Gender and Climate Change

Lately, for work, I have been reading articles on the sex (biological) and gender (social) implications of climate change. As it stands, if you're one of those deniers, you might as well stop reading here (for shame!).

Anyway, a few of them caught my fancy. I particularly liked these next two.

Climate Change—And The ‘Other Footprint’
by Ariel Salleh
Published in The Commoner (UK) you can read it here.

and

A Stranger Silence Still: the Need for Feminist Social Research on Climate Change
by Sheilyn MacGregor
Published in the Nature, Society and Environmental Crisis (UK).

Salleh starts by arguing that women generally tend to have a smaller ecological footprint than men, especially considering they tend to be shopping for two ore more family members, she says:

EU statistics show that it is mainly women who travel by public transport or on foot. When women do use private cars, it is for multiple short journeys meeting several purposes on the one outing. The reason for women’s complex activity pattern is that even among those in the waged workforce, most undertake reproductive or domestic labour for husbands, children, or elderly parents. The double shift, as feminists call it.

Where government initiatives pass on the responsibility for a sustainable future to individuals, it tends to be women who pick up the slack, Salleh continues:

Today, globalised economic scarcity and ecological stress extract more time than ever from women’s lives. But under pressure, they are found to meet their reproductive tasks with fewer resources by using good organisation and time management. This “internalised” response to environmental conditions contrasts with the accepted public political practice of “externalising” or displacing problems on to less powerful sections of the community.

MacGregor adds to this, commenting on movements of green consumerism, saying:

[...] governments and environmentalists place emphasis on the role of individuals as consumers to tackle climate change by conserving energy, taking public transit, recycling waste, growing food and foregoing flights [...] unrealistic, punative and possibly counterproductive [...]. A feminist objection is to point out that there are unfair gender asymmetries involved in greening the household, which stem from the traditional division of labour.

and later, she continues

Women have internalized the sense of responsibility to 'do their bit' for the environment and have taken up the duties promoted by the 'green agenda' quite willingly and publicly.

As for their share, governments childishly try to pull the "not-in-my-backyard" technique and dump their problematic waste in marginalized communities. Double marginalization, as it is, for some countries developing from colonialist oppression to a phase of paying off debt using their natural resources on the climate exchange market.

Women are not, in case you may not know, a homogenous group. Nor are they all vulnerable princessed waiting to be saved by prince charming. They have been developing their own sustainable systems, as seen in small businesses and farms worldwide (land and ownership rights are key), while supporting their families, acting as breadwinners, caretakers and community leaders. Women represent a sad minority of decision-makers in climate change. And climate change action, well it reeks of overzealous security policies (planning to block out of flood of climate refugees) and overdependance on scientific models. When things are most dire, cities crumble, resources dwindle, how will your walls help you?