Carolyn Baker: Dystopians On Estrogen

This past week the New Yorker published “The Dystopians” by Ben McGrath, by whom I was interviewed back in October and who allowed me to make an appearance in the article with a brief mention of my forthcoming book. Sitting with this piece for the past seven days has been unsettling, not because I personally wanted more air time, but because of the article’s paucity of references to the female perspective regarding the collapse of civilization. Although I greatly admire Dmitry Orlov and James Howard Kunstler, and while I feel camaraderie in particular with my friends in the Vermont Independence movement, Rob Williams and Thomas Naylor, I found “The Dystopians” to be an appallingly white male extravaganza.


…My complaint is not about some notion of “equal time” but rather the consequences of omitting a uniquely female perspective from the discourse about collapse and the construction of a new paradigm of life on the planet. Despite my caveat, I know I will be accused of proclaiming the superiority of the female gender, but that is absolutely not my intent. In fact, quite the opposite. The conversation requires the distinct characteristics of both genders, and without it, only half the landscape of collapse can be viewed.

Countercurrents