Feminism and the Grass Roots: Women and Environmentalism in Nova Scotia, 1980–1983*

Abstract

L'exemple de l'engagement des femmes dans le mouvement contre l'extraction de l'uranium en Nouvelle‐Écosse au milieu des années quatre‐vingt fait exception dans les études récentes sur l'appui des femmes dans l'activisme environnemental. Le taux de participation des femmes était éléve dans ce mouvement, comparativement à la collaboration apportée a d'autres formes d'action politique. Les hypothèses couramment invoquées pour expliquer cet engagement ‐ disponibilité structurelle et préoccupations des femmes à l'égard des dangers immédiats et locaux qui menacent la santé et le bien être des enfants—ne s'appliquent pas vraiment ici. Les femmes de Nouvelle‐Écosse ont ete plûtot recrutées grâce au réseau que constituent les associations féminines a l'échelle de la province (groupes environnementaux, pacifistes et feministes en particulier). The pattern of women's involvement in the anti‐uranium mining movement in Nova Scotia in the early 1980s is an exception to what has been reported in the recent literature on women's involvement in environmental activism. The rate of women's participation was high in this, relative to other forms of political action. But hypotheses commonly used to explain this involvement—“structural availability” and gendered concerns for immediate and local threats to the health and well‐being of children—do not fit the case well. Nova Scotia women were more likely to be drawn in through network links to province‐wide women's organizations (in particular, environmental, peace and feminist organizations).

CONTESTED TERRAIN: Mining and the Environment

“…They argue that "women also bear a disproportionate share of the responsibility for dealing with the social and environmental mess which accumulates" following mining and logging activities in the Pacific and that these inequalities are the cause of politicization and social unrest at a range of scales from domestic strife in the household to protests and roadblocks around the mine. The questions asked by researchers about gender and mining are increasingly diverse and include studies of the role played by gender in antimining activism (171); the sexualization of work relations around mining that lead to sex-segregation and gender-typing of BRIDGE mine jobs (172); and the historical role of women as prospectors and developers in frontier mining activities (173).…”

Environmentalism, Feminism, and Gender

“…Connecting ecofeminist critiques to political action has been another major emphasis for ecofeminists (Sturgeon 1997). For instance, some ecofeminists have attempted to use ecofeminism to account for social movement participation (Bantjes and Trussler 1999;Lahar 1991; Peterson and Merchant 1986;Somma and Tolleson-Rinehart 1997;Sturgeon 1997). The idea that ecofeminism aids in movement mobilization, however, is not accepted universally.…”