Acknowledging Female Victims of Green Crimes: Environmental Exposure of Women to Industrial Pollutants

Abstract

Green criminology has drawn attention to the widespread forms of green victimization. However, green criminology has neglected female victims of green crimes, and area to which feminist criminologists can contribute. To draw attention to these issues, this article examines the medical and epidemiological literature published since 2010 related to the forms of green victimization women experience. Implications for examining the green victimization of economically marginalized female populations, the need to integrate feminist and green criminological research, and suggests that feminist analysis can also inform ecofeminist studies by more fully elaborating a position of the environmental/green victimization of women are presented.

Keywords

ecofeminism epidemiological evidence of victimization women’s green victimization corporate victimization of women green criminology integrating feminist and green criminology

Green criminology has done much to draw attention to the widespread forms of green victimization human and non-human species and ecological systems experience. To date, however, green criminological studies continue to neglect female victims of green crimes and have made only passing reference to women’s green victimization (WGV; Davies, 2014; Gaarder, 2013; Lynch & Stretesky, 2001). At the same time, feminist criminology has also paid little attention to the victimization of women by green crimes. The green crimes that affect women are varied, and here, we are concerned with women’s routine exposure to industrial pollutants as an example of WGV. This article addresses the need to integrate feminist and green criminological views to facilitate discussions and explorations of WGV.

Women affected by exposure to toxic chemicals comprise a class of invisible victims in the criminological literature. The emergence of feminist criminology in the 1970s was an important turning point in criminological research that began to draw attention to women’s victimization, especially from domestic violence. Feminist criminology emphasized that women’s victimization resulted from “the inescapable material reality of women’s . . . relative structural position” (Walklate, 1990, p. 27). Decades later, few studies had expanded the concept of female victimization to include calls for research on the corporate victimization of women (DeKeseredy & Goff, 1992; Gerber & Weeks, 1992; Rynbrandt & Kramer, 1995). From a green criminological perspective, women’s exposure to environmental toxins emitted into ecosystems by corporations is an important source of green victimization, and is an area of research to which feminist criminology can contribute.

Following examples in Lynch and Stretesky (2001), the present article explores WGV by examining studies from the medical/epidemiological literatures that relate to the effects of chemical exposure on women’s health. That literature suggests that women are harmed by exposure to environmental toxins in various ways, causing them to experience green victimization (see also, Katz, 2012).

To begin this analysis, we first define WGV. The section that follows reviews ideas from feminist criminology relevant to examining WGV. Next, we examine current literature on WGV, and the criminological omission of WGV, noting that there has also been little attention paid to these concerns even by ecofeminists. We then examine the measure of exposure to environmental toxins found in medical/epidemiological literature with respect to the definition of green crime using studies published between 2010 and 2014. That short research horizon sufficiently illustrates the kinds of issues that can be explored as examples of WGV. In the final sections, we draw attention to the green victimization of economically marginalized women in developing countries and as migrant farm workers. Drawing criminological attention to the green victimization of marginalized women can hopefully generate discussions that can affect policies that minimize their green victimization and generate an integrated feminist–green criminological explanation of WGV.

The Concept of Green Victimization

Green criminology has directed attention to green crimes for more than 25 years defining green crimes both as violations of law and as social harms that occur via environmentally damaging behaviors. Those harms/crimes have direct adverse ecological impacts (e.g., ecological degradation/disorganization through pollution, deforestation, etc.), and adverse indirect effects that impair the health of species (humans, non-human animals, plants) residing in affected ecosystems (Beirne & South, 2007; Brisman & South, 2013; Lynch & Stretesky, 2003; Walters, 2010). Some green harms, however, such as poaching and wildlife trafficking, result from direct species harms independent of harms to ecosystems. From the above, it follows that green victims are, quite simply, living entities (humans, non-human animals, plants, ecosystems, etc.) harmed by green crimes. These harms and the forms of victimization they produce are almost always violent because they involve exposure to chemicals that have transformative physical effects, or involve behaviors that “violently” re-arrange ecosystems or produce death, injury, and disease (Jarrell, Lynch, & Stretesky, 2013; Lynch & Barrett, 2015).

The present article refers to WGV or the green victimization of women. These terms are interchangeable. WGV has yet to be sufficiently articulated in the green criminological literature. In the present work, WGV specifically refers to the forms of harm women experience when they are exposed to toxic chemicals in the ecosystems they encounter.

From scientific studies of toxic pollution, we know that environmental pollution is ubiquitous, meaning that all forms of life are exposed to some level of toxic environmental pollution (Lynch & Stretesky, 2014). Nevertheless, not all life-forms are exposed equally, nor do all life-forms necessarily experience the same detrimental consequences from toxic exposure. These observations imply that the specific “green victimization experiences” varies across types/groups of victims, as well as across individuals in the same victim group (e.g., across individual humans or across individual non-human animals). Children, for example, are affected differently than adults by exposure to environmental toxins. Illustrating the importance of gender, medical studies of toxic exposure also indicate that women are affected differently than men. Before turning to those issues, it is important to place WGV within the context of feminist criminology.

