Sir, - I refer to the response from Mr Shane Morris (June 17th), to Aine de Paor's article on gender divisions emerging in attitudes to genetic engineering. There is no doubt that Ms de Paor has described eloquently our patriarchal male-dominated system of power and decision-making, so evident in most areas of environmental protection and health matters.
Regarding the attitude of women in general to genetic engineering, Mr Morris dismisses Dr Mae Wan Ho's comments on the gender divergence as "off-the-cuff", but then proceeds to support her by his own references to the 1993 Eurobarometer, which shows that regardless of whichever "new technology" is in question, there are higher support levels among men than women.
Incidentally, this gender distinction is further emphasised in the more recent 1997 Eurobarometer survey devoted to Bio-technology, which shows a consistently higher support (around 10 per cent) among men than women for genetic engineering.
The awareness of companies of the instinctive resistance of women to this "life-altering science" is best measured by the vast sums of money now targeted at women (most recently in the Monsanto advertising in the British press) and the sudden proliferation of female spokespersons hired by the same companies, while at the same time men remain entrenched in the positions of power and decision-making. "It is not a statistical accident that men, and not women, control the major corporations and the great private fortunes" (Connell, Masculinities, 1995).
There is no doubt that the implications of genetic engineering, not only in food production but in reproduction, will impact on women more immediately than on men.
Vandana Shiva, the eminent Indian scientist, also quoted in Ms de Paor's article, speaks from her own well-documented experiences in the developing world, and is the keynote speaker at the first Grassroots Conference on Viodevastation in St Louis on July 17th to 19th. Mr Morris will be pleased to hear that there will also be a number of men, as well as women, from all over the world taking part.
I suggest that there is an abundance of evidence to validate the proposition that there is indeed gender divergence in attitudes to genetic engineering, as Aine de Paor wrote. And further, that it is also apparent that in science, and indeed in the holistic nature of the life itself, the views of Dr Mae Wan-Ho are much closer to the reality of the finite planet we live in, than Mr Morris would care to accept. - Yours, etc., Paula Giles, Green Party Spokesperson for Food and Agriculture,
Bandon,
Co Cork.