Sanitary Homesteads and Maternal Responsibility: Gendered Authorities Over Environmental Exposure to Pesticides in Indiana Agriculture

Abstract

Rural Hoosier homemakers have long negotiated the tensions of competing priorities and demands on their farms: clean and pure households, robust and profitable fields, and the health of their families. Agricultural experts have stressed the benefits of using pesticides to help achieve all three of these aspects of farm life, while public health advocates have warned of the potentially dire health consequences of large-scale, long-term pesticide use—particularly for children. This article analyzes gendered perceptions of risk-assessment regarding chronic exposure to pesticide residues from the turn of the twentieth century to the present day in Indiana.