ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the ways that activism in Environmental justice (EJ) movements is gendered, with a focus on how men’s and women’s identities both shape and constrain their activism. It explores the ways that women and men differentially experience this entangled relationship with coal–as both polluter and source of pride and identity–and how these gendered relationships shape EJ movement participation in the coalfield region. The chapter suggests that an examination of the influence of hegemonic masculinity in the region, and the coal industry’s role in maintaining the gender order, may be central to understanding why EJ activism is so sex segregated. It argues that the shared “motherhood” identity may more readily correspond with the collective identity of EJ movements than the shared identity of “true manhood” does for men. The motherhood identity is not only tied to women’s EJ work, however; it is also a common theme in other realms of women’s community activism.
