About BC Books Online
BC Books Online was created for anyone interested in BC-published books, and with librarians especially in mind. We'd like to make it easy for library staff to learn about books from BC publishers - both new releases and backlist titles - so you can inform your patrons and keep your collections up to date.
Our site features print books and ebooks - both new releases and backlist titles - all of which are available to order through regular trade channels. Browse our subject categories to find books of interest or create and export lists by category to cross-reference with your library's current collection.
A quick tip: When reviewing the "Browse by Category" listings, please note that these are based on standardized BISAC Subject Codes supplied by the books' publishers. You will find additional selections, grouped by theme or region, in our "BC Reading Lists."
Description
Everyday exposures to common chemicals found in homes, schools, and workplaces have devastating long-term and inter-generational consequences on human health. At the same time, the risks associated with these exposures (and the burdens of managing them) rest disproportionately on the shoulders of women. Written by leading researchers in science, law, and public policy, the chapters in Our Chemical Selves critically examine the system that manufactures the chemicals as well as the social, political, and gender relations that enable harmful chemicals to continue being produced and consumed. This book demonstrates the urgent need to revise existing approaches to the regulation of toxic substances in Canada.
Contributor Notes
Dayna Nadine Scott teaches administrative law, environmental law and justice, and risk regulation. Her research has focused on environmental justice activism, the regulation of pollution and toxic substances, gender and environmental heath, and feminist theory of the body. She is the director of the National Network on Environments and Women’s Health.
Contributors: Bita Amani, Matthias Beck, James T. Brophy, Samantha Cukier, Robert Dematteo, Troy Dixon, Warren G. Foster, William Fraser, Michael Gilbertson, Laila Zahra Harris, Margaret M. Keith, Sarah Lewis, Norah MacKendrick, Josephine Mandamin, Patricia Monnier, Jean Morrision, Jyoti Phartiyal, M. Ann Phillips, Lauren Rakowski, Nancy Ross, Annie Sasco, Dugald Seeley, Adrian A. Smith, Tasha Smith, Alexandra Stiver, Maria P. Velez, Aimée L. Ward, Andrew E. Watterson, Sarah Young.
Editorial Reviews
[U]nique and valuable for its focus on gender and environmental justice.
— Choice
Our Chemical Selves is a fascinating book that raises important questions about the impact of chemicals on women’s health in Canada … This book should be read by environmental historians or anyone concerned with the impact of chemicals in our world. Not only do the contributors highlight important issues regarding women’s health, but they offer useful solutions to change our collective indifference toward the intensification of chemicals in our world.
— Environmental History 22
The book... provides a wide variety of scholarship on chemical threats from a feminist political economy perspective. It is particularly effective at arguing for both extended producer responsibility for potentially harmful substances and the precautionary principle as a policy adoption strategy when dealing with uncertainties in the science of chemical pollution.
— Health Tomorrow
The strength of this work lies in its success at bringing recent developments in science together with legal and policy analysis and recommendations. For anyone interested in women’s environmental health issues, it is a must-read … This book will help to provide researchers, policy-makers and advocates with tools to understand and address links between social inequity, environmental health and gendered differences in chemical exposure and effects
— Herizons
