Division of Eco-friendly Household Labor and the Marital Relationship

Qualitative interviews were conducted with both members of 12 married couples who had made a commitment to environmentalism in their everyday lives. Women in the sample generally performed more eco-friendly domestic labor than did their husbands. The article focuses on husbands' and wives' accounts for the unintended gender injustice that came with efforts at environmental justice. These accounts stressed that men intended to do their share of the labor, though they did not, while women did more of the labor because they were better at or more interested in it. Men and women offered similar accounts for the asymmetrical division of labor. The logic of the accounts can be used as part of new discourses that promote gender equity while doing environmental justice.