ABSTRACT
Women are the backbone of virtually all environmental organizations in the United States. With few exceptions, women comprise 60-80 percent of the paid members in mainstream environmental membership groups, and a much larger percentage than that in grassroots and animal rights organiza tions. The "gender gap" in environmentalism also turns up in other measures. For example, many public opinion polls suggest that, almost everywhere in the world, women favor passing more stringent environmental protection laws and spending more money on environmental protection, and they express more alarm over the state of the environment than their male counterparts. 1 It seems evident that women feel connected to environmental issues and that many women see the environment as one of "their" issues. But despite this synergy between women's concerns and environmental issues, women con tinue to be excluded from the ranks of "ecomanagement." The management and policy-making ranks of most mainstream environmental organizations remain dominated by men, and women are under-represented among the support professionals - lawyers, scientists, and lobbyists - on whom environ mental organizations increasingly rely. Most women in the United States who are active in the environmental arena (and there are many thousands of them) are taking on environmental issues in their own backyards, with their own energy and money, and in their own terms as leaders and workers in grass roots, community-based organizations that lie outside the formal structure of green politics and environmental organizations.
