Women and Chemicals

Women as agents
of change
The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights 1 and the Convention
on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) 2 call
on all states to ensure that women and men enjoy equal rights and opportunities.
However, traditional gender roles persist in many countries, and more than 100
countries still have norms and laws that discriminate against women and girls. 3
Due to these different social “gender” roles women often have different needs
and priorities in regards to environmental policies and practices.
5The biological difference between women and men is probably
also one of the reasons why surveys show slight differences between
priorities of women and men, and why many environmental
activists and scientists have been women, for example
Dr. Rachel Carson who observed the reproductive health effects
of DDT in birds and worried what it would mean for children. 5
Many other women have become well-known environmental
activists and scientists, from Vandana Shiva to Wangari Matthai. The
motivation to engage in environmental and chemical activities has
regularly been linked to personal experience. For Sandra Steingraber,
a well-known biologist, it was the question why she and so
many of her family had developed cancer and how this was related
to environmental causes, as she explains in her book “Living Downstream”
6 . Steingraber writes “Cancer survivors can be a powerful
lobby for change. We can show the human cost of past polluting
practices. We can re-imagine a future built on the principle of precaution,
green chemistry, and green engineering. But only if we
don’t confine ourselves to the present moment. Living each day as
if it were your last is not all it’s cracked up to be. In fact, discounting
the future and ignoring the past is how we’ve contaminated the
world with toxic chemical in the first place.” 7 During her laureate
speech as Goldman Prize Award recipient, Yuyun Ismawati said “I
had my passion guide my work for our environment as well as for
future generations. As someone who has useful knowledge I feel
obliged to help change the world for the better.” 8 Kaisha Atakhanova
from Kazakhstan said, “I knew my scientific work was meaning-
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