Description: The Red Planet explores why humans went from being peaceful and egalitarian with a preference for plant food to a hyper-masculine paradigm with consequences ranging from misogyny, racism, and environmental abuse to animal cruelty, classism, and warfare.
We humans have an extraordinary capacity for compassion. Much of it is in response to the atrocities we inflict on the planet, its animals, and each other. The popular explanation for this paradox is that we evolved as carnivorous "killer apes," who gradually curbed our lust for violence, with frequent exceptions, by implementing humane social norms. This explanation is so well worn, especially in the American psyche, that it epitomizes cliché. So, we could be forgiven for believing it, when nearly every word is fiction. Current research shows that our species narrowly survived extinction in the last Ice Age only because we evolved to become inherently friendly, conciliatory, and nonviolent--all feminine attributes. During that time, we retreated into rich, verdant landscapes that contained foods that didn't run away from us or bite back; plant foods that our bodies preferred. The verdict is clear: Our original biological and social programming is nonviolent. So, what changed? What turned us from goddess-worshiping, plant-eating peacemakers into god-worshiping, animal-eating warmongers? The Red Planet answers this question by proposing a Gendered Landscapes Theory, or GLT. In short, the GLT asserts that geography shaped the early human mind, which in turn shaped its first cultures, which were originally nonviolent. Much later, and in a few critical instances, geographies that favored hyper-masculine traits encouraged animal cruelty, punitive gods and religions, and social inequalities. However, we'll see that it didn't have to be that way, even in harsh landscapes. And recently, a growing consciousness has rekindled our intrinsically feminine qualities of nonviolence, relationship, and equality.Review Quotes: "The Red Planet: Gendered Landscapes and Violent Inequalities explores the way dominant worldviews shrink our possibilities. Bill explains how our historical and cultural narratives have been shaped by socially constructed binaries of gender and sexuality. This book encourages questions about other ways of thinking and living, ways that are perhaps outside of mainstream ability to imagine because of the stories we have been given."
--Jean Alger, PhD, Professor of English, Trinidad State College
--Kara Davis, Director of Impact, Unovis Asset Management, contributing author to Letters to a New Vegan, and co-editor of Defiant Daughters "The Red Planet offers its readers a journey through [the] introspection of self, others, societies, and the narratives that have shaped them. This book provides a pathway of understanding through Bill Hatcher's careful and thoughtful investigation into the stories that have fashioned traditional perceptions of race, gender, sex, and the environment."
--Jennifer Fluri, PhD, Professor of Geography, University of Colorado, Boulder "Reading The Red Planet is an incredible journey that sparked my imagination! It is filled with both thought-provoking fairy tales and profound scientific insights. It not only shed light on the fascinating connection between geography and human evolution but also challenged and informed my understanding of masculinity and femininity."
--Zhen Li, Geography student, Colorado Mountain College "The power of [Andean mound sites] is a specific example of the long view of humanity taken in The Red Planet. Using a Gendered Landscapes Theory, Bill Hatcher shows how geography may originally have shaped people's minds and cultures which, in turn, reshaped their geography."
--Kimberly Munro, PhD, Assistant Instructor of Anthropology, New Mexico Highlands University