The end of the twentieth century was characterized by a surge of interest in the impact of gender on environmental politics. Many people assert that women have a special relationship with the environment, leading to a link being assumed between women and environmental issuses in development planning. This article analyzes this assertion cross-culturally and, using field data from both North America and the global South as illustration, engages with a long-standing set of debates concerning the relationship between agency, structure, knowledge, and power and the ways in which these relationships have been operationalized and conceptualized.