Women in Community (1977)

Abstract

This article was originally presented as a talk at the 1974 Lindisfarne Conference in Southampton New York which brought together an amazingly diverse group of physical and social scientists, and individuals focused on spiritual, social and ecological transformation. Elise Boulding was the only woman who contributed to Earth’s Answer, the volume of presentations given at the 1974 and 1975 Lindisfarne Conferences. An indication of how much things have changed in the last forty years is the gentle chiding she gives to the assemblage of visionary thinkers about the limitations of the male-dominated language they used. Elise Boulding was in the middle of writing The Underside of History: A View of Women through Time and the historical perspective that informed her future writing on women and the family is already evident in this chapter. At one point she states: “I do not share the general optimism about this being a great time for the creation of the new planetary community.” More than thirty years later, toward the end of her life, we had many conversations about the potential for creating a new planetary community and in the end she was more optimistic.