Woman vs. Man vs. Bugs: Gender and Popular Ecology in Early Reactions to Silent Spring
Author(s)
Hazlett, Maril
Abstract
Today, environmentalists hail Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962) as one of the major inspirations for contemporary environmentalism. Her bestseller on the dangers of synthetic chemical pesticides introduced the public to ecological principles and argued that humans could not and should not try to dominate nature. Carson communicated these ideas through striking portrayals of humans as ecological creatures, their bodies physically entwined with their surroundings. Thus, she put words to an evolving strain of environmental thinking that caused significant changes in how members of the public – including conservationists – viewed nature. Since its beginnings around the turn of the century, the conservation movement had focused on the environment primarily in terms of resource management or wilderness preservation; in contrast, Carson used ecology to define people’s homes, gardens, and health as part of the natural world.
