it is in everything we say and do and it is in everyone, in varying degrees. We need to spot it and reprogram. The language was only set out by men, everything we thunk and do in society. Women just tagged along. Men do not realize that the patriarchy is in them, thus the programming continues to be coded. Women don’t realize it either, but women are bludgeoned by it though they do not know it, it remains beneath their consciousness, and just wells up inside. It’s intelligence envy I think. I have the transcript of Derrick and my exchange. I just can’t abide censors, they are closed-minded trolls – all they want is to spout their own views over everyone and they’re not interested if they’re not the central attraction. I wrote this honoring him. He put me off himself! What people say in public can be very different to how come off in private. The Critique of his work is provided below. This gives a totally egalitarian perspective.
Here is a framework that makes patriarchy obsolete. It’s called the Architecture for The New Epoch:
https://deniseward.medium.com/womens-council-constitution-for-the-21st-century-template-for-discussion-746c26d42c2f
“Therefore, as Andrée Collard pointed out, “if health were a genuine concern, scientists would turn their minds to restoring healthy conditions for all life.””
Good quote for a solid beginning to change direction. Don’t laugh but my 2¢; is my idea for real equality within the human species will only be successful with a complete redo, complete changing of systems to change practices of inequality. As my mom would say, “time to go back to the drawing board.” What I say is “you can’t fix broke with broke.”
Global protection is on auto drive to keep the global hierarchy secure. This is built in to all current systems/practices we live by. Aka; even if Hillary on had won she would serve a white patriarchal system, and not improve a way for females of any race.
All allowances for subculture expressions are designed to better assimilate to patriarchal systems of power. Allowance may be an ultimate control to ‘allow’ recognition of problems while keeping the status quo of a patriarchal system.
Complete change of systems are needed to change patriarchal rule. We need to decolonize because we love bee’s more than ourselves kind of thing, and then our ideas of gender shouldn’t be an issue
Like racism, patriarchal control is built into the systems so we all perform by mandatory default to keep secure the positions of power. Even with our objections to specific injustices, we continue to perform the illusions of the insidious toxic mimics of choice to change, but in
reality is it keeps the system the same. Insanity?