Kelly McLeod
This essay investigates how women and botanical subjects have come to signify each other and been exploited through processes of marginalization by patriarchal capitalist systems, as well as how women have reclaimed their identities by altering the dialogue in botanical metaphor. Language and classification systems in Eurocentric cultures have applied gender binary thought to nature, characterizing it as feminine. The idea that women and nature are not only linked, but inferior to the binary opposition of the masculine and the logical has been reinforced by botanical metaphor, Linnaean taxonomy, and other sign systems. This division of power has enabled the exploitation of women and nature based on capitalist myths of exchange and sign value, and the subversion of other values which exist outside of capital interest. Women’s bodies and nature’s resources have been commodified, aestheticized, and sexualized for the purpose of capital gain within an ocular-centric society, where prioritization of the beautiful conceals complex identities and agency. The presentation of plants as performative botanical subjects in gardens and scientific illustrations conceals their native contexts, creating a decontextualized understanding of man’s relationship to nature (one of cultivator/cultivated), and by extension to femininity. I will be focusing on how 17th to 19th century gender politics have affected modern science and philosophy, using feminism as a methodology and gender theory analysis. By applying more contemporary insights to the way in which the past is understood, it becomes easier to recognize the systems and processes by which nature and women have come to be associated and oppressed. I would also like to show how many women have reversed some of the hurtful gendered stereotypes by engaging in the dialogue of femininity and reclaiming the botanical metaphor as s symbol of strength and knowledge.
European science, industrialization and capitalism all rely on myth and the reductionist world view to create hierarchical divisions of knowledge and power within their systems. In the sciences, these systems implement a binary of specialist knowledge versus ignorance, so that authority of particular topics is inaccessible to all but a privileged few. This divide excludes women, indigenous people, and nature from positions of power and respect, and thus they become resources to be exploited for capital gain. Through this binary language of masculine European dominance, several myths are created. Firstly, the myth of science is that it is value-free, objective, and infallible. Second, the capitalist myth that the earth and human labor can sustainably be endlessly extracted as raw materials to be transformed into capital. This mechanized world view leaves no room for sympathy with one’s environment, or with exploited people, as they are only seen as resources. These myths are simply not true, and the world has already begun to see the affects of global warming and biodiversity decline as a direct result of this mindset disregarding nature’s value outside of the capitalist paradigm (Mies & Shiva, 2014). Despite the evidence that these ideologies are imperfect, they are reinforced by sign systems that permeate everyday life. In Myth Today, Barthes (1984) describes the construction of myth through the signified, signifier, and signs which in turn form the basis for symbol and myth. In the context of capitalist patriarchal science, we see that women and nature have come to signify each other; creating a ‘sign’ that is opposite of, inferior to, and ‘other’ from the logical man. This ‘other,’ feminized nature, then becomes a signifier for raw materials and resources to be extracted to support the symbol of capital. This in turn signifies the myth of the sustainability of capitalism through the systematic exploitation of the regenerative power of nature, women, and the labor of non-European peoples (Mies & Shiva, 2014).
During the enlightenment, European culture became fascinated with logic and rationalism as a way of understanding the natural world (Mies & Shiva, 2014). Through this system, man separates himself from nature, creating a binary in which man’s logic is a method for classification and domination. This obsession with classification was driven by the imperial need for capital and power. The natural sciences, which were meant to be value-fee and objective, were driven by capitalist imperialism and were susceptible to the political and gender biases of the time. Linnaean taxonomy became a perfect colonial tool for the homogenization of botanical knowledge for the purposes of bio-prospecting, as well as giving botanical science a professional status excluding women and native peoples. Sciences that were once considered “women’s knowledge” (such as herbalism) became discredited. As the work of women in science became appropriated, the role of the feminine gender within society became weakened. Binomial nomenclature became the standardized naming system for plants around the globe, and as each new species was ‘discovered,’ it was “named” by a masculine European voyager (O’Donnell, 2010). The Latinate names of these plants are deceptive; the native cultural contexts in which the plant had previously existed are erased by this notion of ‘discovery,’ as if its existence is only legitimized by the masculine proclamation of a European scientist. Secondly, Linnaean taxonomy itself is sexualized, gendered, and ocular-centric. Since plant names are often based on morphologic description, the use-value of the plant becomes one dimensionally aestheticized by being reduced solely to its visual characteristics (Ryan, 2009). The final insult to nature in colonial botany is that the plant is assessed for its commodified value in European markets (whether for food, medicine, or decoration in gardens) and brought back to Europe to be arranged and cultivated in artificial environments.
