Gender and Toxics: The hidden burden of mercury and other hazardous chemicals on women’s health

Exposure to harmful chemicals, including mercury, claims the lives of over 1.5 million people globally each year. As research shows, the overwhelming majority among them are women. 

Women around the world are exposed to significantly higher levels of toxic chemicals compared to men. Such an imbalance reveals yet another dark dimension of gender inequality that puts lives of the female part of the population at a constant unnecessary risk. These dynamics were confirmed by the latest UN report “Gender and Toxics”, reviewing the existing gendered injustices.

Toxic substances in the modern world 

Chemicals play a major role in today’s scientific progress in the context of highly industrialised societies. While some substances have significantly improved the quality of human lives, including uses in the food industry, medicine and transportation, the overall pace of the chemical production growth remains concerning. In just 50 years, from 1950 to 2000, the volume of global production of chemicals increased more than 50 fold, while new chemicals are being registered every day. The efforts to protect humans from the harmful impact of numerous substances to which they are exposed every day are not keeping up with the speed of industrial development. 

According to the UN report, we are witnessing “a planetary chemical crisis of unprecedented proportions” which is not only harming individuals and communities across the world but also exacerbating deeply rooted inequalities. The epidemic of chronic health conditions and deaths from chemical pollution goes hand in hand with the rapid growth of the chemical industry. 

Among chemicals, mercury is put by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the list of 10 chemicals of major health concern. Its most toxic form, methylmercury, bioaccumulates and biomagnifies, concentrating in fish as a result of previous water contamination. It  is also a well documented neurotoxicant, which may in particular have adverse effects on the developing brain. It readily passes both the placental barrier and the blood-brain barrier, which means that exposures to this toxin during pregnancy are of the highest concern. Mercury can also have a negative impact on the health of the cardiovascular system, thereby leading to increased mortality. Furthermore, inhalation of elemental mercury vapour leads to symptoms such as tremors, insomnia, memory loss, neuromuscular changes and headaches. Kidney and thyroid may also be affected as a result. 

The gender divide 

Women are disproportionately affected by the impact of toxic substances due to a range of reasons. Gender norms are the key contributor to the negative effects chemicals have on women’s health. Though countries around the world continue to take steps to address gender inequalities on various levels and challenge gender-related discrimination and violence, recent studies still show that the most unfairly distributed form of unpaid labour is housework which is responsible for a fair share of chemical exposure. For instance, employed women spend on average 2.3 hours per day on housework compared to 1.6 hours spent by employed men. Housework frequently entails use of household chemicals that are poorly regulated for safety, making women significantly more exposed to a wide range of dangerous toxic substances, such as ammonia, chlorine and various acids, on a weekly, if not daily, basis.

Toxic chemicals are also known to affect women more due to biological differences. For instance, certain chemicals can affect men and women in various ways as a result of differences in metabolism and hormone levels. A woman’s exposure to chemicals even for a short time may lead to the toxins building up in her body, leading to irreversible changes on the chemical level over a lifetime of use. Toxins like lead, as well as certain pesticides can be destructive to a woman’s reproductive system: they can disrupt fetal development and result in pregnancy loss. Many chemicals also accumulate in fat and, since women naturally have a higher fat proportion in their body, they face higher risks compared to men. 

Some hazardous substances also have transgenerational effects. According to the UN report, once some chemicals enter the body, they can be passed on to the future generations. While women are expected to take care of their bodies during pregnancy, in reality it can be challenging, especially for women from underprivileged communities that are affected by chemical exposure more, often as a result of proximity to sources of pollution, higher engagement in housework, as well as lack of education. For example, in the Amazon, mercury is released into rivers by artisanal and small-scale gold miners  contaminating the essential resources used by Indigenous people. Mercury, entering the bodies of pregnant women, can cause irreversible damage to the newborns. 

