Claremont Colleges Scholarship @ Claremont Pitzer Senior Theses Pitzer Student Scholarship 2013 Fertile Lands and Bodies: Connecting the Green Revolution, Pesticides, and Women’s Reproductive Health Sarah M.K. Cycon Pitzer College Recommended Citation Cycon, Sarah M.K., "Fertile Lands and Bodies: Connecting the Green Revolution, Pesticides, and Women’s Reproductive Health" (2013). Pitzer Senior Theses. Paper 38. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/pitzer_theses/38 This Open Access Senior Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Pitzer Student Scholarship at Scholarship @ Claremont. It has been accepted for inclusion in Pitzer Senior Theses by an authorized administrator of Scholarship @ Claremont. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Fertile Lands and Bodies: Connecting the Green Revolution, Pesticides, and Women’s Reproductive Health Sarah M.K. Cycon In partial fulfillment of a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Community and Global Health 2012-2013 Pitzer College, Claremont, California Readers: Professor Alicia Bonaparte & Professor Brinda Sarathy ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many, many thanks to my readers and mentors, Alicia Bonaparte and Brinda Sarathy, your support, inspiration, and positivity motivated me to produce a work I am truly proud of. It was an honor to work with both of you. To my wonderful EA thesis class and support group, I feel so lucky to have been surrounded by all of you throughout this process. We are the experts! And finally, many thanks to my parents. This work is a product of your endless dedication to social justice work in the world, and for that, I am forever grateful. Table of Contents !"#$%&'(#)%"***************************************************************************************************************************************+,+ -./0#1$+,2+3)#1$/#'$1+415)16********************************************************************************************************+7++ Common Critiques.................................................................................................................. 6 A Shared Understanding of DDT and its Environmental Interactions................................... 8 Social Scientists Examine Why Women were Exposed to DDT........................................... 10 Biological Scientists Examine How Women Were Exposed to DDT................................... 13 Minding the Gap and Connecting the Disciplines................................................................. 15 -./0#1$+82+9.1%$1#)(/:+-%";)&1$/#)%";*******************************************************************************+,<+ Dialectics: Deconstructing the Green Revolution as a System............................................. 18 Structural Violence: The Social Causes and Effects of Inequitable Systems....................... 21 Ecofeminism: Women and Nature in Inequitable Systems................................................... 25 -./0#1$+=2+>1#.%&%:%?@*****************************************************************************************************************+=A+ Grounded Theory.................................................................................................................. 30 Social Histories: Evaluating the Structure and Impacts of the Green Revolution................ 31 The 1970s: Early Critiques of the Green Revolution............................................... 32 The 1980s-1990s: Epistemological and Gender Critiques....................................... 34 The 2000s: Pesticide Exposure and Health Critiques............................................... 35 The Epidemiology of Women’s Pesticide Exposure............................................................ 36 Scientific Articles: Biological Mechanisms of DDT Contamination....................... 38 Epidemiological studies: DDT Exposure and Women’s Reproductive Health........ 38 -./0#1$+B2+-./"?1+/;+91(."%:%?@C+-./"?1+/;+!&1%:%?@D+E+F$)1G+H);#%$@+%G+#.1+ I$11"+415%:'#)%"+)"+>1J)(%+/"&+)#;+I:%K/:+L)GG';)%"******************************************************+BA+ The Rockefeller Foundation.................................................................................................. 40 Defining the Green Revolution: Change as Technology...................................................... 41 Modernizing Mexico: The Beginnings of the Green Revolution.......................................... 43 The MAP Strategy: Implement Modern Agriculture in Mexico........................................... 47 Global Diffusion of the Green Revolution............................................................................ 50 Critique: DDT and the Pesticide Treadmill........................................................................... 53 Critique: The Myth of Neutral Technologies........................................................................ 56 Critique: The Landlord Bias of Technologies....................................................................... 58 Defining the Green Revolution: Change as Ideology............................................................ 59 -./0#1$+M2+N%O1"+/"&+E?$/$)/"+-./"?1D+P/##1$";+%G+P$%&'(#)%"+/"&+N%O1"Q;+ R%()/:+R';(10#)K):)#@+#%+LL9**********************************************************************************************************+7=+ Looking Beyond Economics................................................................................................. 63 New Labor Demands and Mixed Farming Economies......................................................... 64 Landless Women and Increased Agricultural Production..................................................... 66 The Experience of the Small Cultivator................................................................................ 68 Landed Women and Increased Domestic Production........................................................... 69 Structural and Educational Inequality for Women in the Field............................................ 71 The Industrialization of Women’s Ecological Knowledge................................................... 73 ! ! !"#$%&'()*(++,(#-.(%"&(/'&&-(0&1234%52-6(728(#(0&1234%52-#'9(:&;%5<5.&( ,'#-;=2'>&.(?2.5&;(#-.(@#-.;<#$&;(5-(%"&(/32A#3(B24%"CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(D)( The Origins of DDT and American Exceptionalism ............................................................ 76 The Rockefeller Foundation and the DDT Dilemma............................................................ 78 DDT and Environmental Persistence.................................................................................... 80 DDT and Bioaccumulation: “Women’s bodies are storage containers for DDT.................. 82 Tainted Fertility: DDT Accumulation in Breast Milk........................................................... 83 Social Susceptibility: Female Farm Operations and Occupational Exposure to DDT......... 86 Absent Training: DDT Use and the Safety of Female Farmers............................................ 88 Social Susceptibility: In Our Homes, In Our Bodies............................................................ 89 !"#$%&'(D*(E-.2<'5-&(+5;'4$%52-(#-.(,"&(0&$'2.4<%51&(F4%<2>&;(2=(++,( EG$2;4'&CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(HI( A New Dimension of DDT’s Gendered Chemical Properties.............................................. 92 The Biochemistry of Endocrine Disruption: DDT and Hormonal Chaos............................. 93 Spontaneous Abortion........................................................................................................... 96 Preterm Delivery................................................................................................................... 99 Connecting Women’s Health and History ........................................................................... 100 !"#$%&'(J*(!#;&(B%4.96(:4-K#AL(M-.5#(CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(NOP( The Green Revolution in India............................................................................................ 103 Punjab: The Bread Basket of India ..................................................................................... 107 Rapid Mechanization and DDT use in Punjab.................................................................... 108 Female Labor Demands and DDT Exposure....................................................................... 111 Female Literacy and Pesticide Exposure............................................................................. 115 Epidemiological Studies of Women’s Reproductive Health Outcomes.............................. 119 !2-<34;52-(CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(NIP( 0&=&'&-<&;(CCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCC(NI)( ! ! !"!#$% Introduction The Green Revolution is widely understood as a wave of agricultural advancements in development, research, and technologies that washed over soils worldwide during the mid-twentieth century. The diffusion of high-yielding seed varieties throughout countries in the Global South answered the calls of governments in poverty- stricken countries faced with rising populations and food shortages. Following the global flow of the seeds were chemical inputs, such as the