Plants and nature are further compartmentalized and decontextualized through the process of symbolic display in botanical gardens. By featuring a variety of plant life from around the world, these gardens become a microcosmic expression of imperial wealth and power (Mukerji, 2005). The plant as a living being is subverted by being perceived as a horticultural object; part of a spectator-spectacle relationship in which it is viewed for its beauty. As the bloom is valued as the most beautiful and desirable phase within the life cycle of a plant, its seasonal appearance creates the illusion of performativity to be admired by human. This hierarchical relationship casts the plant (representing nature, beauty, and femininity) as an object meant to be used for the delight of the rational masculine subject (Ryan, 2009).
Many 17th to 19th century philosophers, who are still highly influential today, have compared women and flowers for their beauty, frailty, and intellectual inferiority to men. When upper class women began to take interest in botanical subjects due to Erasumus Darwin’s poem The Botanic Garden, there was much controversy over their ability to reason and partake in the sciences. It was thought by Rousseau that women only took interest in logic and reason as a way of embellishment; as if a woman wanting to educate herself was synonymous with being fashionable. Though women were thought to be closer to nature, it seemed that they still were not allowed to engage with it scientifically. Women’s ability to reason was further undermined by comparisons to plants in ways that emphasized their weakness, immobility, and performative beauty. Hegel contrasted men and women by stating that man is more like an animal, where women are more like plants. As man is seen to have agency, be active and able to take action; a woman is seen as more plant-like and passive. Since man is active he may move about and acquire knowledge that is universal, and though while women may have “insights,” they are only local, and limited by emotions and lack of mobility. Burke believed that women’s beauty, like flowers, is directly correlated with their weakness and reluctance; an idea reinforced by Kant’s description of femininity as delicate and naive (George, 2007). Other botanical metaphors specifically targeted women as frivolous and trendy, such as Alexander Pope’s comparison of feminine beauty to that of variegated tulips; specifically alluding to the fact that such tulips were planted in dung and thus the apparent beauty is a symptom of hidden ugliness (George, 2007). In The Flowers Personified, written in 1849, by J. J. Grandville, women were literally portrayed as flowers, representing gendered notions of femininity such as the archetypal “damsel in distress” (Branson, 2012). These satirical comparisons do both women and plants a disservice: by showcasing weakness and beauty at the expense of intellect, they create a feminine paradigm that is essentially subordinate to masculinity, ignorant of the values women and plants have to offer beyond ornament. Mary Wollstonecraft engaged with this misrepresentation of women as frivolous plants in “A Vindication of the Rights of Women,” in which she asserted that women have fulfilled this idealized but faltering vision of beauty only because of the way society had ‘cultivated’ them as objects of beauty, thus depriving women recognition of and encouragement for their mental capabilities. Wollstonecraft challenges the way in which women and exotic flowers are compared, revealing that these expressions are ultimately the projections of male desire (George, 2007). Wollstonecraft was addressing the symptom of deeply engrained sexism within her society. By making gendered associations to visual similarities between women and plants, women are made to be thought of in terms of their bodies rather than their minds and are denied autonomy. In this way women are dehumanized, being made ‘other’ from men. Men are seen as people, where as women are seen as their gender. Therefore, the notion of gender is problematic because it automatically signifies women as a deviation from what is ‘normal’ or human (Butler, 1990).
Since women were discouraged or restricted from professional science in the 17th to 19th centuries, many chose to engage with botanical knowledge through gendered proclivities, such as needlework and art. Women who attended local seminars to learn more about botany were also discouraged, as they were not taken seriously by their male peers who focused more on their appearance than their academic interests. Though women learned of botany through many of the same channels as men, their work was undermined by their gender. Much of the art and women’s writing has been categorized as crafts and hobbies and thus not considered as serious contributions to botanical knowledge. Even in the case of botanist and illustrator Maria Sibylla Merian, who was an explorer and scientist who studied plants and insects, was portrayed as a maternal figure rather than a professional scientist in the publication of her work (Branson, 2012). As women’s historical work with botany has been improperly categorized, this knowledge becomes harder to access today. It is unknown what histories have been hidden or what developments may have happened if women had not been hindered from entering the professional sciences by their gender.
