Mobilizing motherhood: The gendered burden of environmental protection

Maternalist framing has been a consistent part of a long history of powerful, often successful organizing for environmental protection and justice. Yet today's calls on individuals to simultaneously engage in proenvironmental behavior and to protect themselves from environmental threats through consumption have mobilized maternal discourse in a way that is likely demobilizing in the long run. Indeed, the increasing individualization of the environmental movement is intersecting with persistent, unequal gendered structures of labor in a way that places the burden of environmentalism and environmental risk management on women and mothers. I argue that precautionary consumption and other forms of individualized environmental risk management add to the “third shift,” on top of the disproportionate burden of household labor and care work that women already face. This phenomenon is concerning because it has the potential to (1) limit women's engagement in other forms of environmental advocacy and leadership, and to (2) reproduce existing gender inequalities not only between men and women but also among women of different levels of race and class privilege. Thus, the increasing individualization of the environmental movement also potentially exacerbates environmental injustice at the household level. Despite such emerging concerns, the domestic scale remains an often overlooked site of environmental harm and gendered burden.