In this famously provocative cornerstone of feminist literature, Susan Griffin
explores the identification of women with the earth both as sustenance for
humanity and as victim of male rage. Starting from Plato's fateful division of
the world into spirit and matter, her analysis of how patriarchal Western
philosophy and religion have used language and science to bolster their power
over both women and nature is brilliant and persuasive, coming alive in poetic
prose.
Griffin draws on an astonishing range of sourcesfrom timbering manuals to
medical texts to Scripture and classical literaturein showing how destructive
has been the impulse to disembody the human soul, and how the long separated
might