Poison Earth, Poison Woman: Making the Connection (Young Feminists‪)‬

"From a healthy Earth come healthy women. From healthy women come healthy children." While I have always held these values in my spiritual and personal life, they've recently moved to the forefront of my professional life as well. I work at the intersections of environmental and reproductive health; every day I see research linking chemicals that pollute our environment with adverse effects on women's reproductive health, from infertility to birth defects to early puberty in girls. Some of the biggest culprits are a group of industrial chemicals called endocrine disruptors that are so similar to normal hormones that they trick the body into initiating abnormal responses. (1) These endocrine-disrupting chemicals are widely used in our everyday products. Thinking I could boycott products that used these toxic chemicals, I tried to reduce my exposure to endocrine disruptors. This is the story of my personal and professional crusade against toxic chemicals, and it is far from over.