Women and the Environment

Abstract

The topic “women and the environment” encompasses far more than the transactions of a particular user group with the physical world of homes, neighborhoods, communities, and regions. It also addresses fundamental questions about the nature of our society, the nature of our environments, the nature of our professions, and the way we study, educate, do research, design, and plan. The present chapter first describes the general history of research, design, and policy with respect to women and the physical environment. We then discuss how the topic may be profitably addressed in terms of several themes: (1) the contextual nature of women’s lives, their embeddedness in a variety of social and cultural relationships, and the interpenetration of women’s activities with many physical settings; (2) the varied and changing nature of the traditional public/private distinction for women, and historical traditions and restrictions deriving from this distinction; (3) needs and exemplars of social change in respect to women’s environments, with emphasis on sociophysical units of change (e. g., homes, neighborhoods, communities, workplaces, etc.), the domains of needed environmental change (e. g., household activities, services, work, etc.), and the process of change (e. g., social action, policy and politics, and women’s participation in environmental decision-making processes).