New Perspectives on Environmental Justice
New Perspectives on Environmental Justice
Gender, Sexuality, and Activism
Women make up the vast majority of activists and organizers of grassroots movements fighting against environmental ills that threaten poor and people of color communities. New Perspectives on Environmental Justice is the first collection of essays that pays tribute to the enormous contributions women have made in these endeavors.
The writers offer varied examples of environmental justice issues such as children's environmental health campaigns, cancer research, AIDS/HIV activism, the Environmental Genome Project, and popular culture, among many others. Each one focuses on gender and sexuality as crucial factors in women's or gay men's activism and applies environmental justice principles to related struggles for sexual justice. The contributors represent a wide variety of activist and scholarly perspectives including law, environmental studies, sociology, political science, history, medical anthropology, American studies, English, African and African American studies, women's studies, and gay and lesbian studies, offering multiple vantage points on gender, sexuality, and activism.
Feminist/womanist impulses shape and sustain environmental justice movements around the world, making an understanding of gender roles and differences crucial for the success of these efforts.
Foreword
Introduction
Part One. Gender, Sexuality, and Environmental Justice: Historical and Theoretical Roots
1. Toward a Queer Ecofeminism
2. Women, Sexuality, and Environmental Justice in American History
Part Two. Gender, Sexuality, and Activism
3. Feminist Theory and Environmental Justice
4. Witness to Truth: Black Women Heeding the Call for Environmental Justice
5. The Role of Gender, Race/Ethnicity, and Class in Activists' Perceptions of Environmental Justice
6. Sexual Politics and Environmental Justice: Lesbian Separatists in Rural Oregon
7. Toxic Bodies? ACT UP's Disruption of the Heteronormative Landscape of the Nation
Part Three. Gender, Sexuality, and Environmental Health Concerns
8. Producing "Roundup Ready" Communities? Human Genome Research and Environmental Justice Policy
9. Public Eyes: Investigating the Causes of Breast Cancer
10. Gender, Asthma Politics, and Urban Environmental Justice Activism
11. No Remedy for the Inuit: Accountability for Environmental Harms under U.S. and International Law
Part Four. Gender, Sexuality, and Environmental Justice in Literature and Popular Culture
12. Bodily Invasions: Gene Trading and Organ Theft in Octavia Butler and Nalo Hopkinson's Speculative Fiction
13. Home Everywhere and the Injured Body of the World: The Subversive Humor of Blue Vinyl
14. "Lo que quiero es tierra": Longing and Belonging in Cherrie Moraga's Ecological Vision
15. Detecting Toxic Environments: Gay Mystery as Environmental Justice
16. "The Power is Your, Planeteers!" Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Children's Environmental Popular Culture
Notes on Contributors
Index
