In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers
  • Katherine G. Aiken (bio)
Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty: Environmental Politics, Technoscience, and Women Workers. By Michelle Murphy . Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2006. Pp. x+253. $21.95.

Michelle Murphy's study of sick building syndrome brings together elements of women's history, medical history, the history of technology, and architectural history. Her story is all the more fascinating when one realizes that, before 1980, sick building syndrome did not even exist. Murphy's sophisticated discussion sheds light on how a working environment that most outside observers perceived as privileged in comparison to industrial work—air-conditioned, comfortable surroundings, well-dressed workers—could become the cause of occupational illness.

Murphy points out that "environmental hazards were also gendered" (p. 5). Office workers protested their environment and their "appropriate place" as women. Women made the majority of complaints about sick building syndrome, and the inability of health-care professionals to attribute a single cause or a single set of symptoms led to questions regarding the nature of the affliction. Was this another form of female "hysteria"? The fact that experts from various disciplines could not agree even on the existence of sick building syndrome—much less its causes and impact—adds to the complexity of this story. [End Page 444]

Murphy examines the process of designing and constructing office buildings—certainly one of the symbols of modern American business and society. She wryly notes that "[i]n practice, the golden point on the graph that identified the optimum climate was charted through measurements largely taken from the bodies of young, white college men in boxer shorts who acted as the research subjects" (p. 25). Needless to say, most office workers did not fit this demographic profile. White women made up the majority of office workers, and they were attracted to the very environment (safe, clean) that may have contributed to illness.

At the same time, changes in office technology—the IBM Selectric typewriter, liquid paper, copiers, computers—altered the nature of work, the physical environment, and the chemical environment. This was also true of the design of work-spaces in office buildings, which is a topic that Murphy handles adeptly. DuPont, Eastman Kodak, Corning Glass, Ford Motor Company, Aetna, and IBM experimented with the so-called open-planning model. The ubiquitous cubicles that came to symbolize this type of office organization consisted of plastic or particleboard walls lined with synthetic materials—yet another potential source of illness-causing emissions. In a terrific irony, the Environmental Protection Agency's Washington, D.C., headquarters became a candidate for "sick building" designation.

Women office workers' concern for their own health and safety coincided with a reinvigorated national women's movement. Murphy's discussion of the women's office-worker movement of the 1970s and 1980s is useful and insightful. She notes that in 1970, "the median salary of clerical workers was lower than that of every type of blue collar work" (p. 55). So it is not surprising that even though the image of office work was one of privilege, the reality was a "gendered form of oppression" (p. 59). By 1975, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) reported that "office workers had the second highest incidence of stress-induced diseases of any occupational group" (p. 76). So what was happening?

The research did not follow the path that Alice Hamilton and others had pioneered in terms of lead in the atmosphere. There was no clear test to detect either the environmental causes of the disease or its presence in the human body. Social surveys (also hearkening to the Progressive Era) became the research tool workers used. This meant that the women involved took it upon themselves to obtain data to document their illnesses and to prove that buildings and work environments could contribute to ill health. Women turned to surveys because "sick building syndrome became a phenomenon characterized as much by what could not be perceived—specific cause—as by what could be" (p. 108).

Murphy writes that she has "tried to juxtapose the practices of professionals and experts...

pdf

Share