“The climate crisis is not gender neutral,” said Katharine K. Wilkinson, co-editor of the anthology Everything we can save: truth, courage and solutions to the climate crisis, a book of essays and poems written entirely by female contributors. “It stems from a patriarchal system that is also intertwined with racism and white supremacy and extractive capitalism. And the unequal consequences of climate change make it more difficult to create a gender equality world.”
In the face of this reality, the world must embrace a feminist approach to address the climate crisis, she adds. That includes a collective mission to shift who takes the lead in resolving the crisis, and what the approach will be.
A multiplier of injustice
“The intersections of climate and justice and feminism encompass the disproportionate impact of climate change and the entire climate continuum on women,” said Jacqueline Patterson, director of the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice Program. “We’re also adding the racing lens, of course, and the added risks that are unique to BIPOC women and, in particular, black women.”
Climate change has evolved in an unjust world, and now it is exacerbating the vulnerabilities and inequalities experienced by women, especially those who live in rural areas or the South and those who are black, indigenous or other people of color. Patterson reflects on this injustice in the essay “At the Intersections,” in the Anything we can save collection. She opens with an anecdote about the first time she saw racism, misogyny and poverty collide with environmental issues as a Peace Corps volunteer in her father’s home country, Jamaica. Later in her career, as a human rights activist working internationally to combat HIV / AIDS and gender inequality, Patterson heard the story of a woman who left her native Cameroon after her community’s crops had dried up, only to be a victim of rape. and then to contract HIV at the border of the country. “These stories drew my tears,” she writes. “There is a pandemic of devastating consequences at the intersection of violence against women and climate change.”
Today, in her environmental justice work with the NAACP, Patterson is committed to ensuring that communities in “dire desperate circumstances, communities that are not even thought of,” such as those without running water or electricity, are not excluded. of the climate talk. And that means not just recording them, but intentionally prioritizing them and making sure their voices are heard at all levels. She asks, “How do we make sure we don’t continue with the misery of the past by assuming the rising tide will lift all boats?”
“A Feminist Climate Renaissance”
According to Wilkinson, these injustices of the climate crisis also point to a leadership crisis. What we really need, they and Anything we can save co-editor Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, a marine biologist, writes is a “ feminist climate renaissance. ” Without this, a just and livable future becomes impossible. “Research shows that leadership and women’s equal participation lead to better outcomes for climate policy, emissions reduction and land protection,” added Wilkinson.
Indeed, many of today’s most influential climate leaders are women. On the international stage, Christiana Figueres, as head of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was the architect of the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, which preambled the need to empower women in climate decision making . Celebrities like Jane Fonda have highlighted the climate crisis through Civil Disobedience and Fire Drill Fridays – inspired, of course, by the activism of Swedish teen Greta Thunberg and the powerful Fridays for Future movement she started. Women government officials are also leaders in the field of climate. New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern recently declared a climate change emergency and pledged her country to be carbon neutral by 2025. Meanwhile, U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the visionary behind the Green New Deal, a plan for the country to move away from fossil fuels to a clean energy future. And in recent years, groups such as the Sunrise Movement, led by Varshini Prakash, have been critical of integrating the climate crisis into American public discourse.
Wilkinson and Johnson see four main traits shared by leaders like this one. First and foremost, they prioritize making changes over self-control. “We have to overcome ego, competition and control – all that patriarchal, supremacist, hierarchical stuff that gets in the way, burns a lot of energy and keeps us from working together,” Wilkinson says.
Feminist climate leaders also tend to be deeply committed to justice and equality. Having emotional intelligence is also necessary. “This is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced, and we’re not going to solve it from our prefrontal cortex alone,” Wilkinson explains. “We have to come here as whole people. And that means the sadness, the uncertainty, the anger, the fear, but also the really savage love.”
Finally, feminist climate leaders recognize that building community is a prerequisite for building a better world. The community contains incredible wisdom, while “individualism falls short of good ideas, especially a sense of purpose and joy,” says Wilkinson. Nurturing that sense of community in the broad climate movement is often a first step, especially when uniting allies from disparate groups. As Colette Pichon Battle, founder of Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, advises, before different groups of women can be on the front lines together, they must heal relationships and reconcile the unjust social dynamics between their different communities.
The good news is that women are uniquely prepared to take on this social and environmental healing work. “Women have had to develop a coping and nurturing set of skills to see the survival of our families,” said Patterson, adding that caring for a family under the most dire of circumstances is embedded in black women’s DNA. that carry the trauma of slavery. “Women just had to do it,” she says.
Wilkinson, for her part, says that every time she turns around, she sees evidence of the growth and strength of the feminist climate ecosystem. Leaders in the youth climate justice movement embody these characteristics, and more and more women are getting a seat at the national table (including former NRDC president Gina McCarthy, another Anything we can save employee, who now directs domestic climate policy from the White House). “There are many signs that this galloping herd is getting bigger, faster and stronger. And that gives me a lot of courage,” Wilkinson says.
Power and joy
For their nonprofit All We Can Save Project, Wilkinson and Johnson have developed a vision for 2030 for women who are climate leaders to maintain the power to create transformational change and experience great joy in their work. Their community-based approach to solving the climate crisis prioritizes collective lifting of each other’s minds and helps build momentum – both of which serve as an antidote to the gloom that can sometimes consume the lone climate warrior. “We really like this idea of power and joy,” explains Wilkinson. “Power is what you need to bring about change. And joy, frankly, is what you need to keep appearing every day.”
With climate feminists at the helm, more resources and investment could be procured for the transformational climate work that cisgender and trans women and non-binary leaders are already doing – developing solutions, researching and writing, organizing community organization – often overnight or on weekends . These leaders and their teams can also serve as role models and mentors for emerging climate feminists of all genders and ages.
And of course, men can be climate feminists too. “There’s a really important role for men, and I think it starts with listening,” says Wilkinson. “And when we look at core approaches to climate leadership, things like compassion, connection, creativity, collaboration, care, commitment to justice, it’s all open to people of any gender.” She notes that men in positions of power – whether they control funding or platforms or run an institution – can be more aware of helping change the face of climate leadership. They can invite more women and others from different backgrounds to bring forward ideas and lead projects, or they can take a step back and let others make decisions and set the vision.
Such collaboration is increasingly urgent. “Even now, at the eleventh hour for climate action, so many people are denying, blocking and slowing down in power, or making hollow promises about what they’re going to do,” Wilkinson said. It’s absolutely devastating. But I think the tide is turning. I think we will win. ‘
She adds that Ireland’s former and first female president, Mary Robinson, sums up the situation perfectly with the slogan for her Mothers of Invention podcast, “Climate change is a man-made problem – with a feminist solution!”
Reposted with the permission of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
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