Dangerous Intersections: Feminist Perspectives on Population, Environment, and Development

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by Jael Silliman and Ynestra King, South End Press, 324 pages.

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This collection of original critical essays by well-known feminist scholars and activists presents a multicultural, international scope on the major global issues of the day: environment, development, and population control.

Dangerous Intersections provides crucial alternative voices and approaches to the tired, short-sighted policies supported by many mainstream politicians and non-governmental organizations. These include policies that focus on the fertility of poor women of color in the North and South as the primary threat to the ecological viability of the planet and that blame immigrants for environmental deterioration in the US, as well as the failure to underline the importance of cultural struggle to women’s achievements of equality, sustainable live hoods and peace.

In the wake of the Rio Earth Summit, the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development, and other global gatherings to shape a sustainable future, these authors make a reasoned ye t impassioned argument for making women the central agents of their own fate, and the fate of the planet.

Their pointed analyses re veal the racism behind environmental degradation and immigration control, the paternalism underlying many population control efforts, and the widespread scapegoating of women, the poor and immigrants as the source of major world problems. Instead, they present realistic solutions that rely on the ingenuity and resourcefulness of communities of women as the agents of local and global change.

Essays cover topics such as the use and mis-use of reproductive technology, the real impact of population growth on the environment, the devastating effects of militarism and consumption, and movements for sove reignty and social justice worldwide.

Contributors include: Asoka Bandarage, Marsha Jean Darling, Marlene Fried, Betsy Hartmann, H. Patricia Hynes , Joni Seager, Jael Silliman, Andy Smith, Justine Smith, April Taylor, Meredeth Turshen, and Meredith Tax.

Dangerous Intersections will force readers to confront the intertwined effects of our attitudes toward population, the environment and development. This call for just, equitable solutions to urgent problems will enlighten activists, scholars and policymakers alike.

About the Editors:

Jael Silliman is Assistant Professor in Women’s Studies at the University of Iowa . She has worked on reproductive rights, environment and development issues for more than twenty years as an activist, practitioner and foundation officer. She is currently the Board Chair of the National Asian Women’s Health Organization, a Steering Committee member of the Committee on Women , Population and the Environment and is on the boards of the International Projects Assistance Services (IPAS) and the Reproductive Health Technologies Project. She has written widely on women’s health, population, development, and enviro n m e ntal justice issues.

Ynestra King is a founding member of the Committee on Women, Population and the Environment. Her germinal writings on the relationships between feminism, ecology, and militarism have appeared in scholarly journals and publications such as Ms. She taught for many years at the New School for Social Research, and has been a Visiting Scholar at Rutgers University and Columbia University.

Contents:

Acknowledgements

Introduction
Jael Silliman

Appendix A: Women, Population, and the Environment: Call for a New Approach

Appendix B: Immigration and Environment Campaign

Population, Environment and Security : A New Trinity
Betsy Hartmann

Population and Development : Towards a Social Justice Agenda
Asoka Bandarage

Taking Population Out of the Equation : Reformulating IPAT
H. Patricia Hynes

Christian Responses to the Population Paradigm
Andy Smith

Women, Population and the Ecological Crisis in Tanzania
Meredeth Turshen

Power of the Word
Meredith Tax

Expanding Civil Society, Shrinking Political Spaces : The Case of Women’s NGOs
Jael Silliman

Patriarchal Vandalism: Militaries and Environment
Joni Seager

Consumption: North America
H. Patricia Hynes

Native Sove reignty and Social Justice : Moving Towards An Inclusive Social Justice Framework
Justine Smith

The State, Friend or Foe? Distributive Justice Issues and African American Women
Marsha J. Tyson Darling

High Tech Pop-A-Pill Culture: Body Medications and “New Forms of Social Control”
April Taylor

Legal but…Abortion Access in the US
Marlene Gerber Fried

About the Contributors

Index

About South End Press