By Racha Zahira Ammati
Rethinking the Discourse on Women and Climate Change
References to women in the gender and climate change literature are conspicuous by the way they frame women’s relationship with the environment as either vulnerable or virtuous. This perspective pigeonholes women into two groups: those in the Global South, vulnerable to climate change’s effects; and those in the Global North, virtuously pro-environmental in the face of their male counterparts’ polluting habits. Seema Arora-Jonsson (2011) further analyses this generalisation, showing how these presumptions deflect attention away from power dynamics and disparities in institutions, amplifying women’s burdens.
Women and men’s relationships with the environment are diverse, reflecting factors such as class, age, entourage, and liaison positions. Acknowledging women’s differences and as a non-homogenous group, and challenging stereotypes around masculinity and femininity as they relate to the environment is a step forward when it comes to establishing measures to adapt and mitigate the impacts of climate change.
In addition to climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a regression for gender equality and women’s rights, with violence against women and girls increasing globally during the lockdown measures. As an indicative example, under these circumstances, women migrant workers are carrying a heavier burden. Numerous forms of intersecting inequalities and discrimination are multiplied for them, such as migration policies with gender-specific constraints, unsafe labour conditions, racism, and xenophobia. The response to the global crisis needs to be inclusive, the virus does not discriminate, therefore discrimination needs to be nonexistent in the collective recovery efforts.
Two Crises and Women’s Rights: How Is Scarcity of Resources Affecting Them?
Climate change and COVID-19 pandemic have shown us why it is crucial to invest in local economies to make them resilient along with promoting the sustainability of livelihoods, both key to a comprehensive recovery. In fact, research shows that measures put in place to alleviate the spread of COVID-19 and Climate Change’s impact specifically on rural women have worsened gender disparities, putting at risk women’s engagement in economic activities. Women have been the worst hit by the economic impacts of the pandemic due to their predominance in lower-paid jobs and the informal economy.
In addition, as the primary caretakers in their families and communities, the current crisis has contributed to a significant increase in women’s care burden.
Likewise, the same tendencies prevail with the effects of climate change. It is not news that climate change has gendered impacts, exacerbating gender inequalities and disproportionately affecting women, especially poor women. Women are typically left bearing the brunt of coping with climate shocks and its adverse health effects, amplifying their existing care burdens. Moreover, indigenous communities who rely on land and forest’s resources to develop and harvest food and fuel for their subsistence are seeing their rights, livelihoods, and status being deteriorated. Workers in vulnerable livelihood sectors, or those who do not otherwise enjoy those benefits and protective measures (like health insurance and sick pay) that accompany formal employment, are facing the worst effects.
Waste pickers, street vendors, and home-based workers — the majority of them women and whose environmental footprint is minimal compared with their counterparts in the formal economy — are at the forefront of climate mitigation through their actions to recycle waste, use less energy, and foster local markets. Nevertheless, they are among those most deeply affected by the two overlapping crises of COVID-19 and climate change. Reliance on climate-sensitive livelihoods means that women’s economic options are narrowing as the climate change crisis evolves. To make matters worse, for many of these women, who work in the agriculture and tourism sectors, COVID-19 has added new and unprecedented stress on their livelihoods. Gendered social norms are a barrier to women’s capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change and COVID-19.
Women’s Struggles: Facilitating Change
Although several global norms and standards were adopted to promote gender equality and catalyse change in social institutional and legal frameworks, globally, there continues to exist a gender gap limiting the rights of women to own, use, and control land. Thus, women face barriers in their access to and utilisation rights for renewable resources such as water, along with rights to extractive resources such as minerals, metals, timber, oil, and gas. Furthermore, women farmers’ agricultural productivity is usually lower in contrast to male farmers due to existing inequities that hinder women’s ability to access land and the agricultural means of production in the form of seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides.
In developing countries, women and girls tend to have the primary responsibility for managing a household’s energy, water, and sanitation. Where energy, water, and sanitation facilities are lacking, women and girls must devote much of their time to finding and collecting fuel and water. However, despite women using and managing natural resources, they still do not have an equal voice when it comes to decision-making. If we are to champion good governance of natural resources, women’s agency is an essential part of that, as they bring a unique perspective due to their gender-differentiated roles as agriculture workers, fish harvesters, entrepreneurs, and household providers.
Required actions
Both crises spotlight why it is critical to put women’s agency at the center of the recovery efforts in both Climate Change mitigation and adaptation measures and COVID-19 crisis’ response, where women’s contributions are still underrated. Promoting women’s involvement and representation in these processes is a step towards improving their empowerment and leadership, this is why it is necessary to examine both crises through a comprehensive gender-perspective lens in each step towards the recovery efforts, at present progress is still far too slow.
We recently launched a UNIDO synthesis report on Policy Assessment for the Economic Empowerment of Women in Green Industry. Read more here.
About the author
Racha Zahira Ammati is an International Gender Equality and Development Expert at Includovate. She is pursuing her PhD in Political Sciences, Public Administration and International Relations at the University Complutense of Madrid, UCM. She has a Bachelor Degree in International Relations and a Master’s Degree in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies and International Cooperation. Her professional goal is related to improving gender equality, fighting the main barriers that obstruct the empowerment of women and girls across social boundaries, especially in developing countries. She is a Youth Advisor for the UN Women Regional Office for the Arab States region, Gender Innovation Agora Platform.
Includovate is a feminist research incubator that “walks the talk”. Includovate is an Australian social enterprise consisting of a consulting firm and research incubator that designs solutions for gender equality and social inclusion. Its mission is to incubate transformative and inclusive solutions for measuring, studying, and changing discriminatory norms that lead to poverty, inequality, and injustice. To know more about us at Includovate, follow our social media: @includovate, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram. Help our campaign, help #IncludovateRaisesTheBar