eBook - PDF
Better Safe Than Sorry
How Consumers Navigate Exposure to Everyday Toxics
- 272 pages
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
How toxic are the products we consume on a daily basis? Whether it’s triclosan in toothpaste, formaldehyde in baby shampoo, endocrine disruptors in water bottles, or pesticides on strawberries, chemicals in food and personal care products are of increasing concern to consumers. This book chronicles how ordinary people try to avoid exposure to toxics in grocery store aisles using the practice of “precautionary consumption.”
Through an innovative analysis of environmental regulation, the advocacy work of environmental health groups, the expansion of the health-food chain Whole Foods Market, and interviews with consumers, Norah MacKendrick ponders why the problem of toxics in the U.S. retail landscape has been left to individual shoppers—and to mothers in particular. She reveals how precautionary consumption, or “green shopping,” is a costly and time-intensive practice, one that is connected to cultural ideas of femininity and good motherhood but is also most available to upper- and middle-class households. Better Safe Than Sorry powerfully argues that precautionary consumption places a heavy and unfair burden of labor on women and does little to advance environmental justice or mitigate risk.
Through an innovative analysis of environmental regulation, the advocacy work of environmental health groups, the expansion of the health-food chain Whole Foods Market, and interviews with consumers, Norah MacKendrick ponders why the problem of toxics in the U.S. retail landscape has been left to individual shoppers—and to mothers in particular. She reveals how precautionary consumption, or “green shopping,” is a costly and time-intensive practice, one that is connected to cultural ideas of femininity and good motherhood but is also most available to upper- and middle-class households. Better Safe Than Sorry powerfully argues that precautionary consumption places a heavy and unfair burden of labor on women and does little to advance environmental justice or mitigate risk.
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Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Better Safe Than Sorry by Norah MacKendrick in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Social Sciences & Gender Studies. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Table of contents
- Cover
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Safe until Sorry: Chemical Regulation in the United States
- 3 Personalizing Pollution: The Environmental Health Movement
- 4 Be a Super Shopper! Precautionary Consumption at the Grocery Store
- 5 The High Stakes of Shopping: Precautionary Consumption as Mothers' Work
- 6 Precautionary Consumption as a Class Act
- 7 Moving toward Environmental Justice
- Methodological Appendix
- Notes
- Reference List
- Index