Feminist Criminology and the Green Victimization of Women

Feminist criminology emerged in the 1970s in response to the neglect of female victims and offenders and stereotypes of women that were infused throughout the criminological literature. Feminist criminology was not merely a call to attend to women as neglected criminological subjects, but to expand criminological theorizing about gender and to make gender a central theoretical starting point for theorizing about crime, victimization, and justice (Daly, 1998). With respect to the current discussion of WGV, this implies a need to understand how gender relations and gender inequality affect two intersecting problems: first, the neglect of WGV, and second, conceptualizing WGV as part of the broader social structure of gender relationships.

With respect to the first point, criminologists’ neglect of WGV is a product of the intersection (or lack thereof) of feminist and green criminologies within the historical context of criminological traditions that over-emphasize individual-level explanations while neglecting how gender, as part of social structure, affects conceptualizing female victimization. The latter part of that argument was long ago recognized and addressed by Daly and Chesney-Lind (1988), and has promoted numerous discussions of gender as an essential part of social structure that criminological theories must address (for review, see Miller & Mullins, 2006). Unfortunately, feminist and green criminology have had little interaction, limiting the conceptualization of WGV in both literatures. Green criminologists have not attended to the intersection between victimization and gender promoted by feminist criminology, while feminist criminologists have overlooked green victimization as an important example of violence against women.

In terms of the second point, feminist criminology contains the seeds for conceptualizing the gendered nature of WGV as a structural outcome. Of particular relevance is feminist criminology’s focus on gender inequality and how gender inequality traditionally excluded analysis of female victimization and historically made women’s victimization essentially invisible within criminology. Again, historically, this argument was used to draw attention to troubling victimization issues such as domestic violence which significantly affects women but received scant criminological attention. Following that same style of argument, feminist theory can draw on insights from green criminology to focus attention on the neglect of WGV within the context of gendered social structures. This includes the need to address the distribution of green victimization and crimes that affect women in various structural locations (e.g., relative to class, race, ethnicity), and with respect to how gender has been addressed by feminist criminology, which hopefully strengthens green criminological analysis. Although green crimes are ubiquitous, and their effects are unevenly distributed (i.e., by race, ethnicity and class), they may also have different implications for women/people depending a combination of their gender, race, class, and age. For their part, referencing studies on environmental injustice, green criminologists have drawn attention to class, race, and ethnicity both theoretically and empirically (e.g., Stretesky & Lynch, 1999), but have largely overlooked gender.

Theoretically, one can conceptualize WGV in relation to gendered order and gender regimes (Miller & Mullins, 2006), and, in particular, with respect to how gender regimes within criminology affect recognition of WGV as a reflection of gendered order within society. Likewise, gendered order also impacts gendered regimes in other disciplines, and has limited research on women as victims of green harms in the medical field, though that literature certainly contains more examples of WGV than can be found within criminology. In a more global sense, gendered order, which favors males and males’ experiences, also devalues the experiences of women and leads to their exclusion in research addressing the impact of important societal problems such as exposure to environmental toxins and the forms of victimization produced by exposure. Feminist criminology promotes paying attention to these kinds of outcomes, and in that way leads to broader inclusion of women as important actors in society and as research subjects. As Wesley (2006) suggested, “gender inequality and oppression in a patriarchal society parlay into individual, institutional, and structural marginalization that contribute to women’s lived experiences” (p. 304). In the context of the current study, this translates into recognizing that the gendered nature of social structural arrangements not only leads to promoting the neglect of WGV but also fails to take seriously the lived experience of women who suffer from green victimization as if they did not, in the first place, exist. This is a particularly troubling issue for women given that women experience green victimization differently than men (see review of medical literature below), and that this WGV experience may also vary by race, class, ethnicity, and even across nations (see examples in the discussion). Integrating feminist and green criminology is essential to exposing WGV as a serious form of victimization experienced by women.

Missing: Women and Toxic Exposure in the Discussion of Green Crime and Victimization

As noted, there has been insufficient attention paid to WGV in the green and feminist criminological literatures, perhaps due to the failure to sufficiently connect green and feminist analysis (Lane, 1998; Wonders & Danner, 2015). In addition, this result could also stem from criminological neglect of ecofeminism, a perspective which emerged in the 1970s (Ling, 2014). Although ecofeminism has been identified as potentially important for shaping green criminological research (Lane, 1998; Lynch & Stretesky, 2003), green criminologists have yet to substantially elaborate an ecofeminist green criminology. Ecofeminism—a movement that combines women’s activism with theories related to the dual or intersecting domination of women and nature, addresses the empowerment of women in combatting green harms—could play an important role in developing criminological discussions of green crime, law, and justice, including WGV. This issue has not been sufficiently articulated in the ecofeminist literature, leaving significant room for green and feminist criminologists to contribute to that type of analysis.

