Who’s greener, men or women? Is sustainability feminine or masculine? Using the voices of real women who are change agents and thought leaders of the sustainability movement, Kira Gould and Lance Hosey attempt to answer these questions in their recent book Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design, published by Ecotone Publishing. Through interviews with women from a medley of professions, Gould and Hosey demonstrate how women have shaped and continue to shape the sustainability movement and the lens through which the possibility for positive change is seen.

From the so-called “mother” of the environmental movement, Rachel Carson, to more recent leaders such as the former CEO of the United States Green Building Council and current sustainability consultant (and Portland resident!) Christine Ervin, Gould and Hosey use profiles of and conversations with women to answer specific questions (posed separately by chapter) about the pillars of sustainability. The women offer easily digestible answers to hard-to-chew questions, such as “how do we innovate?” and “what is community”? The result is a comprehensive examination of the powerful role that women are playing in the movement to change the ways we co-exist with Mother Earth and the significance of the feminine contribution to this change. Though focused primarily on the sustainable design movement, the themes and ideas developed in this book can undoubtedly be applied to the general sustainability movement.

The book makes a convincing case that women are generally better wired for sustainability than men. For example, women are statistically more engaged and involved in the sustainability movement: “Polls show that women are up to 15 percent more likely than men to rate the environment as a high priority” (page vi). Furthermore, the book reveals how typically “feminine” traits have come to dictate the “principles” of sustainability. Namely, sustainability is community-oriented, egalitarian, nurturing, holistic, collaborative, and focused on the long-term agenda – all values or ideas that are typically rooted in femininity. It is only in the past century, in congruence with the feminist and civil rights movements, that the “feminine” has been given the freedom to influence culture and society in a way that enables us to move towards sustainability: “I really believe we all have masculine and feminine within us, but we are all recovering from a very long cultural period where things associated with the feminine have been squelched,” said Nina Simons, CEO of the Collective Heritage Institute on page 40. “There are particular perspectives and perhaps even biological skills that are associated with the feminine that are called for in the societal shift toward a sustainable future.”

When talking about gender, there is the potential risk of making generalizations, which aren’t necessarily bad; they contain a good deal of truth, generally. There are parts of the book that could be criticized as promoting generalizations about the definitions of gender, but the authors and the interviewees do a good job of avoiding calling these generalizations prescriptive. They make no notion that the principles of sustainability are “women-only” or that sustainability is a feminine trait. On the contrary, they tug at the idea that the principles should not be seen as gendered, and merely use the gendered lens to shed light on the contributions of the “feminine mystique” to the movement. In fact, several of the interviewed women specifically allude to the limitations that the gender debate can evoke. On page 42, Hunter Lovins admits, “I think we need to rename what these capacities are and take it out of the sexually charged debate…putting these capacities into a gender debate risks alienating a whole group of people we desperately need to start adopting these tendencies.”

Overall, Women in Green reveals some provocative and timely ideas about the role gender plays in the development of a more sustainable world and is sure to become a topic of conversation for anyone who reads it (in fact, it’s already snuck into several conversations I have had since reading the book). Although it will likely appeal more specifically to women, the book’s subject matter is certainly accessible to both sexes and presents stimulating food-for-thought for all to ruminate on, not only in relation to sustainability, but also in relation to social movements in general. As a woman, it is certainly empowering to be reminded of the significant influence we have in changing the world, especially in the wake of centuries of feminine oppression. The women interviewed in the book offer inspiring ideas for what sustainability is and can be, and prove that sustainability is a gender-neutral way of life that can and should be assimilated to equally by both men and women. After all, sustainability has humans’ best interest in mind.