In Conversation: Dendrofemonology and Feminist History with Tiffany Shlain.
- Georgina Gorman
- 54 minutes ago
- 4 min read
‘And then I, again, was spending a lot of time in Muir Woods, and they have one of those tree ring history, historical timelines, which I always loved…And my husband and I were looking at that tree ring, and I was like, wow, there's not one woman on that tree ring, it's all men. And it just hit me like in a flash, like, I need to make a feminist history tree ring.’ - Tiffany Shlain
I/TreeSisters recently had the pleasure of speaking to Tiffany Shlain, a renowned multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker, and national bestselling author. Her achievements and accomplishments are as impressive as her energy and enthusiasm.
Tiffany’s art fuses feminism, philosophy, technology, neuroscience, and Nature, and our conversation roamed just as widely. From a plethora of audience questions, we explored creativity, taking breaks from technology, AI, and even ‘sexy trees’. I only wish we had had more time to go deeper into her extraordinary body of work.
For me, Tiffany’s work often shines such a spotlight on the stories we tell ourselves in the systems we’re in, and how we can question those prominent narratives and… question the ‘standard’ patriarchal, colonist interpretation of our world, and show how different a feminist retelling of history could be. - Georgina Gorman
Dendrofemonology is breathtaking. A vast timeline is hand-burned into the rings of salvaged wood, each mark etched through the ancient language of pyrography. Tiffany begins 50,000 years ago with a powerful reframe: goddesses were worshipped in every part of the world.
She unsettles the version of history many of us were taught as fixed and factual. Before entrenched patriarchy, many civilisations celebrated women and maintained a deep, reciprocal connection with Nature. Her work traces the expansion and retraction of women’s rights across millennia, revealing progress not as a straight line but as a series of advances and reversals.
‘it's all salvaged wood. No wood is harmed in the making of this art.’
Tiffany describes her creative process as a slow, meditative act.
‘I feel like I'm bearing witness to history.’
There is something profoundly symbolic about that act. Fire meets a tree, leaving its mark to tell a story of our human lives.
Dendrofemonology Expand to view the timeline text, burned into the wood using pyrography
50,000 BCE Goddesses are worshiped.
10,000-3000 BCE Women are healers, shamans, and warriors. A number of societies acknowledge multiple genders.
3100 BCE Literacy develops, and seeds of patriarchy spread.
2400 BCE Mesopotamian law declares: “If a woman speaks to a man out of turn, her teeth will be smashed in by a burnt brick.”
200 BCE Goddess worship is forbidden in Judaism, and later, in Islam and Christianity.
690 Wu Zetian becomes the first—and only—female ruler of China.
1100 Matrilineal and matriarchal Hopi tribe establishes the community of Oraibi in present-day Arizona.
1450 to 1918 50,000 women tortured and executed as witches across Europe and America.
1576-1610 Queen Amina rules over Zazzau (present-day Nigeria).
1690s Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz becomes the first published feminist in the Americas.
1776-1860s Abortion up to four months of pregnancy is legal in the United States.
1880s Inspired by indigenous and abolitionist leaders and British suffragists, first-wave feminism gains momentum in the United States.
1920 19th Amendment grants US women the right to vote, although most women of color are disenfranchised until the passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
1920 The Soviet Union legalizes abortion.
1960 FDA approves birth control pill in the United States
1960 Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka) becomes the first woman to be elected to lead a democratic country.
1962 Dolores Huerta co-founds US National Farm Workers' Association.
1960s Second-wave feminism begins with leaders including Dorothy Pitman Hughes, Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Flo Kennedy, and Shirley Chisholm.
1963 First woman in space Valentina Tereshkova flies a solo mission and orbits Earth 48 times.
1972 Title IX prohibits gender-based discrimination in US federally-funded educational programs and activities.
1972 The US Senate approves addition of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution. (The states have not yet ratified it.)
1973 Roe vs. Wade legalizes abortion in all US states and territories.
1974-1980 The Combahee River Women’s Collective calls out the interconnectedness of sexism, racism, and homophobia, and demands change in mainstream feminism and civil rights movement.
1975 Icelandic Women’s Strike held to protest inequality in the workplace and the home. 90% of women participate, and 15 years later Iceland elects a woman president.
1989 Kimberlé Crenshaw defines the concept of intersectionality and ushers in third-wave feminism.
1993 Women allowed to wear pants on the floor of the US Senate.
2006 Tarana Burke begins #MeToo movement.
2016 Hillary Rodham Clinton receives the majority of votes in the US presidential election.
2017 An estimated 5 million people attend Women’s Marches globally. #MeToo goes viral.
2017 Oregon becomes first state to include non-binary gender category on IDs.
2020-2022 US elects first female Vice President Kamala Harris and first trans State Senator, Sarah McBride; Ketanji Brown Jackson becomes first Black woman confirmed to Supreme Court.
2022
Roe v. Wade is overturned, eviscerating federal protection of reproductive rights in the U.S.
Globally, 65 countries have legalized abortions, four in the last year.
Globally, 86 women have been elected president or prime minister to date…
Today:
Tiffany shared her ultimate goal for the sculpture: to bring the feminist history tree ring to ‘every patriarchal monument around the world’. Our audience wasn’t short of suggestions!
If you have connections to spaces that should host Tiffany’s artwork around the world, please reach out to us at support@treesisters.org. We remain hopeful that a UK tour may one day be on the cards.
Our thanks once again to Tiffany for her passion, brilliance and advocacy, and for reminding us of the power that comes from questioning the stories we have inherited. We are deeply grateful, too, for her incredible support of TreeSisters.
Trees are bearing witness to history, and our story lives in the rings. Which stories will Nature tell about us in years to come?
Missed the event? Don't worry, you can watch the conversation back below.
