Permaculture has so far been unable to shed the misogyny that adherents often claim does not exist in its ranks.
TW: Misogyny, rape
Note: This is a direct copy to a medium.com piece I wrote. I wanted to put it here as well to avoid a paywall.
Permaculture brands itself as a fairly progressive movement, peaceful and motivated by a desire for an egalitarian post-violence utopia where all people are equal and the environment well taken care of. This is evidenced in the three ethics of permaculture, one of which is ‘People Care.’ As a result, there is an emphasis in permaculture on nonviolence, embracing diversity, and accepting differences in opinion and culture.
And by looking at the permaculture community as a whole one might be pleased to see the progress it has made. Women make up a very large chunk of permaculture authors, students, and instructors and some permaculture teachers have even expressed concern that they are unable to find enough men to take their courses. Though it was established in a predominantly white, western culture permaculture has made inroads outside of ‘the west’ and has done great things for both disadvantaged communities needing assistance and privileged communities trying to lessen their environmental impact.
Of course, this does not change that most of the biggest figures, the ones who dominate discourse in the movement, are white men. Slightly troubling given the large numbers of women in the movement and an increasing presence of POC practicing permaculture. Perhaps more concerning considering that much of permaculture is drawn directly from indigenous land management techniques from around the world, often with credit but often not.
The rapid offshoot of various and often wonderful online permaculture communities meant only for women might be a sign to how strong patriarchal attitudes run through the permaculture movement as a whole. I am not implying that all of these groups were created specifically *because* of the men in the movement, as there is nothing wrong with women wanting to have a permaculture group for whatever reason they want. Just that there are quite a few and perhaps in some cases it has to do with how women are regularly ignored, patronized, and bullied by the mainstream permaculture as a whole.
Having a Discussion
Discussions about sexism in permaculture are surprisingly difficult to have in many permaculture communities because there is a strong toxic streak of patriarchy that runs through permaculture, in how it was founded all the way to the present day. It rears its head anytime enough men in the movement feel attacked or insecure about criticism lofted at them regarding sexist or racist behavior, or if any kind of social justice issue is raised in the community.
Most discussions of misogyny, often voiced politely and with extreme care (perhaps sometimes because of the fear of bullying or being shunned from the movement), have a wrench thrown in them by white and male voices who find it inconceivable anybody could say the words ‘permaculture’ and ‘sexism’ (‘-ism’ for that matter) in the same sentence.
I’ve seen it myself many, many times. Somebody voices a concern or calls somebody out for something remotely controversial. Somebody dares to take offense at something wildly misogynistic or ask why no women spoke at one of the largest permaculture conferences on earth. Things worthy of discussion, often raised more politely than the situation seems to merit.
Cue an avalanche of triggered white men crying about how women are sexist against men, feminism exists only to divide us, how the user is being a bully, how biological differences between men and women are real so women should stay at home, how women aren’t leaders in the movement because they need to ‘step up’ (conveniently ignoring the large numbers of brilliant and motivated women who teach and write in permaculture circles despite not being given the recognition they deserve). It’s absurd, it’s disgusting, and it is bullying.
Paul Wheaton
But anyways, I’m not supposed to talk about any of this. As Paul Wheaton, the so-called ‘duke of permaculture’ has said: ‘calling somebody a “bully” is a form of bullying in itself.’ I’m going to talk a lot about Paul, who has an outsized presence online and in the American permaculture community, because I think he pretty clearly shows the darker side of permaculture ‘guru culture.’ I know he is not representative of all permaculture, or of permaculture and sustainable ag outside of the US.
Despite his statements to the contrary, bullying, gaslighting, and a strong impulse to censor all disagreement is fairly typical form for Paul. When pressed on any kind of women’s issue he takes offense quickly and appears to have some very strong leanings towards the men’s rights/redpill movement, at least based on his comment history.
Perhaps most egregious is his repeated minimization of the sexual harassment, assault, and exploitation of the women in his own community. As a example: his responses (linked here) to a woman talking about being harassed, assaulted, and nearly raped:
About six years ago a woman told me a story of how she was “nearly raped” (quotes are mine). At first I was prepared to be angry about the rape and the person that almost did the raping. As I heard the detailed story, I was angry with the woman telling the story — after all, there are REAL rapes out there, and calling this “nearly raped” is an affront to women who were ACTUALLY nearly raped, or actually raped!
The story goes like this: the woman is talking to two guys. She really, really, really wants to have sex with one of the guys. But is not interested in the other. She is doing all that she can to seduce the one guy without being a jerk to the other. It seems that the first guy is not at all interested, but the second guy is very interested. My recollection of the story is that she mentions how a woman loves to be swept off her feet. So the second guy picks her up and carries her a few feet. She screams in protest. That’s it. He sets her down and she makes it clear that she is not interested in him — she is interested in the other guy. “Nearly raped.”
