Abstract
Failing infrastructure is becoming an ever more common source of water insecurity throughout the United States, particularly in the deindustrialized cities of the Rust Belt, which cluster around the Great Lakes. This chapter examines the types of household responsibilities created as a result of urban water insecurity stemming from a toxic environment and the ways in which those responsibilities are gendered. In Milwaukee, WI, old housing stock and aging water infrastructure intersect with structural racism to create a racialized lead epidemic among children living in the North Side area of the city. Using data collected as part of a community photovoice project, this case study shows how the racialized housing-water nexus intimately ties housing precarity to household water insecurity in late industrialism. In this context, findings indicate that while men and women are involved in reducing potential lead hazards in the home, the types and timing of these responsibilities have gendered components, with women shouldering the majority of this burden due to the water-intensive nature of care-work. In this way, this chapter highlights the pervasiveness of marked gender roles even in societies with more gender parity - or an arguably less dismal gender gap - in the public spheres of politics and economics.
Original language | English (US) |
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Title of host publication | Routledge Handbook of Gender and Water Governance |
Publisher | Taylor and Francis |
Pages | 121-135 |
Number of pages | 15 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781003100379 |
ISBN (Print) | 9780367607586 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Oct 1 2024 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Social Sciences
- General Economics, Econometrics and Finance
- General Business, Management and Accounting
- General Earth and Planetary Sciences
- General Engineering
- General Environmental Science