Denying climate change is sexist
"We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change – and it has to start today." - Greta Thunberg
Illustration by Shonagh Rae
The thing about climate change is that it does not care about your opinion. It doesn't care that a third of Americans deny its existence. It doesn't care that it has been politicized. It doesn’t care that mainstream society talks about it as if it’s a thing in the future rather than a process we’ve been witnessing. We can't stop climate change by debating it out of existence. It's here, and women, specifically Black, Indigenous, women of color, and poor women worldwide, have been bearing the brunt of its consequences. The ongoing denial and lack of urgent action to mitigate the climate crisis on the global scale needs to be characterized by its results, not by its plausibility or potential. Climate crisis conversations need to center on the people facing the worst of it. When we don’t, we are choosing to erase them.
It has been well documented by women with first-hand knowledge and experience and by the UN, academia, scientists, and global non-governmental organizations that the accumulation of the dangers of climate change falls disproportionately onto women. Szilvia Csevár, Public International Law Researcher at UN Studies in Peace and Justice, refers to climate change as a "threat multiplier" because of the alarming compounding impact it has on the safety and stability of women and, therefore, their communities. It intensifies the already prevalent harms because of global capitalism, environmental racism, and cisheteropatriarchy. The lack of effort to mitigate the climate crisis by wealthy countries like the U.S. and the U.K., who have contributed the most greenhouse gases, could be understood as sexism. They are aware of the threat to women’s lives and have done little to address the root of the problem. Why?
Sexism is more than an act of blatant discrimination. According to Britannica,
“sexism is an ideology that maintains patriarchy and male dominance through social institutions, cultural norms, economic exploitation, and practices that harm women and girls.”
Sexism makes us believe that the oppressive conditions women and girls are subjected to are either acceptable, unfortunate, or, at worst, natural. These patriarchal norms have shaped structural inequalities and solidified the long-held traditional gender roles that make women and girls particularly vulnerable to the multiplying threat of climate change. If you don’t live in communities made vulnerable or are just not looking for it, you can easily miss the connections between the climate crisis and violence against women and girls.
For my human rights advocacy course, we had to research a climate issue from a feminist perspective. During my research, I learned about the connection between drought and female genital mutilation in Kenya, and my mind was blown. Although legally banned in Kenya as of 2011, the traditional practice of female genital cutting has continued in various communities within the country. The practice is performed as a customary procedure to increase a girl's marriage prospects. Organizations like World Vision Kenya and the I_Rep Foundation based in West Pokot County have been working to eradicate the practice through multiple avenues, including education. The teaching of the community and educating girls in school have played a significant role in prevention as education generates awareness of the damaging physical and psychological effects of the practice. When girls anywhere in the world have an education, they are introduced to possibilities and opportunities for rich livelihoods that break away from traditional gender roles and expectations. But in dealing with the effects of climate change, girls' education falls by the wayside as survival and sustenance are threatened.
In February 2022, the United Nations Population Fund reported that the past three rainy seasons in Kenya have failed to accumulate water, leading to severe drought and a national disaster declaration. The drought, like other disasters, sets off a series of social choices that inevitably put women and girls into vulnerable positions. The daily tasks necessary for running the home and, therefore, the communities that collectively make society is done by women. The tasks are focused on sustenance, food, farming, agriculture, cooking, and providing clean water. These resources are endangered because of climate change, and girls are the ones who have to mitigate the risk. Their lives are uprooted as they are pulled out of school to find further water sources with their families. Once water sources are found, girls spend hours a day walking back and forth to collect the water. The consequences of the drought cause economic hardships, and when families are in these precarious positions, child/forced marriage increases. Families receive a considerable dowry to marry off their daughters, leading to the tradition of female genital cutting. The threat multiplier is in action.
This example is just one of many that link climate change to gender-based violence globally. For instance, in the United States, big oil and extractive corporations near Indigenous communities are directly related to the prevailing crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit people. Like all of our collective social ills, the more marginalized women are, the more they are subjected to violence. With the legacy of colonialism and the realities of patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism, poor women, Indigenous, Black, and Brown women around the globe are put in even more danger.
But we know this. The climate crisis is another proliferation of systemic oppression and ignoring that reality is what keeps it alive. To be complicit in the climate crisis is complicit in the consequential violence against women and girls worldwide. Wealthy countries like the United States are failing to act, and we, the people, have to demand change with urgency. There is no room left in the climate change debate; protecting the lives of women and girls is not debatable.
Please consider donating time and/or money to the Sunrise Movement, Declare Emergency, Women’s Earth and Climate Action Network, or another group combating this crisis.
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Adriana
So sad. Please continue to make people aware.