The earliest and only extensive discussions of the potential intersection of green criminology and ecofeminism were made by Wilson (1996) and Lane (1998). Drawing on an early ecofeminist position, Wilson (1996) suggested an association between women’s criminal victimization and criminal victimization of the environment. Her argument notes that the exploitation of nature and women “sustain one another” (p. 148), and she explores how these circumstances relate to a critique of environmental law. For her part, Lane (1998) used an ecofeminist position to explore how female political protests against environmental crime can promote social movements against environmental crime and the forms of female oppression environmental crimes generate. Lynch and Stretesky (2003) outlined how ecofeminism might extend the scope of green criminological analysis of victimization. Gaarder (2011a, 2011b) used an ecofeminist view to explore the role women play in animal rights movements, a position recently extended by Sollund (2013)—which can be seen as extensions of Lane’s (1998) argument. These few examples constitute the major discussions concerning the intersection of green and feminist criminology.

Although ecofeminist theory has the potential to shape discussions of WGV, the ecofeminist literature itself has failed to elaborate a theory of WGV. Consequently, it is unclear what an ecofeminist green criminology might look like theoretically. As Mellor (2006) noted, there are different varieties of ecofeminism, and logically, each could produce a unique ecofeminist green criminology. Mellor’s preference is for an ecofeminist political economic view (see below), while others have suggested that ecofeminist positions share a concern for the roles women play in forming social movements that address toxic waste concerns (Brown & Ferguson, 1995; Zavestoski, McCormick, & Brown, 2004), but this view has also been underdeveloped.

From a more general feminist criminological perspective, it is surprising that WGV has been neglected given feminists’ concern with female victimization. Yet, despite four decades of feminist criminology, little attention has been paid to “nontraditional” forms of female victimization, which, as Gerber and Weeks (1992) noted, includes female victims of corporate crime (see also, Rynbrandt & Kramer, 1995).

As noted above, Mellor (2006) suggested a preference for an ecofeminist political economic approach. That approach is consistent with some green criminological analyses that use political economic theory (Long, Stretesky, Lynch, & Fenwick, 2012; Lynch, Long, Barrett, & Stretesky, 2013; Lynch & Stretesky, 2014; Stretesky, Long, & Lynch, 2013a, 2013b). In recent years, green political economic criminological analysis has emphasized treadmill of production (ToP) theory. The ToP theory draws attention to the ways in which the organization of capitalism since World War II has accelerated ecological disorganization and destruction. Important in that view is the idea that the accelerated pace of capitalism requires expanded raw material extraction (i.e., ecological withdrawals), expanded production and hence increased pollution (i.e., ecological additions), and consumption to maintain economic expansion. To our knowledge, how ToP and ecofeminist analysis might be integrated has yet to be explored. Following Mellor (2006), we suggest that the connection should examine the ways in which (a) female subordination to men in capitalist economies and (b) the forms of ecological destruction capitalism generates (c) connect to the organization of the global treadmill of capitalist production to (d) create adverse forms of green victimization for women.

The details of such a view would be complex and would require extensive discussion to elucidate given that the ToP approach is a general model of capitalism’s connection to ecological destruction. That view has not addressed the intersection of gendered or feminist theories with ToP analysis. Relevant to the current discussion of WGV is the observation that in certain parts of the world and within different economic locations, women who are socially and economic marginalized by capitalism are victimized and exploited in the same way that capitalism victimizes and exploits nature. Because capitalism’s primary concern is profit, it ignores how the pursuit of profit produces the ecological disorganization of nature (i.e., nature’s victimization), and how the victimization of nature feedbacks and affects humans, but especially women as a marginalized and exploited populations within capitalism (Salleh, 1995). In other words, both WGV and the victimization of the environment are accepted as routine outcomes associated with capitalist production. One must also consider that women can have unique concerns when it comes to the forms of green victimization capitalism generates for them, which can vary with different positions women occupy (i.e., for “doubly” marginalized women who are poor and minority) in different national contexts (e.g., women in developing nations vs. women in developed nations). Addressing these issues in a full-blown feminist-green-political economic theory is complex, and beyond the scope of the present study, but can be connected back to primary concerns in feminist criminology such as gender inequality, gendered regimes, and gendered order noted earlier

To address these concerns, it is also necessary to have access to “good” information/data on WGV. That type of information is lacking in the green and feminist criminological literatures. A nontraditional source of this information for criminologists can be found in the medical/epidemiological literature which has made increasing efforts to address the forms of environmental victimization women experience (i.e., as disease and illness outcomes). Although this literature is not without some limitations (see below), it should be acknowledged for its efforts to make WGV more visible.

