Nancy C. Unger
October 14, 2012
Fifty years ago Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, exposing the devastating impact of pesticides, especially DDT, on the whole web of life. Time magazine dismissed her as “hysterically overemphatic” and the New Yorker published a letter from a reader who complained, “As for insects, isn’t it just like a woman to be scared to death of a few bugs!”
Why is it that men and women have often responded so differently to the environment and environmental issues? From pre-Columbian Native Americans to the modern environmental justice movement, gender has played an underappreciated role in environmental attitudes and actions. In this illustrated presentation based on her new book Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Oxford University Press), historian Nancy C. Unger reveals how women have played a unique role, for better and sometimes for worse, in the shaping of the American environment.
Humanist Community Forum (2012-10-14) – Beyond Nature’s Housekeepers: American Women in Environmental History (Nancy C. Unger) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.