The harmful beauty standards

The beauty industry also contributes to gender inequalities in exposure to toxic substances. Multiple reports show that cosmetics used by many women daily are a direct source of exposure to chemicals, including mercury. A woman uses 16 different items of makeup daily, which can be linked to the existing beauty standards and aggressive advertisement of various beauty products to women of all ages. The fact that women’s exposure to toxins is regulated poorly underlines the bias in society towards men’s safety first and foremost. These dynamics have been reflected in a recent study on the safety of hygiene products for women, demonstrating tampons and pads frequently contained lead, arsenic, and other toxic chemicals.

Women of colour appear to face additional risks of exposure to toxic substances such as mercury. In the past decades, the cosmetic industry began to boom with skin-lightening products (SLPs), where mercury (among other harmful chemicals) may be used, as it blocks the production of melanin. 

While people of all genders may use SLPs, women and girls are particularly vulnerable due to social pressure and conditioning to use these products. Targeted advertising, social media and peer pressure can push individuals to embrace Eurocentric beauty standards that favour “fairer” (i.e., lighter) skin. These beauty standards not only cause societal and psychological harm to the consumer’s health and wellbeing but, due to the prevalence of mercury and other harmful chemicals in many SLPs. Some of the serious health risks include skin rashes, neurological disorders and kidney damage, not only posed a risk  to the user, but also to those living in the same dwelling as a result of physical contact and mercury’s ability to easily vaporise and spread within the home. The World Health Organization warns of the health risks of certain skin lighteners—and recommends phasing out.

The European Environmental Bureau, in cooperation with the Zero Mercury Working Group have analysed around 1000 creams since 2017, collected from around the world from stores and over 40 online platforms. Well over 50% of them was found to contain high mercury, with no indication on the labelling. The vast availability of these products online, as well as decentralised and under-regulated production, puts many women of colour at serious health risks.

The most recent  Zero Mercury Group report,  highlights the current lack of effective controls to prevent harmful and illegal mercury-added SLPs from being manufactured and offered online. Online platforms are evading their responsibility to prevent unscrupulous merchants from advertising, marketing and selling illicit mercury-added SLPs. This demonstrates the need for a more robust and coordinated international response, including additional restrictive measures that may need to be considered at the global level.

Steps forward

Experts mention that achieving gender equality in sound chemical management is instrumental in achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, saying that everyone, regardless of gender, should have the right to be safe from exposure to toxic chemicals.

However, even though the EU is taking strides to address the issues of exposure to toxic chemicals, the existing policies on protecting people from dangerous substances, including mercury, should become more gender-sensitive. The Regulation concerning the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) only mentions women in the legal text once, when saying that different thresholds need to be acknowledged for “for certain vulnerable sub-populations (e.g. children, pregnant women)”.

The European Commission and EU Member States should, without delay, start addressing the grave injustices in addressing the disproportionate harm women experience as a result of disparities in the impact of chemicals. The first crucial steps should focus on including gender as a criteria in designing further policies and regulations to address risks posed by chemicals. These could account for the biological differences in how men and women are affected by exposure to toxic chemicals, as well as consider the occupational disparities in which women face higher risks. 

At the global level, the Minamata Convention on Mercury pays specific attention to the needs of vulnerable populations, especially women and children, in several parts of its text, and has recently adopted its gender action plan. Among others, it bans the manufacture and trade of mercury-added cosmetics. Yet, to counteract the continued illegal manufacturing of mercury-added SLPs, it is also currently looking into the challenges and existing measures to strengthen implementation and enforcement, addressing topics such as controlling sales via regulatory and voluntary measures, discouraging marketing and raising awareness.To that end, further action is necessary to address this global emerging crisis. 

Further, the existing safety guidelines in the fields where toxic substances management is important should be reviewed in accordance with the gendered perspective. Governments could start imposing further restrictions on the household chemicals and cosmetics industries to improve monitoring and testing to protect women from unnecessary exposure to the harmful impacts of chemicals. Finally, the right to information should be consistently enforced to allow individuals to make informed decisions and ensure their safety, which will be supplemental to the regulatory action taken by the EU governments.