Fertile Ground: Women, Earth, and the Limits of Control

by Irene Diamond

Irene Diamond has written a passionate and provocative book that challenges the feminist movement to step beyond its preconceptions. . . . We desperately need this synthesis. -from the Foreword by Starhaw

In a wide-ranging critique of Western thought and practice, ecofeminist Irene Diamond raises unsettling questions about the ethic of control that permeates how we think about fertility, sexuality, agriculture, and the environment.

Genres: Feminism

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks at the comparison between the way the West treats fertility in terms of its female population and its agricultural produce. Diamond suggests that the West is obsessed with "control" and regulation when it comes to fertility: control over manor and quantity of the soil's produce and control over the production of human babies. She looks at the way in which the birth control pill has gone from a tool of women's liberation to a tool of regulation and control by doctors and compares that to the way genetic modification, pesticides and fertilizers regulate our agricultural market. What we don't have, Diamond argues, is a society that trusts in either the Earth or individual women to exert adequate, unaided authority over their own (repro)duction.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book looks at the comparison between the way the West treats fertility in terms of its female population and its agricultural produce. Diamond suggests that the West is obsessed with "control" and regulation when it comes to fertility: control over manor and quantity of the soil's produce and control over the production of human babies. She looks at the way in which the birth control pill has gone from a tool of women's liberation to a tool of regulation and control by doctors and compares that to the way genetic modification, pesticides and fertilizers regulate our agricultural market. What we don't have, Diamond argues, is a society that trusts in either the Earth or individual women to exert adequate, unaided authority over their own (repro)duction.

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

a wonderful "ecofeminist" piece. My central take-away from this book is that the desire to control transcends the object of control. What I mean by this is that the urge that leads a chauvinist husband to keep his wife in her place is fundamentally similar to the one that allows us to destroy a rain forest or push indigenous people off of their land. All oppression comes from a common source and only when that root is exposed can people (and all other things) truly be free.