I feel bad for guy #2. My impression is that he was trying to be romantic — which is always a bit of a risk that your romantic gesture will be unwelcome. Such a complicated world we live in.
Part of me feels like I should just trust her word — after all, I wasn’t there. But when she was done with the story, I asked lots of questions about it because I was shocked that “nearly raped” would be applied here. After a few minutes of me asking questions, I think she got the idea that I was not going to endorse “nearly raped” so she stopped answering my questions.
Here are some memes he shared on that same thread, please skip if you don’t like redpill dreck:
The ‘We are all human being ones’ looks nice on the outside, but conveniently ignores structural bigotry and minimizes what bigotry really is. Cutesy pictures conveying a problematic message are unfortunately rather common in permaculture (a recent popular image comparing the choice to be vaccinated to liking different food represents comes to mind).
So for somebody like Paul, the leader and creator of one of the largest permaculture forums in the world, to feel comfortable acting like this is troubling. I’m not calling him a sexist, because I don’t know the guy and maybe this is all a big misunderstand, but he seems to have a history of bullying and of posting questionable misogynistic content. But hey, according to Paul “…the very act of FALSELY accusing somebody of sexism should be dealt with just as harshly as the act of sexism.”
I guess I am glad for two things — 1: the fact that all I am doing is pulling sexist garbage off of his own comment history, and 2: obviously Paul doesn’t think that sexism is a huge deal so I don’t think the punishment would be all too harsh.
Of course, Paul might be one of the more egregious examples of ignorance in the permaculture community. If you simply put his words aside as an exception, however, you can find a whole raft of folksy misogynistic discourse that relates directly back to the appeal to nature fallacy, perhaps one of the most damaging ideas internalized by a lot of permies.
Holmgren, Mollison, and the community as a whole
Paul Wheaton, though influential in North America, is by no means representative of the permaculture movement as a whole. Permaculture is made up of many voices, so perhaps it would be a good idea to go back and look at the ideas and views of the two founders of the modern ‘permaculture’ movement, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren.
Before his death Bill Mollison was a force to be reckoned with, pushing for greater scientific rigor in the movement and teaching large numbers of people. He also has a good deal of ‘old-fashioned grandfather’ energy, not exactly ideal for a leader of what is pushed as a progressive movement. He has been accused of attempting (and failing) to limit PDC credentialling in order to push female leadership out of the movement, citing the influence of ‘woo woo’ spirituality into a discipline he wanted to be more ‘rational’ and ‘rigorous.’ This plays directly into old-fashioned stereotypes of women as emotional and illogical and men logical and level-headed. Those women have since gone on to become very influential permaculture teachers.
He was also fairly well known for making misogynistic jokes during presentations at the expense of his female audience. One example, listed in The Politics of Permaculture by Terry Leahy, is him joking about planning his garden so he wouldn’t be visible from the home while lounging about outside, implying that he could hide from his nagging wife who was doing the housework while he did the ‘mens work’ outside.
David Holmgren, his counterpart, also has said some questionable things regarding women’s rights:
Most baby boomers were raised in families where commuting was the norm for our fathers but a home-based lifestyle was still a role model we got from our mothers. In our enthusiasm for women to have equal access to productive work in the monetary economy, few of us noticed that without work to keep the household economy humming we lost much of our household autonomy to market forces.
There is an enormous amount of ‘appeal to nature’ misogyny in the rank-and-file of the permaculture community. Here is a user on the permies forum, who I do not wish to name, discussing feminism. Emphasis is mine.
Or maybe the “Enlightenment” wasn’t quite as enlightened as we thought? No matter how much time passes (unless you know something about evolution that I don’t), women are still going to have a uterus and breasts, and men are still going to be able to build sheer strength that most women can’t match. You can burn your bra all you want, but pretending you don’t have breasts doesn’t make them go away. Especially on a forum where we celebrate the innate nature and unique roles of plants/animals (like nitrogen-fixing, or manure-producing), I think we can celebrate the uniqueness of the genders instead of trying to lump them together into one gender-neutral amalgam.
Maybe the enlightenment that we really need is for women to fully appreciate and utilize their feminine qualities if they want, rather than being told they are only worthy if they can “succeed” at traditional men’s roles. And maybe men should be allowed to be manly if they want instead of having their more rugged qualities squashed by fearful women. I am all for equal value of the sexes, but equal roles just don’t necessarily make practical sense.
