Are Women the Green Leaders We Need

"Destroy the patriarchy, not the planet."

I saw this phrase on a bumper sticker last year. My first thought was "Where can I get one for myself?!" Willfully ignoring the fact that the sticker would be dripping with irony as it sat above the exhaust pipe on my ten-year old gas-powered car, I really began to question whether I actually knew how patriarchy and climate change were connected. I knew that both phenomena were adversely affecting the wellbeing of most people in the world, but beyond that, I couldn't really analyze the explicit connection between them.

Mainstream environmentalism, which typically focuses on climate change and protecting habitats, often proposes individual-level solutions, the implication being that if we all drove electric vehicles, became vegan and rejected plastics, our environmental issues would be solved. Although these actions would certainly help, they don't address the systemic causes of climate change or the resultant problems, such as the issue of displacement among predominantly female, low-income communities who are forced to move due to extreme weather events and dwindling resources.

Climate change exacerbates existing gender, racial, and financial inequities. Systemic gender discrimination means that women, especially in developing countries, face harsh working conditions, low wages, and a higher risk of gender-based violence as a result of more frequent climate disasters.

At the same time, ironically, it is women who are the leaders in the environmental movement, from growing most of the world's food to shifting corporations towards more environmentally-conscious decision making.

We really need to adopt an environmental philosophy that critically analyzes the overlap between social inequality and the overexploitation of natural resources, which is where the environmental philosophy of ecofeminism comes into play. But what is ecofeminism? And how can it help us solve environmental issues?

Women as Environmental Stewards

Women, particularly those living in so-called developing countries, tend to assume prominent roles in outdoor work, making them deeply familiar with the consequences of a changing climate. Common jobs for women include agricultural work and/or collecting water and fuel for their families. As a result of frequent severe weather events, women have to travel farther than usual from their homes to find adequate resources for their families. These long days of walking also increase women's susceptibility to gender-based violence.

Women's strenuous work outdoors yields tremendous benefits for the rest of the world, as women are responsible for producing half of the world's food - a statistic that rises to 80% when focusing on the developing world alone.

Given these invaluable talents, one would think that supporting female workers would be at the forefront of the environmental movement. Unfortunately, this is not the case, as women in developing countries are victims of discriminatory laws that prevent them from owning land. This, in turn, prevents women from benefiting from climate financing opportunities and other government subsidies, as they have no collateral to offer when applying for loans.

Indigenous women also don't receive the support and respect they deserve for their agricultural innovations. The valuable ancestral knowledge harnessed by indigenous women includes novel forms of natural pest control, such as applying ashes and manure to crops, as well as uncovering underground water sources through the identification of certain plant species, which can be of great use during severe droughts.

As a result of systemic gender and racial discrimination, however,Indigenous women's voices are often not listened to in the agricultural world , culminating in only male agricultural workers routinely gaining access to meaningful technology and education that women are just as worthy of receiving.

Based on a 2023 estimate, if female farmers were given access to the same agricultural education, technology, and funding received by men, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization projected that globally we could feed an additional 45 million people. While 43 countries around the world have alarming or serious levels of on-going hunger, according to the Global Hunger Index, society continues to exclude some of the most promising people in the agricultural world: women.

Unquestionably leaders in environmental stewardship, women's ideas and concerns regarding climate change ought to be amplified. Yet, mainstream environmentalism overlooks women's concerns and chooses to align with an economic structure lauded by male-dominated industries. However, an alternative environmental philosophy exists that prioritizes the liberation of women and the environment.

Ecofeminism: What Is It?

Originally coined by Francoise d'Eaubonne, a bold French feminist who published prolific pieces on the ideology in the '70s, ecofeminism asserts that gender inequalities and environmental injustices are both the result of patriarchy and capitalism. Therefore, in order to make real progress in creating a more just society, we need to reject the patriarchal structure and the oppression it promotes.

But what does the patriarchy have to do with the economy? Dominance is inherent within the concept of the patriarchy, which depicts a society where men harness a disproportionate amount of power in political, economic, and social spheres. Ecofeminist scholars acknowledge that within a male-dominated society, women and the environment are undermined because of the prevalence of traditional gender roles.

For example, in the developing world, women are perceived as caretakers of the land, which makes sense given the previously mentioned statistics surrounding women and food harvesting. Despite their profound familiarity with agriculture, women are not given the opportunity to make land/natural resource management decisions - a blatant instance of sexism.

Similar to how men demonstrate their dominance over women by assuming the role of a decision-maker, men evoke a similar sense of power over nature. The oil industry is a timeless example of the patriarchy in action, as the industry is predominantly male and has a lengthy history of racism and sexism, in addition to the fact that oil drilling has essentially become synonymous with environmental degradation. In a patriarchal society, it is unsurprising that a male dominated industry willingly exploits the land for profit, even if they know the detrimental environmental consequences that arise from their work.

Giving women the opportunity to make decisions on matters relating to the environment would allow for more progress in the environmental movement, since female leaders, especially in the corporate world, have made more environmentally-friendly decisions than men, according to a study from the European Corporate Governance Institute.

Rejecting Mainstream Environmentalism

At one of the first women-led international environmental conferences, the Women's Congress for a Healthy Planet in 1991, thousands of women came together to declare a new climate agenda. One of their agenda items, which was noticeably missing from the UN's 1992 Conference on Environment and Development agenda, was to spread awareness that environmental degradation is the result of the military/industrial/capitalist economy.

Unfortunately, the UN's "Our Common Future" report decided to adopt a green growth paradigm, which has largely shaped climate change rhetoric to this day. Green growth capitalizes on the idea that technological innovations, that enable energy efficiency, are ultimately what will lead to sustainable economic growth,creating a sustainable society. However, such a report does not acknowledge that the "developed" world's economic growth is only serving to exacerbate inequalities in the first world, as the gap between the ultra-wealthy and the poor continues to increase.

Ecofeminism is in conflict with mainstream environmentalism because it does not promote uninhibited economic growth, even if it is done in a supposedly sustainable way. Instead, it favors an approach to environmentalism that acknowledges that the wealthiest countries in the world are responsible for climate change, yet it is some of the most impoverished countries, and the women living and working within those countries, that are suffering the most from the impacts of climate change.

Ecofeminism champions compassion and empathy, fundamentally changing the way that we relate to one another and the environment. By challenging the assumed superiority of humans over nature, ecofeminism seeks to remind humanity that we are not separate from nature but rather form one large global community. This change in framing could effectively shift our society's ease in earning record profits at the expense of the natural world.

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