Fatal feminisation: Problematising endocrine-disrupting chemicals in Denmark

Abstract

While an average everyday life in Denmark is vastly permeated with – and reliant upon – endocrine-disrupting chemicals; these invisible, yet active and mobile, compounds are often viewed as agents of disturbance causing harm in bodies and ecosystems as well as blurring boundaries upholding the two-sex system. In this article, we investigate how endocrine-disrupting chemicals came into existence as a problem for policy in Denmark. Drawing on a feminist cultural science studies framework and Carol Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) analytical approach, we ask how endocrine-disrupting chemicals are problematised and what troubled figures emerge out of this problematisation for the Danish government and experts to address. Our analysis shows that endocrine-disrupting chemicals become embedded in a fear of feminisation that positions men, unborn children, and non-human (male) animals as potential victims of chemical exposure. Meanwhile, the female consumer and the woman/mother emerge as especially responsible for managing endocrine-disrupting chemicals. The article concludes that while feminisation is positioned as destabilising the social order, embodied by the nuclear family of fatally feminised figures, toxicity is constructed as transgressing interspecies, intergenerational and national borders.