Barbara Jancar-Webster
Department of Political Science
SUNY Brockport
Brockport, NY 14420
U.S.A.
bjancar@acspr1.acs.brockport.edu
There is a large and significant literature tracing the impact on women of such economic transformations, as the green revolution in agriculture, the various stages of industrialization, and the great population migrations from the country to the cities. In each of these areas, the general research consensus has been that women have in the main only marginally benefitted from economic development. While changes in agricultural and industrial production have generally increased women's access to employment, the absence of social services and educational opportunities together with the persistence of the patriarchal tradition have generally resulted in the creation of a "female space" in the public spheres of the economy and politics inferior and second to the "male space".
Until recently, the rich literature of women's studies was strikingly empty of any analysis of the relationship between women's inferior economic and political position, and the environment in which they live. In 1993, for the first time, a class action suit was filed in the United States citing discrimination against blacks in the citing of industrial waste cites. In industrialized countries, the feminization of poverty refers directly to women living in degraded urban environments, the so-called "inner city" of the United States that offer virtually no opportunity for women to escape from them. Poor women are thus caught in a never-ending generational cycle of poverty, degraded environment, poverty. This paper offers only an introduction to the problem,and suggests that poor urban environmental conditions are not only contributing factors to female poverty but that female poverty in its turn is a main contributor to urban environmental degradation. Sensitization to an important problem hopefully will encourage more systematic analysis in the future.
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