Toxic homes, toxic water: Housing, segregation, and gendered responsibilities for household water insecurity in the American Rust Belt

Cara Jacob, Lucero Radonic, Priyanka Jayakodi

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

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 languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationRoutledge Handbook of Gender and Water Governance
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages121-135
Number of pages15
ISBN (Electronic)9781003100379
ISBN (Print)9780367607586
DOIs
StatePublished - 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

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