ABSTRACT
The growing literature on environmental justice argues that those people and communities who are most poor, or most undervalued, are most likely to be exposed to environmental hazard (see, for example, Bullard, 1999, and Dobson, 1999). For example, toxic industries tend to locate in communities which have the least clout in opposing this, whether this is a poor neighbourhood in a rich country, or in the developing world, with its weaker health and safety regulations and hunger for jobs and foreign exchange. Whilst it is usually the wealthy who pollute most perniciously (both individually and nationally), it is the poor who find it harder to escape from the negative effects of pollution. This literature has mostly focused on ethnic minorities and communities in poverty, since these groups have a clear spatial manifestation. Whilst women are fairly homogeneously distributed through the community, it is striking how, world-wide, women are more likely to be poor than men. Particularly where they are lone mothers or elderly, women are more likely to form a greater proportion of a community in poverty than are men.