It is difficult to pinpoint why feminist and green criminologists have overlooked WGV. Certainly, both areas are often forced to justify their existence, and significant attention must often be paid to their legitimation, which may distract attention from developing new applications of feminist or green criminology. More generally, green issues, corporate crime, and corporate victimization of the public have not been well detailed in the criminological literature, and there is little prior research upon which to build these views (e.g., Lynch & Barrett, 2015; Lynch & Stretesky, 2003). Although ecofeminist positions have drawn attention to women’s activism in environmental social movements against corporate environmental crime, that literature has also not come to grips with the need to examine WGV theoretically.

Women as Victims in Medical and Epidemiological Literature

Although medical/epidemiological studies have drawn attention to the victimization of women from toxic pollution, that literature is not without limitations. First, that literature does not ordinarily adopt victimology terminology, and instead, women are described as an adversely affected group rather than as victims of toxic harms. Second, when women have been acknowledged as “victims” of exposure to environment toxins in that literature, that acknowledgment has occurred in indirect ways—for example, in research that focuses on women as the medium or pathway through which the fetus or infants are exposed to environmental toxins.¹ Although such studies are important for addressing women’s concerns as mothers (i.e., as part of the lived experience of some women), the inclusion of measures addressing fetal and infant health detracts attention from “women as victimized” and places the emphasis instead on fetal and infant health. It is unfortunate that these studies depict women “merely” as mothers and conduits for fetal and infant exposure because such a view marginalizes women’s victimization by tying it to adverse fetus/infant health outcome. Clearly, pregnant women/mothers are important pathways of toxic exposure for the fetus/infant, and women worry about/experience these issues. Nevertheless, treating women simply as the pathway for fetal/infant exposure illustrates the ways in which WGV is neglected in the medical literature, and perhaps indicates the lack of development of a feminist position within medical/epidemiological research (for discussion, see Inhorn & Whittle, 2001).

Women experience a wide array of exposures to environmental toxins (WGV) that impact their health illustrated below through a review of medical/epidemiological studies published from 2010 through 2014, or over a relatively short time period. Despite that short time horizon, that literature is sufficient to establish that women suffer from numerous adverse health consequences from environmental exposure to toxins and pollutants and should be regarded as green victims. The method of using medical and epidemiological literature as the basis for establishing a measure of green victimization has previously been advanced by Lynch and Stretesky (2001).

Exposure to Environmental Toxins as a Form of Green Crime and Victimization: A Medical View

Below, the consequences of exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants for women are explored as an empirical indicator or reference point for addressing women as victims of green crimes and as one measure of WGV. That review is based on defining green crime and green victimization as an exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants that produces a probability of an adverse health harm occurring. This definition of green crime is not a legal definition, but rather draws on a harms-based definition of green crime and victimization (Lynch & Stretesky, 2001). Defining WGV as a measurable health harm is, we suggest, a more objective indicator of green victimization than the traditional legal definition of crime which suffers from numerous limitations related to the construction of the criminal law and the lack of the criminal law’s identification of an objective definition of harm (for extended discussion, see Lynch, Stretesky, & Long, 2015). As noted, medical evidence of adverse health outcomes for women from exposure to environmental toxins may or may not result from violations of law, and WGV can occur when the law is followed as well as when the law is broken (Lynch & Stretesky, 2001). Many toxic emissions are legal (i.e., when pollution emissions are “permitted” through legal regulation), and environmental laws do not necessarily prevent the emission of toxins into the environment. Nevertheless, while legal, toxic emissions may produce green victimization especially when emission regulations fail to adequately safeguard public health. In that sense, the legal definition of environmental crime and victimization is deficient and fails to measure the actual presence of a harmful health outcome for the public (specifically in this work, for women’s public health).

In the studies that follow, WGV is identified as the statistical likelihood of a health harm occurring. That statistical likelihood measure does not mean that every woman exposed to an environmental toxin will experience an adverse health consequence. Rather, those statistical measures indicate the probability of such an outcome occurring within a population. Whether or not any individual woman experiences an adverse health outcome from exposure to an environmental toxin also depends on (a) the timing of the exposure in the life course, with early and prolonged exposure being more serious; (b) the level of exposure or the dose of the environmental toxin received; (c) the duration of exposure; (d) the interaction between environmental toxins; and (e) at the individual level, interaction between exposure to environmental toxins and an individual’s biological/genetic predisposition or sensitivity to environmental toxins.

Finally, it is important to note that medical research has, for many decades, been dominated by the male subject. This is important because extant research suggests gender variability in response to some environmental toxins (e.g., geographic variability in cancer rates for women and men), indicating that gender may play a role in cancer etiology (Dey et al., 2011; these observations also apply to endocrine disruptor exposures, a significant health risk; Naz, 2005; Soto & Sonnenschein, 2010; Takeuchi & Tsutsumi, 2002). Thus, it is important to further develop theories related to different exposure and effects from environmental toxin exposure.

