Women and Gender: Useful Categories of Analysis in Environmental History

In 1990, Carolyn Merchant proposed, in a roundtable discussion published in The Journal of American History, that gender perspective be added to the conceptual frameworks in environmental history. 1 Her proposal was expanded by Melissa Leach and Cathy Green in the British journal Environment and History in 1997. 2 The ongoing need for broader and more thoughtful and analytic investigations into the powerful relationship between gender and the environment throughout history was confirmed in 2001 by Richard White and Vera Norwood in Environmental History, Retrospect and Prospect, a forum in the Pacific Historical Review. Both Norwood, in her provocative contribution on environmental history for the twenty-first century, and White, in Environmental History: Watching a Historical Field Mature, addressed the need for further work on gender. Environmental history, Norwood noted, is just beginning to integrate gender analyses into mainstream work. 3 That assessment was particularly striking coming, as it did, after Norwood described the kind of ongoing and damaging misperceptions concerning the role of diversity, including gender, within environmental history. White concurred with Norwood, observing that environmental history in the previous fifteen years had been far more explicitly linked to larger trends in the writing of history, but he also issued a clear warning about the current trends in including the role of gender: The danger ... is not that gendering will be ignored in environmental history but that it will become predictable-an endless rediscovery that humans have often made nature female. Gender has more work to do than that. 4 Indeed it does. In 1992, the index to Carolyn Merchant\u27s The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History included three subheadings under women. Women and the egalitarian ideal and women and the environment each had only a few entries. Most entries were listed under the third subheading, activists and theorists, comprising seventeen names. 5 Nine years later Elizabeth Blum compiled Linking American Women\u27s History and Environmental History, an online preliminary historiography revealing gaps as well as strengths in the field emerging at the intersection of these two relatively new fields of study. At that time Blum noted that, with the exception of some scholarly interest being diverted to environmental justice movements and ecofeminism, most environmental history has centered on elite male concerns; generally, women\u27s involvement tends to be ignored or marginalized.

Unearthing the roots of urban sprawl: a critical analysis of form, function and methodology

Urban sprawl is one of the key issues facing cities today. There is a large volume of literature on the topic but despite this there is little agreement as to its characteristics and effects. The paper discusses some of the most contested issues of urban sprawl. It looks at the various definitions of sprawl; examines the effects of sprawl, assessing these in relation to planning and market led approaches; and discusses methodological approaches relating to measures of sprawl in terms of its impacts and forms

Cooperation & Conflict in the Patriarchal Labyrinth

This essay offers a new way of visualizing structures of collective power based on gender, emphasizing the role of social institutions in shaping women\u27s ability to bargain over the distribution of the gains from cooperation with men. It makes the case for an interdisciplinary conceptualization of bargaining power that emphasizes the role of imperfect information and inefficient outcomes, and explains important parallels between structures of collective power based on gender, age, and sexuality, and those based on other dimensions of socially assigned group membership such as race, ethnicity, citizenship, and class. Recognition of the importance of reproductive work helps advance the project of developing intersectional political economy

Leaders of the Pack

The inaugural class of Leadership Scholars sets a high standard for the law school

In the Wake of Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company: Applying the Discovery Rule to Determine the Start of the Limitations Period for Pay Discrimination Claims

14 These laws include Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964,15 Section 1981 of the Civil War Reconstruction statutes,16 the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA),17 the Equal Pay Act (EPA),18 and the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA).19 While the statutes define different types of discrimination, each addresses discrimination in employment and defines a limitations period in which an employee can bring a claim.20 With Title VII defining the paradigm, the first step in determining whether a claim is timely under any statute is determining when the discriminatory act takes place.21 To do that, one must identify with care the specific employment practice that is at issue

Transition in Rural Communities

This metasynthesis examines transition planning and services in rural communities, especially those in Alaska. It considers the barriers and challenges to transition implementation, the cultural responsiveness of rural educators, the developments in and suggestions for transition services, and approaches and strategies for transition planning. It illuminates the importance of building community relationships and tapping into human resources. Finally, the metasynthesis stresses the rural educator's need for cultural sensitivity in rural Alaska Native communities

That the Worst Shooting in US History Took Place in a Gay Bar Is Unsurprising

The selection of Pulse, a gay Orlando nightclub, as the site for a murderous homophobic rampage makes the killer’s crime a special outrage in view of the role that nightclubs have played in this nation’s LGBTQ history. Like many popular LGTBQ clubs, Pulse serves not only as a welcoming place to party, but also as a community partner, hosting a variety of social and educational events including, for example, Breast Cancer Awareness and HIV/AIDS prevention. According to its website, Pulse Orlando serves as “a driving force within the GLBT community” and strives to “to make strides towards equality awareness, and love for all.” Nightclubs have been some of the most potent sites of identity, organization, and power in the long history of LGBTQ Americans