Susan Buckingham - Gender and Environment

Gender and Environment

In recent years the relationship between gender and the environment has become more explicit and apparent. Womens work is often linked to the environment through subsistence agriculture, domestic chores and hired work such as sowing and weeding, and much of this work is made harder through environmental degradation. The relationship between gender and the environment is less obvious in the West where most people are more distant from the source of their food supply, the energy and the water they use. However, womens social and biological roles bring them closer to an awareness of a number of environmental hazards.

Gender and the Environment introduces all the key areas in genderenvironment relations in a lively and accessible manner, using case studies from North and South and covering relationships at the family, community and international levels. It provides an analysis of how gender relations affect the natural environment and of how environmental issues have a differential impact on women and men.

Susan Buckingham-Hatfield is a senior lecturer in the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences at Brunel University.

Routledge Introductions to Environment Series

Published and Forthcoming Titles

Titles under Series Editors:
Rita Gardner and A.M. Mannion

Environmental Science texts

Environmental Biology
Environmental Chemistry and Physics
Environmental Geology
Environmental Engineering
Environmental Archaeology
Atmospheric Systems
Hydrological Systems
Oceanic Systems
Coastal Systems
Fluvial Systems
Soil Systems
Glacial Systems
Ecosystems
Landscape Systems
Natural Environmental Change
Using Statistics to Understand the Environment

Titles under Series Editors:
David Pepper and Phil OKeefe

Environment and Society texts

Environment and Economics
Environment and Politics
Environment and Law
Environment and Philosophy
Environment and Planning
Environment and Social Theory
Environment and Political Theory
Business and Environment

Key Environmental Topics texts

Biodiversity and Conservation
Environmental Hazards
Natural Environmental Change
Environmental Monitoring
Climatic Change
Land Use and Abuse
Water Resources
Pollution
Waste and the Environment
Energy Resources
Agriculture
Wetland Environments
Energy, Society and Environment

Environmental Sustainability
Gender and Environment
Environment and Society
Tourism and Environment
Environmental Management
Environmental Values
Representations of the Environment
Environment and Health
Environmental Movements
History of Environmental Ideas
Environment and Technology
Environment and the City
Case Studies for Environmental Studies

Routledge Introductions to Environment

Gender and Environment

Susan Buckingham-Hatfield

First published 2000 by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

2000 Susan Buckingham-Hatfield

The right of Susan Buckingham-Hatfield to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

Typeset in Times by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, Wolverhampton
Printed and bound in Great Britain by Biddles, Ltd, Guildford and Kings Lynn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Buckingham-Hatfield, Susan.

Gender and environment / Susan Buckingham-Hatfield

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references (p. ).
1. Sex role-Environmental aspects. 2. Man-woman relationships

Environmental aspects. I. Title

HQ1075.B8 2000
305.3-dc21

99-054628

ISBN 0415168198 (hbk)
ISBN 0415168201 (pbk)

Contents

Series editors preface: Environment and Society titles

The 1970s and early 1980s constituted a period of intense academic and popular interest in processes of environmental degradation: global, regional and local. However, it soon became increasingly clear that reversing such degradation would not be a purely technical and managerial matter. All the technical knowledge in the world does not necessarily lead societies to change environmentally damaging behaviour. Hence a critical understanding of socio-economic, political and cultural processes and structures has become, it is acknowledged, of central importance in approaching environmental problems. Over the past two decades in particular there has been a mushrooming of research and scholarship on the relationships between social sciences and humanities on the one hand and processes of environmental change on the other. This has lately been reflected in a proliferation of associated courses at undergraduate level.

At the same time, changes in higher education in Europe, which match earlier changes in America, Australasia and elsewhere, mean that an increasing number of such courses are being taught and studied within a framework offering maximum flexibility in the typical undergraduate programme: modular courses or their equivalent.

The volumes in this series will mirror these changes. They will provide short, topic-centred texts on environmentally relevant areas, mainly within social sciences and humanities. They will reflect the fact that students will approach their subject matter from a great variety of different disciplinary backgrounds; not just within social sciences and humanities, but from physical and natural sciences too. And those students may not be familiar with the background to the topic, they may or may not be going on to develop their interest in it, and they cannot automatically be thought of as being at first-year level, or second- or third-year: they might need to study the topic in any year of their course.

The authors and editors of this series are mainly established teachers in higher education. Finding that more traditional integrated environmental studies or specialised academic texts do not meet their requirements, they have increasingly met the new challenges caused by structural changes in education by writing their own course materials for their own students. These volumes represent, in modified form which all students can now share, the fruits of their labours.

To achieve the right mix of flexibility, depth and breadth, the volumes, like most modular courses themselves, are designed carefully to create maximum accessibility to readers from a variety of backgrounds. Each leads into its topic by giving adequate introduction, and each leads out by pointing towards complexities and areas for further development and study. Indeed, much of the integrity and distinctiveness of the Environment and Society titles in the series will come through adopting a characteristic, though not inflexible, structure to the volumes. Each introduces the student to the real-world context of the topic, and the basic concepts and controversies in social science/humanities which are most relevant. The core of each volume explores the main issues. Data, case studies, overview diagrams, summary charts and self-check questions and exercises are some of the pedagogic devices that will be found. The last part of each volume will normally show how the themes and issues presented may become more complicated, presenting cognate issues and concepts needing to be explored to gain deeper understanding. Annotated reading lists are important here.