In her book, The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution, Carolyn Merchant carefully demonstrates how literary, philosophical, scientific, religious, social, and political connections were woven to connect women and nature. Merchant identifies how popularized images of women and nature operate in similar dichotomous connections: "the virgin nymph offered peace and serenity, mother earth nourished and fertilized, but nature also brought plagues, famines and storms . Likewise, the woman was both virgin and witch…the witch, symbol of the violence of nature, raised storms, caused diseases, destroyed crops, blocked generation and killed children” (127). We were already complicit in the expectations placed on her; the other had to be controlled. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay Throughout history, as perceptions of nature and women have changed, it has become more acceptable to combat their troubles with increasingly violent measures. In pastoral art and poetry, nature was depicted as a benevolent woman, “a calm and kind woman, giving her generosity” (7). Since the earth was conceived as a living organism and a mother figure, certain actions, such as mining, could not be justified because they represented a threat and violence against nature/women that was not acceptable. The ethical implications led philosophers, such as Pliny and Seneca, to assert that "while gold mining led to avarice, iron mining was the source of human cruelty in the form of war, of murder and theft” (31). However, these moral constraints dissipated and new values ​​endorsed mining, describing it as a way to improve society. This comparison carries dangerous implications, as Merchant points out, because “sanctioning mining sanctioned the rape or commercial exploitation of land,” which had implications for women's safety and sexuality. In Aristotle's Masterpiece, a popular textbook on sex throughout the 18th century, it was claimed that women took more pleasure in sexual intercourse than men; in fact, women were so "hungry for sex after the age of fourteen that they "do not care when they will be honestly rid of [their virginity]" (133). By constructing images of wild women and chaotic nature, violent control mechanisms were justified. Merchant identifies the influential role played by Sir Frances Bacon in linking sexual politics to the foundations of empirical scientific research. Referring to Eve's corrupting influence, Bacon asserts that, "although one woman's curiosity may have caused man's fall from the domain given to him by Go, another woman's incessant questioning , nature, could be used to find it” (170). This strongly implies that the culture of women and nature are not only at a lower level, needing to be manipulated by a more intelligent force, but also that they are incapable of carrying out such reflection on themselves. Bacon does not hold back from encouraging the “new men of science” to understand that nature “must be ‘put into service’ and made ‘slave,’ ‘constrained,’ and ‘shaped’” (169). Through such questioning, a higher level of knowledge is reached and the social order is in its correct form: man exercising authority over women..