WOMEN AND ENVIRONMENT

Discussion

•Why is the environment a part of the feminist project?

•How do environmental problems affect women’s bodies and women’s lives?

Environment & Women’s Health

• Breast cancer• 1 in 8 women will be

diagnosed with breast cancer

• Early menarche increases risk

• Average age of Menarche (onset of first menstrual period)• Rates of early onset (7-

8 yr/old) higher in communities of color 1830 1920 1980 2006

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

17

14

12.5

10.5

Average age of Menarche US

Gendered & Environment• Gendered Division of

Labor:• Collecting wood to burn

for cooking• Finding clean water

sources• Nurse ill children/elders• Work in off-shore

production zones with few environmental/work-place regulations

Lots of Women Activists• Rachel Carson• Wangari Maathai• Erin Brokovich• Vandana Shiva• Lady Bird Johnson• Sandra Steingraber

• Many local activists

Rachel Carson - Silent Spring

• Drew attention to the dangers of pesticides (DDT).• Wants us to see human and non-human animals as

part of a single living system (Ecosystem). • Documented the “silencing” effect of killing

insects on food chain (birds, small mammals, predators, humans).• Bio-accumulation• The book created the contemporary

environmental movement. • She died of breast cancer in 1964.

Rose Moon

•What are Steingraber’s main arguments?

Individualizing Health

• “…pregnant women are urged to drink no alcohol. … no one knows if an occasional glass of wine is harmful. Nevertheless, caution dictates … “In ignorance, abstain.” Yet the same principle is not applied to nitrates in tap water.? • “Why is there no public conversation about

environmental threats to pregnancy? …. Why does abstinence in the face of uncertain apply only to individual behavior? Why doesn’t it apply equally to industry or agriculture?”• Steingraber, 516-517

Precautionary Principle

“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof.”