Method

As noted, studies reviewed below were drawn from the medical and epidemiological literatures for the period 2010 through 2014. At the time this study was initiated, a complete universe of studies for 2015 was not available, and the decision was made to exclude 2015 studies from consideration in the review, although some may be referenced as additional supportive materials. The sample was also constructed only from materials available in English.

Google scholar searchers were undertaken to create the initial sample of articles. Searches were performed on an annual basis. Because the primary interest in this review was addressing the effects of green victimization on women, all searches included the term “women” to identify research where researchers specifically included women in their study. In addition, results were restricted to studies identified as “medial” or “epidemiological.” Several specific searches were undertaken that each included the terms “women,” “females,” “medical,” and “epidemiological”: (a) toxic pollution, (b) pollution, (c) breast cancer and pollution, (d) chemical exposure, and (e) industrial chemical exposure. From those results, additional articles were also identified by examining the reference sections from the article that met the selection criteria. In some cases where there were limited results, PubMed was also used to undertake searches to discover additional sources. It should be noted, however, that prior research indicates that medical researchers have found Google Scholar to be somewhat more accurate and inclusive than PubMed searches (Nourbakhsh, Nugent, Wang, Cevik, & Nugent, 2012).

Each article was then examined to exclude those that did not have sufficient results related to assessing detrimental effects on women’s health (e.g., the sample of women was too small; the results included women in the sample, but did not differentiate health effects between males and females in the analysis; the measure of pollution was not reliable or well measured). To facilitate analysis of discussion of the results, topics were excluded when there were only a few relevant articles (e.g., two or less; the effect of pollution on cognate abilities of older women; effect of pollution exposure on women’s blood pressure; effect of pollution on women receiving hormone replacement therapy; which include those related to research on genetic expression, an emerging issue not well research with respect to gender differences). Also excluded from the results (but referenced in the text) were studies of women’s exposure to pollutants where the outcome variable was solely focused on the effect on the fetus or newborns and children. After these exclusions, the sample consisted of 28 articles.

Based on the results, articles were grouped into the categories used below. As noted in the review below, none of the categories has an extensive number of studies, and as noted earlier, medical and epidemiological research often neglects undertaking studies specific to women.

Women and Environmental Exposure to Toxins From Motor Vehicle Pollution

Motor vehicles are important sources of numerous contemporary pollutants, and represent a growing problem in developing nations (Huo, Wang, Johnson, & He, 2007). Expanding motor vehicle use and pollution is a social problem associated with industrialization and is further facilitated by pressure exerted by automobile manufacturers to consume automobiles (Clark, 1991; Dargay & Gatey, 1999; Dargay, Gately, & Sommer, 2007; Gakenheimer, 1999).

Several studies have examined women’s exposure to automobile pollution. Chen and Bina (2012) did so to study the female breast cancer rate over time in the United States, and noted that many well-known individual-level cancer-risk factors are inadequate explanations for the trend in female breast cancer. Using aggregate data on automobile emissions and breast cancer rates, they found an association between long-term nitrogen oxide emissions—one pollutant associated with automobiles—across U.S. counties and breast cancer incident rates (with a large R² value of 0.842). Related studies in Montreal, Canada (Crouse, Goldberg, Ross, Chen, & Labrèche, 2010), and Korea (Park et al., 2014) confirm this finding.

Research has confirmed that geographic areas with high concentrations of motor pollution have elevated rates of lung diseases including asthma (Heinrich et al., 2013; Heinrich, Topp, Gehring, & Thefeld, 2005; Meng, Wilhelm, Rull, English, & Ritz, 2007). Gender-based studies confirm that exposure to traffic pollution affects the incidence of COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) in women (Schikowski et al., 2005; see also, Viegi, Maio, Pistelli, Baldacci, & Carrozzi, 2006), and adversely affects women’s health-related quality of life (HRQoL; Gundersen, Magerøy, Moen, & Bråtveit, 2013).

In a unique study, Basile and Bloch (2012) used data from the Black Women’s Health Study to examine the relationship between automobile pollution and the risk of type 2 diabetes and hypertension for Black women in Los Angeles. The study examined 10 years of exposure and health data. The researchers found that the risk for developing hypertension increased by 48% for each 10-unit increase in small particle matter (PM) pollution (PM_2.5), another pollutant associated with automobile exhaust. This finding, the first of its kind, may help explain the elevated likelihood of hypertension among Black women.