Women’s growing interest in botany and Linnaean’s sexual classification system also raised issues of women’s sexuality and decency. The first component of The Botanic Garden is a portion titled The loves of plants in which pollination is described as taking place on the marital bed between gendered husband and wife plants. The most scandalous, however, was the metaphorical description describing ways in which some flowers pollinate with various partners or “concubines” and other flowers sexual systems are barely visible and reproduce in “clandestine” marriages. This information was thought to be scandalous and improper for women to know (George, 2007). Mary Delany, who lived 1700-1788, was one artist who was greatly influenced by these writings, as her artwork is often thought to be an expression of female anatomy and sexuality. The concept that plants reproduction seemed similar to that of humans, and in a ways that did not denote compulsory heteronormativity and monogamy, became a metaphor through which she could describe her intimate relationships with her female friends (Moore, 2005). In her paper cut-outs created from when she was between the ages of 74 to 82 years of age, she uses the associations of femininity and flora and creates bold images where the flower is celebrated. Unlike the dissections of botanical subjects created as scientific documents, her intimate collages give the flower a sense of identity and sensuality. Though Delany’s incredible works were both striking and accurate, they have been discredited and thought of as craft rather that high art due to the fact that she was a woman (Moore, 2005).
Botanical art, as differentiated from botanical illustration, was long considered an amateur craft that was acceptable for women (Moore, 2005). Whereas botanical illustration made to serve specific scientific needs, botanical art is less regimented and thus can be open to more expressive interpretations of botanical subjects. Though it has faced gendered discrimination over the years, and often been thought of as kitsch or purely decorative, botanical art can show unique analyses of the natural world. As a member of botanical art community, I have observed that women are still the predominant inheritors of this traditional gendered practice, continuing to reclaim botanical imagery and femininity. Plants are depicted as living individuals as opposed to generalized specimens to be dissected and compartmentalized. Botanical art celebrates plants for their individuality rather than their adherence to standard characteristics needed for speciation, and often challenges tradition beauty standards. Fiona Strickland, for example, paints dying flowers. The dead flower is an individual, rather than a specimen, with which the viewer can empathize. Rosie Saunders is another contemporary botanical artist who shifts the perception of flowers as delicate and timid by painting them at a very large scale. This creates a space where the plant is given power, and the once frail petals become an impressive and unfamiliar landscape. Today botanical art is thriving, more popular than ever before. Women continue to take back the dialogue and question the passivity of plants and femininity by applying their knowledge and experience into stunning visuals that have impact on the way inherent value of nature and biodiversity is perceived.
Understanding gendered power dynamics can help explain the ways in which women and nature have come to be associated in ways that have been systematically harmful. From commodification to aestheticization, capitalist patriarchal systems have marginalized that which is not perceived as ‘masculine.’ Systems within the natural sciences were developed for imperial purposes, thus creating bias and privileging European males; shaping a view of nature as the opposite of logic, and a thing to be dominated. Understanding of these systems can be applied to the way in which botanical metaphor implemented to change feminine paradigms and allow for the acceptance of more humanized, complex identities. Representing botanical subjects as unique, living individuals can help create a sympathetic (rather than mechanistic) vision of the natural world, equalizing gendered binaries and allowing for respect of natural resources and the acknowledgment of complex feminine identities.
References
Barthes, R. & Lavers, A. (Trans) (1984) Myth Today, Mythologies, New York: Hill and Wang.
Branson, S. (2012) Flora and Femininity: Gender and Botany in Early America. Common-Place, American Antiquarian Society and the University of Connecticut, http://www.common-place.org/vol-12/no-02/branson/
Butler, J. (1990) Gender trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1: Subject of Sex/Gender/Desire, New York: Routledge.
George, S. (2007) Botany, Sexuality, and Women’s Writing 1760-1830: From Modest Shoot to Forward Plant, Manchester: Manchester UP.
Moore, L. L. (2005) Queer Gardens: Mary Delany’s Flowers and Friendships. Eighteenth-Century Studies 39.1, pp. 49-70, http://www.jstor.org/stable/30053588
Mies, M. & Shiva, V. (2014) Ecofeminism, Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood Publications.
O’Donnell, R. (2010) ‘Imperial Plants: Modern Science, Plant Classification and European Voyages of Discovery’, Graduate Journal of Social Science, 7.1., http://gjss.org/sites/default/files/issues/chapters/papers/Journal-07-01–05-ODonnell.pdf
Ryan, J. C. & Rooney, Monique (ed.) (2009) ‘Plants That Perform For You’? From Floral Aesthetics to Floraesthesis in the Southwest of Western Australia,’ Australian Humanities Review, 47. pp. 117-40. Available from: http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-November-2009/ryan.html
Mukerji, C. (2005) ‘Dominion, Demonstration, and Domination,’ In: Schiebinger, L. (ed.), Swan, C. (ed.). (2005) Colonial Botany, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.