Description
Book SynopsisThis collection provides a critical, interdisciplinary analysis of how everyday exposures to common chemicals are adversely affecting the health of Canadians and reveals the connections between social inequity, environmental risks, and the gendered division of health burdens in Canada.
Trade ReviewThe book... provides a wide variety of scholarship on chemical threats from a feminist political economy perspective. It is particularly effective at arguing for both extended producer responsibility for potentially harmful substances and the precautionary principle as a policy adoption strategy when dealing with uncertainties in the science of chemical pollution. -- Angela Cope * Health Tomorrow *
Our Chemical Selves is a fascinating book that raises important questions about the impact of chemicals on women’s health in Canada … This book should be read by environmental historians or anyone concerned with the impact of chemicals in our world. Not only do the contributors highlight important issues regarding women’s health, but they offer useful solutions to change our collective indifference toward the intensification of chemicals in our world. -- David Kinkela, State University of New York at Fredonia * Environmental History 22 *
The strength of this work lies in its success at bringing recent developments in science together with legal and policy analysis and recommendations. For anyone interested in women’s environmental health issues, it is a must-read … This book will help to provide researchers, policy-makers and advocates with tools to understand and address links between social inequity, environmental health and gendered differences in chemical exposure and effects -- Kaitlyn Mitchell * Herizons *
[U]nique and valuable for its focus on gender and environmental justice. -- M. Gochfeld * Choice *
Table of ContentsForeword: Water Is Life / Josephine Mandamin
Introduction: The Production of Pollution and Consumption of Chemicals in Canada / Dayna Nadine Scott, Lauren Rakowski, Laila Zahra Harris, and Troy Dixon
Part 1: “Consuming” Chemicals
1 Wonderings on Pollution and Women’s Health / M. Ann Phillips
2 Protecting Ourselves from Chemicals: A Study of Gender and Precautionary Consumption / Norah MacKendrick
3 Sex and Gender in Canada’s Chemicals Management Plan / Dayna Nadine Scott and Sarah Lewis
Part 2: Routes of Women’s Exposures
4 Trace Chemicals on Tap: The Potential for Gendered Health Effects of Chronic Exposures via Drinking Water / Jyoti Phartiyal
5 Consuming “DNA as Chemicals” and Chemicals as Food / Bita Amani
6 Consuming Carcinogens: Women and Alcohol / Nancy Ross, Jean Morrison, Samantha Cukier, and Tasha Smith
Part 3: Hormones as the “Messengers of Gender”?
7 The Impact of Phthalates on Women’s Reproductive Health / Maria P. Velez, Patricia Monnier, Warren G. Foster, and William D. Fraser
8 Plastics Recycling and Women’s Reproductive Health / Aimée L. Ward and Annie Sasco
9 Xenoestrogens and Breast Cancer: Chemical Risk, Exposure, and Corporate Power / Sarah Young and Dugald Seely
Part 4: Consumption in the Production Process
10 Plastics Industry Workers and Breast Cancer Risk: Are We Heeding the Warnings? / Margaret M. Keith, James T. Brophy, Robert DeMatteo, Michael Gilbertson, Andrew E. Watterson, and Matthias Beck
11 Power and Control at the Production-Consumption Nexus: Migrant Women Farmworkers and Pesticides / Adrian A. Smith and Alexandra Stiver
Conclusion: Thinking about Thresholds, Literal and Figurative / Dayna Nadine Scott
Glossary; Index