PM Exposure, Cancer, and Women

An important modern industrial pollutant is PM which exists in two forms: large PM (PM₁₀ or PM between 2.5 and 10 microns in size) and small PM (PM_2.5, less than 2.5 microns). Small PM is of special concern because it can penetrate deeply into the lungs and cause lung and coronary problems. Several studies have examined exposure to PM and its effect on women’s health.

Ostro et al. (2010) examined the effect of exposure to PM_2.5 on women using the California Teachers Study cohort. To examine health effects, the researchers linked the cohort data to environmental data to estimate long-term exposure to PM_2.5 pollution (elemental carbon, organic carbon, sulfates, nitrates, iron, potassium, silicon, and zinc). The dependent outcome was evidence of cardiopulmonary disease, ischemic heart disease, and general pulmonary disease. Women who lived within 30 km (18.64 miles) of an environmental pollution monitor that assessed PM_2.5 concentrations were included in the study. Negative health outcomes for the experimental group (women with diseases) were compared with outcomes for controls (women without disease outcomes). The researchers found that long-term exposure to PM_2.5 was associated with increased likelihood of cardiopulmonary mortality for the study group, and that the greatest coronary health risks for women were posed by fossil fuel pollutants.

Numerous medical studies examine the relationship between outdoor air pollutants, cardiopulmonary and lung diseases, and mortality (Hu, Dailey, Kan, & Xu, 2013), though this issue is less well studied among women, especially as a cause of breast cancer (Hu et al., 2013). This is an important issue especially for U.S. women as they suffer from the highest rates of breast cancer in the world, and exposure to environmental toxins may play a role in the etiology of breast cancer (Wei, Davis, & Bina, 2012). U.S. industries add tens of millions of pounds of toxic waste to the environment each year, which may affect the incidence of breast cancer.

Wei et al. (2012) examined the relationship between ambient air pollution in the United States and breast cancer rates. They found that breast cancer rates between 1986 and 2002 were statistically associated with increased air pollution from industrial facilities. The researchers also noted that the highest rates of breast cancer were found in areas with elevated air pollution emissions, primarily major metropolitan areas. Bilyalova et al. (2012) confirmed this finding in Kazakhstan.

Researchers have begun to recognize not only that air pollution plays a role in the etiology of breast cancer, but that it may also impact survival rates for women with breast cancer (Hu et al., 2013). To address this issue, Hu et al. (2013) examined all known female breast cancer cases in the California Surveillance, Epidemiological and End Result (SEER) cancer data from 1999 to 2009, and addressed the effect of air pollution on breast cancer survival among those women. These data included 255,128 subjects and controlled for a number of alternative explanations. Survival analysis methods indicated that women living in geographic locations with elevated rates of PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 had statistically significant lower rates of breast cancer survival than women living in low air pollution areas, and had especially negative survival affects on women diagnosed with early-stage breast cancer.

In a study that also used the SEER data, St. Hilaire, Mandal, Commendador, Mannel, and Derryberry (2011) explored whether the likelihood of estrogen receptor positive (ER+) and negative (ER−) breast cancers were affected by air pollution levels. Both forms of breast cancer were found to have some association with toxic air pollution levels. The effect was stronger for estrogen receptor positive (ER+) breast cancer rates controlling for other factors.

Industrial Pollutants

Sometimes, similar air pollutants are generated by both industrial facilities and automobiles. Industries, however, produce certain unique pollutants that have no other emission sources. Researchers have examined whether some industrial pollutants have adverse health consequences for women.

A major chemical of concern is polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs have several human health effects among which the most important is cancer (Longnecker, Rogan, & Lucier, 1997). Although studies have established the carcinogenic properties of PCBs, less is known about their effect on breast cancer, and prior studies on the association between PCB and breast cancer have produced contradictory results (Negri, Bosetti, Fattore, & La Vecchia, 2003). In a study of the relationship between PCB exposure and breast cancer among 140 Mexican women, Recio-Vega et al. (2011) found some evidence of an effect and explained why prior studies may have missed this association. PCBs are a class of chemicals with 209 congeners, that is types of PCBs.² Recio-Vega et al.’s study suggests that only some PCBs appear to be related to breast cancer, and that conflicting results may reflect the different measures of PCBs used in prior studies.

Other studies of industrial pollutants suggest that it may be the combination of exposure to different industrial pollutants that cause breast cancer. Addressing this issue, Pan et al. (2011) examined the incidence of breast cancer among Canadian women with respect to proximity to several different polluting industries that emit a range of pollutants. Their study included proximity measures for paper mills, pulp mills, petroleum refineries, steel mills, thermal power plants, alum smelters, nickel smelters, lead smelters, copper smelters, and zinc smelters to women in the study. The study included 2,343 women diagnosed with breast cancer and 2,467 control subjects. They found statistically significant differences between the groups with respect to proximity to steel mills, pulp mills, petroleum refineries, and thermal power plants. For some of the subjects, the analysis also suggested that length of exposure affected breast cancer outcomes.

