the [female] body: a compilation
an ongoing education in embodiment through physiology, sociology, and theology/ethics
Listening through The Unsettling Of America a year or two ago gave me some lightbulb moments. Especially pertaining to how modernity’s treatment of land fertility echos how we treat women and their bodies. I think he’s on to something:
“Let me outline briefly as I can what seem to me the characteristics of these opposite kinds of mind. I conceive a strip-miner to be a model exploiter, and as a model nurturer I take the old-fashioned idea or ideal of a farmer. The exploiter is a specialist, an expert; the nurturer is not. The standard of the exploiter is efficiency; the standard of the nurturer is care. The exploiter's goal is money, profit; the nurturer's goal is health — his land's health, his own, his family's, his community's, his country's. Whereas the exploiter asks of a piece of land only how much and how quickly it can be made to produce, the nurturer asks a question that is much more complex and difficult: What is its carrying capacity? (That is: How much can be taken from it without diminishing it? What can it produce dependably for an indefinite time?) The exploiter wishes to earn as much as possible by as little work as possible; the nurturer expects, certainly, to have a decent living from his work, but his characteristic wish is to work as well as possible. The competence of the exploiter is in organization; that of the nurturer is in order — a human order, that is, that accommodates itself both to other order and to mystery. The exploiter typically serves an institution or organization; the nurturer serves land, household, community, place. The exploiter thinks in terms of numbers, quantities, "hard facts"; the nurturer in terms of character, condition, quality, kind.”
― Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture
What follows is by no means an exhaustive list (and it will be an ongoing, running one meant to be referred to at leisure). It is simply an effort to compile many previously shared links from past newsletters, as these topics often come up… yet I am always scrambling to compile or find what has stood out to me as worthy of sharing over the course of this newsletter. I’m still living and learning and will add to this accordingly.
The articles and essays are ones that have been so impactful that many of them simply came to mind, from the depths of memory, as I put this together. That’s the wonderful thing abut deliberately choosing writing to share on a weekly basis. Some piece may have been a wonderful read from that week, but also… I might never forget it.
Below, I have especially tried to categorize the reading into 1) physiology, 2) sociology, and 3) theology, ethics.
One beautiful realization throughout the several years of creating this newsletter is the fact that all knowledge is interconnected, and female embodiment and the world are more intertwined than we often realize. The lines blur yet they’re worth considering together… and that’s kind of the point of this whole endeavor at Life Considered. So, these categories surrounding female embodiment exist more to serve you in finding general trains of thought—rather than defining hard-and-fast boxed labels to complex topics. :)
And finally, because this is the internet: Sharing something is not 100% endorsement of every word and all that jazz. Read, learn, and synthesize wide knowledge, folks!
I hope there’s something of value for everyone here.