Imagine a man and woman plunked down in the wilderness with no preconceived gender roles. Don’t you think they might have a baby, and then the woman would say, “Hey, look, it makes sense for me to take care of this child who needs my milk every hour. Why don’t you go use your strong muscles to move those heavy logs and make us a house?” They will revert to roles that make sense and utilize their innate strengths, even though they haven’t been “conditioned” by “sexist” roles of the past.
Ah! This makes a bit more sense. It’s only natural that those fearful women rear the children and remain in the home as caretakers while the men go out to work and take care of business. After all, women weak and have boob. Men strong and smart. We all separate but equal. Wait a minute…
I’m not going to deny that many couples take on traditional gender roles by choice, and if both people are happy with the arrangement then more power to them. What is unacceptable, however, is the idea that this arrangement is natural and therefore the ideal state of things. It’s a bad, bigoted argument based on a logical fallacy that is endemic in the permaculture community.
An appeal to nature in regards to human relationships is extremely dangerous. It is inherently a hierarchical value judgement placed on human lives. It objectifies women in particular, turning them into just another part of the permaculture homestead. Much like one can use nitrogen fixers to enrich soil and ducks to eat slugs, human females can be used to rear children and keep the home clean. Just another tool in the arsenal.
How did a seemingly progressive movement like permaculture start unconsciously championing a return to the stone age? It’s not just an isolated user in a single thread. It permeates the entire movement. Why is it in so many videos of permaculture projects and farms the women seem saddled with the cooking and child-rearing duties while the men go out to work? Why do so many famous permies say stuff like this and continue to be well-regarded leaders of the movement?
People Care
If ‘people care’ is actually a permaculture ethic, which seems more and more not to be the case, rampant sexism in the permaculture community should not be tolerated. It is, though, which only can be explained by couple of things.
The first is the possibility that part of ‘people care’ is accommodating bigots, something which sounds reprehensible to me (paradox of tolerance, anyone?). Another possibility is that large chunks of the permaculture community have internalized the idea that ‘according to nature’ women are objects to be possessed by men and are therefore not really people to begin with. It certainly fits the the ‘pioneer’ ethic many permie men seem to have, of wanting to carve up a piece of wilderness and make it their own fiefdom.
A Guru Problem
I already know what some people are thinking. These are just a few people. Permaculture is bigger than its founders. If you don’t like it, don’t read it. Not all permies.
I don’t feel like I am exaggerating or picking nits to feel that it is really important to at least be aware of this kind of behavior and to call it out, because at its heart permaculture is a movement that relies heavily on gurus. This group of people seem to have the ability to strongly influence the public face of the movement, so shouldn’t we understand the more problematic parts of their personalities so we don’t make the same mistakes?
There are a lot of teachers, gurus, and leaders in permaculture. Geoff Lawton, Dave Holmgren, Sepp Holzer, Heather Jo Flores, Bill Mollison, Paul Wheaton, Toby Hemenway, Rosemary Morrow, Morag Gamble, Masanobu Fukuoka, Starhawk, Willie Smits, Joel Salatin (some people do consider him a permie, which I don’t agree with. Also, is getting famous for his racist behavior), and so many, more —a list of mostly brilliant people with ideas worth studying; I really do admire many of these people and respect their work greatly.
Many of them seem like wonderful, humble people, but some of the others feel a little too comfortable feeling that they are entitled to make decisions about what it/isn’t permaculture and act as if they represent the movement as a whole. Which is a problem, because these people tend to be the older white men and are trying to speak for a pretty diverse crowd of people.
Mollison — trying to copyright permaculture and limit certification to keep the ‘wrong sort’ out.
Holmgren — marching at a far-right sponsored anti-vaxx rally under a permaculture banner.
Wheaton — public tantrums and banning users off of the very large subreddits (r/homestead, r/permaculture) he used to mod (before being removed as a mod for this very reason, running one of the largest non-reddit permaculture forums and banning/removing people who criticize him, attempting to collectively gaslight his followers by insisting capitalism and permaculture belong together.
If the leaders of the movement feel comfortable speaking like this in public and still act like they represent permaculture, what does that say about what happens behind closed doors? What message does this give to the permaculture movement as a whole? What about the people new to permaculture? How many people have been stomped on, bullied, spoken over, and pushed out of the movement because so many men are unable to deal with a drop of criticism and pushback?
Permaculture will not be able to reach its full potential until it can learn to manage its gurus. It will never be the best way forward until all people feel welcomed and until intolerance is never tolerated. I fear that permaculture will continue to sweep this under the rug and continue to alienate people. So we should probably try to talk more about it.
For excellent permaculture education, articles, and forums, I highly recommend the Permaculture Women’s Guild.