Other Canadian research using the Cancer Care Ontario data has also indicated that exposure to industrial pollutants plays a role in women’s breast cancer rates. In that study, Luginaah et al. (2012) used geographic modeling to examine whether breast cancer clusters could be identified. The discovery of breast cancer clusters could indicate that high rates of industrial pollution in a given location may elevate cancer rates in those locations, causing cancer clusters. The researchers identified the existence of five breast cancer clusters.

Studies in other countries also indicate an association between industrial pollution and the prevalence of breast cancer in women. In a study in Spain, Cambra et al. (2011) found that breast cancer mortality rates for women was higher when they lived within 2 km (1.2 miles) of certain types of industrial facilities. In a study conducted in Egypt, El-Harouny, El-Morsi, Amhed, and El-Atta (2011) found that exposure to certain heavy metals suspected in carcinogenesis (specifically cadmium and copper) measured in urine samples taken from 100 patients undergoing breast biopsy (75 with and 25 without breast cancer) was higher among those with breast cancer. (For evidence from Iraq, see Bidgoli, Ahmadi, & Zavarhei, 2010).

Ovarian/Uterus Cancer

Ovarian/uterus cancer is an important concern for women, and few studies have addressed whether environmental pollution plays a role in these diseases. Generally, medical researchers view these cancers as hereditary and the consequence of personal decisions (e.g., lifestyle choices such as diet) made by women (Barnes & Antoniou, 2012; King et al., 2013). As a result, studies of the effect of industrial pollutants on ovarian/uterus cancer have been neglected, though research suggests these factors may play a role in at least half of ovarian/uterus cancer cases (Bassil et al., 2007). Dey et al. (2011) found such a link in their study of Egyptian women.

Pollution, Respiratory Disease, and Lung Cancer

As with other subjects reviewed above, studies addressing women’s respiratory and lung disease tend to be neglected in favor of studies of men, general population studies, and research on the individual correlates of lung health issues for women. These studies neglect women as research subjects, overlook the adverse impacts of environmental pollution on women, and marginalize WGV, and may be the result of poor integration of feminist perspectives into medical/epidemiological research. These patterns of neglect demonstrate the need for green-feminist analysis which draws attention to women as victims of green crimes and theoretical explanations for WGV. The inadequate development of feminist positions related to WGV in different segments of the world economy or relative to the lived experiences of women in different contexts may misrepresent the “experience of women” by creating an abstract, general theory that excludes some important segments of the female population affected by the green victimization of women.

In an important study, Luo, Hendryx, and Ducatman (2011) examined whether pollutants found to affect lung cancer rates among industrial workers also affected lung cancer rates for women in the general population. Using county-level pollution and cancer rate data for the United States, Luo et al. tested for a general association between these industrial pollutants and lung cancer rates. The researchers found a statistically significant increase in lung cancer rates related to the release of three industrial pollutants: chromium, formaldehyde, and nickel for both females and males (for a related study in China, see Zhen, Zheng, Wang, Yan, & Shang, 2013).

The implications of Luo et al.’s study have importance for women in industrialized nations. At the same time, however, environmental health problems for women in other national contexts have been glossed over. For example, consider the Health Effects Institute’s (2010) analysis of more than 400 studies on the effects of outdoor air pollution on people’s health in developing Asian nations. Of those studies, only nine measured the direct effects on women’s health. In contrast, 18 studies examined women’s exposure to environmental air pollution as a conduit to adverse health outcomes for children. Although environment exposure issues for women in general are a concern, there has been a tendency to overlook how these exposure patterns vary for different categories of women, as the examples below suggest.

Some Specific Areas of Neglect in the Green Criminological Literature and Women’s Victimization

The evidence reviewed above is an important source of data on WGV. Those studies, however, fail to specifically address the green victimization experiences of economically, racially, and “culturally” marginalized women. Here, two examples are offered to illustrate those effects related to e-waste and pesticide exposure.

In recent years, green criminologists have begun to explore issues related to e-waste as a green crime (Bisschop, 2012; Gibbs, McGarrell, Axelrod, & Rivers, 2011; Rothe, 2010). Those studies address the general environmental problems posed by e-waste and its regulation. The e-waste exposure, however, is an important route for human contamination from industrial environmental pollutants especially within certain regions of the world economy. In those world economy locations, women sometimes occupy roles in the e-waste industry that enhance their exposure to e-waste. Green criminologists, however, have yet to address the relationship between e-waste and WGV.

