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Perspective Resources

By Michelle Bowles

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Women in Green: Voices of Sustainable Design Kira Gould and Lance Hosey 233 pages Ecotone Publishing, 2007 $24.95

Judging a book by its cover - no pun intended - Women in Green has purposely excluded 50 percent of noteworthy sustainable projects, influential green leaders and, perhaps, readers. Why would authors Kira Gould, former Managing Editor at Metropolis, and Lance Hosey, of William McDonough + Partners, want to do that?

It's simple, writes environmentalist Dianne Dillon-Ridgley, Director at carpet manufacturer Interface, in the book's introduction. "It relates to being a mother with a sick child . it's not glamorous. The mess won't go away and clean itself," she says. "And this is true of the women leading the [environmental] change now. The mess is there. We are the mothers and midwives of this 21st century effort to care for our world."

If that's not convincing enough, consider the hard facts offered by Gould and Hosey: Women are up to 15 percent more likely than men to rate the environment as a top priority, and, come election time, two-thirds of voters who cast their ballots around environmental issues are women.

All the arguments against such a book - that distinguishing one gender is passé, irrelevant, controversial or condescending - are well addressed and challenged. Women in Green does not contend that men are incapable of pushing forward the green movement, nor does it chronicle the ascendancy of women. Rather, it's about the growing value of sensibilities and personality traits commonly associated with women. "Without always recognizing them as such, advocates of sustainability have embraced the same qualities [founder of natural cosmetics company The Body Shop Anita] Roddick calls 'feminine' - intuition, inclusiveness, responsibility, caring and love," the authors write.

To be sure, the book contains a series of roundtable discussions that answer a broad range of questions including: What is sustainable design? What is community? How do we innovate? How do we measure progress? Each conversation relates back to how women utilize their strengths to take advantage of opportunities and address challenges concerning sustainability.

The book also includes a collection of interior design and architecture case studies. Each one-page spotlight, complete with photographs and project details, illustrates women's contributions in both design and development.

Women in Green concludes with short profiles on individuals interviewed for the book (interior designers, architects, professors, journalists, artists, non-profit directors, etc.). The diversity of this list of pioneers reinforces the fact that sustainability is an issue that transcends gender, age and economic status. But transforming the world in which we live, the authors argue, requires emulating the best-suited attributes - feminine or otherwise.

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