Nature’s figuration as submissive female gave scientific exploitation normative sanction

Evidence

The new image of nature as a female to be controlled and dissected through experiment legitimated the exploitation of natural resources. Although the image of the nurturing earth popular in the Renaissance did not vanish, it was superseded by new controlling imagery. The constraints against penetration associated with the earth-mother image were transformed into sanctions for denudation. After the Scientific Revolution, Natura no longer complains that her garments of modestry are being torn by the wrongful thrusts of man. She is portrayed in statues by the French sculptor Louis-Ernest Barrias (1841–1905) coyly removing her own veil and exposing herself to science (Fig. 17). From an active teacher and parent, she has become a mindless, submissive body. Not only did this new image function as a sanction, but the new conceptual framework of the Scientific Revolution—mechanism—carried with it norms quite different from the norms of organicism. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 755

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Directly serves the ‘Grafting & Growth’ article — the shift from active parent to mindless submissive body parallels how trees-as-infrastructure reframing licensed their management.
• XREF: connects to: Ecofeminism revalues a women-nature connection the west historically devalued to oppress women — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 60; The mechanistic worldview licensed exploitation of nature by rejecting the feminine as real. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 39; The link between feminine metaphors of nature and women’s actual subjugation resisted precise demonstration. — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology,…, 40 (+10 more)

Broader Connections

• Conquering nature is mythically gendered as conquering woman #corroborates (0.95)
• Female virtue is the broken form in which exploited nature enters male culture #corroborates (0.85) — Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment, 256
• The Scientific Revolution’s death of nature licensed nature’s manipulation #expands (0.85) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 761