Recent medical research indicates that women in countries such as China (Ben et al., 2013; Leung et al., 2010; Ma et al., 2012; Zhou, Ju, Wu, & Yang, 2013) and Vietnam (Tue et al., 2010) experience elevated rates of exposure to e-waste. Although India is a major destination for e-waste, we could not locate studies of the effect of e-waste on women in that country. Moreover, here again, extant studies tend to explore how women’s exposure to e-waste affects fetuses and infants. According to McAllister, Magee, and Hale (2014),

As the lowest of the low, women waste workers operate not only under the radar of many policy makers and politicians, but also in the shadows of the household. They work in an unregulated and informal economy. They may live and toil in inscrutably hostile home environments. They are . . . not only poorly outfitted to do their jobs, forced to use low-tech tools to extract the precious metals and reusable components of e-waste, saddled with the most undesirable and dangerous tasks, including using acid baths to reclaim precious metals . . . E-waste specifically affects women’s morbidity/mortality and fertility . . . (p. 172)

These invisible female victims of e-waste disposal and recycling have yet to be the subject of criminological research related to women’s victimization. This neglect has been the substance of criticisms in Postcolonial Feminism (PCF) analysis, which suggests that traditional feminist analysis largely addresses the problems encountered by women in developed nations. PCF argues that traditional feminist analysis over-emphasizes the unity of being female, and overlooks the fact that in the context of third world nations, gender, class, race, and ethnicity intersect and influence the experiences of women in previously colonized regions in unique ways (Mishra, 2013; for an important, ground-breaking work, see Mohanty, 1984). This critique implies the need for feminist analyses capable of addressing and including WGV in postcolonial nations.

Also neglected in the green and feminist criminological literature is the exposure of female migrant workers to pesticides. Pesticides are known to have numerous adverse health effects, and migrant worker populations tend to be over-exposed to pesticide pollution (Arcury et al., 2010). Here, again, medical research has explored this issue as a route to adverse health consequences for fetal development and infants (Flocks, Kelley, Economos, & McCauley, 2012). The fact that medical research tends to ignore the health impacts of pesticide exposure for female migrant workers should not, however, impede green/feminist criminologists from addressing this important issue as a form of WGV. Although female migrant workers share some forms of victimization with other women, their unique locations in what can be called the racial patriarchy of capitalism requires addressing how gender, race, class, and environment intersect to produce conditions for women’s environmental victimization.

The above examples illustrate that there are specific forms of green victimization for economically marginal/postcolonial women that can appear in a variety of contexts in which women live (e.g., the female urban poor who may also be racial and ethnic minorities; indigenous women in different nations). The green victimizations of economically/racially marginalized women have not been sufficiently addressed in the green/feminist criminological literatures, and numerous areas of research on this issue remain open for exploration.

Conclusion

Green criminologists have periodically noted that female victims of green crimes deserve attention, but such attention has yet to materialize. The integration of feminist and green criminologies is essential to adequately address WGV and establish an appreciation of the experiences of women as victims of green crimes. The theoretical structure of that approach requires development well beyond the scope of the present study, which served the primary purpose of sensitizing criminologists to WGV. To do so, examples of WGV were drawn from the medical/epidemiological literature. It was also noted that one of the more significant neglected dimensions of WGV results from green harms that affect economically/racially marginalized women living in different national contexts (including women in postcolonial situations). Economically marginalized women suffer serious health problems, for example, within urban and rural areas, and these victimization experiences can also be addressed in relation to the effects of environmental injustice on women. Marginalized women in underdeveloped and developing countries should not be ignored, and medical research has been directing some attention to this issue by exploring the victimization of women through exposure to e-waste. Within other national contexts, marginalized women are exposed to industrial pollutants/green victimization as a result of exposure to pesticides, a particular concern for women migrant workers. Green and feminist criminologists must address these issues in more complete fashion to round out the discussion of green victimization and to better acknowledge WGV.

To better include WGV, green and feminist criminologists must make a greater effort to examine the intersection between feminist and green theory. How those literatures can and should be integrated is a significant undertaking, and much research remains to be done on this issue. Doing so must entail more extensive analysis than, for example, the review of medical literature this article has presented. Although it is important to draw on research from other disciplines to establish how women are victimized by green crimes, doing so does not directly address related concerns such as exploring whether environmental policies sufficiently protect women’s health, and how legal determinations of environmental exposure either include or ignore empirical evidence related to exposure levels important for protecting women from environmental victimization. In addition, given that exposure to environmental toxins and pollutants is now ubiquitous, it is increasingly important to address WGV which may be more widespread than women’s victimization from other forms of violence, including domestic violence. Feminist criminology can make important contributions to this line of inquiry as ecofeminism has not widely addressed the concept of women’s victimization from environmental/green harms. In short, female victimization by green crime is an area of research waiting for much more extensive development.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Editor of Feminist Criminology and the three anonymous reviewers of the article for their helpful suggestions and comments during the review process.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biography

Michael J. Lynch is professor of criminology and associated faculty, Patel School of Global Sustainability, Unviersity of South Florida. His research examines green criminology, environmental justice, corporate crime and its control, and radical criminology.

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