Are the Repercussions of Climate Change Gendered?

One of the most pressing environmental challenges today is climate change. In simple terms, the United Nations defines climate change as ‘long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns. Such shifts can be natural, due to changes in the sun’s activity or large volcanic eruptions. But since the 1800s, human activities have been the main driver of climate change, primarily due to the burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas.’

Human interaction with the environment is as old as time but the pattern of interaction has changed over the years. With the transition from an agricultural to an industrialist society in the 19th century, human interventions in the environment have augmented with increasing demands for and eventually overuse of wood, coal, minerals, and other natural resources. However, it must be noted that women and men have interacted differently with the physical environment with their roles, rights and responsibilities being significantly gender-specific.

The subordination of women has been a universal and cross-cultural phenomenon. Witch-hunting raged through Europe from the twelfth to the seventeenth century as a means of controlling and subordinating economically and sexually liberated women, who were perceived as a threat to the rising bourgeois order. With the emergence of capitalism as a world system, the relations between human beings and the physical nature changed radically. Parallels began to be drawn between women and nature. As the eminent feminist anthropologist, Sherry Ortner shows in her essay, ‘Is Female to Male as Nature to Culture?’ (1974), the subordinated status of women is based on the pan-cultural assumption that women are closer to nature than men and it is the men who occupy the higher ground of culture. Carolyn Merchant in her book, ‘The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution’ (1983)  has shown that Francis Bacon, the father of modern science treated, ‘nature as a female to be tortured through mechanical inventions.’ (Merchant, 1983: 168). He advocated the deployment of the exact methods to extract resources from Mother Earth, namely, torture and violence, that the witch-persecutioners used to extract secrets from the witches. Later, ecofeminists have also sought to establish how women are embedded in nature and the exploitation of the former is akin to that of the latter.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessed that the worst impacts of climate change are felt by the most marginalized and vulnerable sections. Furthermore, the impact of climate change on gender is disparate. Women are greater sufferers of climate change than men because they constitute the majority of the world’s poorer section and are more dependent on the endangered natural resources.

Various factors contribute to greater vulnerability of women to climate change. Rural women in developing countries are one of the most vulnerable groups. This is because they are often directly dependent on natural resources for their sustenance. They contribute significantly to agricultural labor, which is mostly unpaid as it is considered a part of the household chores. They are the ones responsible for collecting water and fuel for their families. Despite being dependent, women lack ownership and access to natural resources of good quality such as land, water and trees.

UN Women, UNDP and the Pardee Centre for International Futures estimate that around 388 million women and girls live in extreme poverty as compared to 372 million men and boys as of 2022. Thus, there exists a glaring gender difference in poverty rates which is a major factor that escalates the vulnerability of women to climate hazards or climate change. Further, women lack equal access to education and training as men. The lack of ability to access information before, during and after disasters makes them inept in dealing with the challenges emerging due to climate change. They are also often unable to recover the losses and thus become even more impoverished. Women are frequently discouraged in sectors such as resource management and production due to their lower social standing and decision-making authority. Restrictions on participation and involvement in social processes and limited freedom of organization pose further obstacles in empowering women to address climate change.

Besides the above-mentioned factors, degrading environmental conditions also directly impact the lives of women. Over-exploitation or pollution of natural resources has frequently been caused by developments such as commercialization, export-orientation, international trade and pricing policies, external debt, structural adjustment programmes, political and armed conflicts, as well as rising consumption and population pressures. These developments entail diversion of land and resources for industrial purposes.This results in shortage of common resources, deterioration of their quality and variety, and disturbance of environmental capabilities, such as pollution of water, soil and air, thus destabilizing the ecological cycle. A degrading environment which is also a major escalator of deepening poverty, poses a greater threat to women. This is because women have to invest more time and energy in fending for the family’s basic needs for natural resources, security and health which the degrading ecosystem is unable to supply. For instance, women have to walk longer distances over rough terrains to meet the family needs of water and fuelwood in the extreme weather conditions. This often increases their insecurities in life.

According to a research conducted in Nepal, girls’ lives and opportunities were disproportionately impacted by the environmental degradation, which included the forest cover declining by more than half over the preceding twenty years and the land erosion, landslides, and flooding that went along with it. Although numerous developmental programmes had been started to encourage more girls to enroll in elementary schools, the lack of natural resources and the time and effort required to gather and manage them even led to a drop in the number of girls enrolling in school (Johnson et al, 1995). Thus, climate change has significantly and  negatively impacted the education of women.

For laborers, especially women, the use of harmful pesticides in agriculture also creates major health risks. Women typically perform weeding tasks. Sprayers, farmers, and packers are all experiencing serious health issues as a result of the widespread use of pesticides in agriculture. In Malaysia, a lot of women spray pesticides for plantations. They express discomfort with their eyes, skin rashes, scorched fingernails, and menstrual cycle disturbance. Some pregnant women who are exposed to pesticides early on in their pregnancies give birth to malformed children or even lose their unborn babies.(Arumugam, 1992; UBINIG, 2003).

Bangladesh is a country which is repeatedly threatened by cyclones. A study shows that the reason for women casualties being higher than that of men during the cyclones is due to the unwillingness of women to seek refuge in cyclone shelters. Evacuation of women becomes difficult in a social setting characterized by social isolation of women who are expected to maintain purdah (covering women’s skin and hair and staying away from men other than family members), to look after children and the elderly, and to stay indoors. These social barriers accompanied by a lack of separate toilet facilities for women, inadequate space for household livestock, unfair (gender-biased) relief distribution, and a scarcity of drinking water, food, and medicines created practical challenges for female evacuees. (Chowdhury et al., 2022)

These instances and the innumerable others brings us to the conclusion that in a society of pre-existing gender inequalities, the phenomenon of climate change adds to the woes of the women. The disproportionate burden of climate change on women needs immediate attention of the governments. It is thus time we recognize the glaring need that efforts towards sustainable development and environmental conservation need a gender specific and participatory approach.

References

1. Arumugam, V. (1992). Victims Without Voice: A Study of Women Pesticide Workers in Malaysia, Tenegatita and Pesticides Action Network Asia-Pacific, Penang
2. Chowdhury, T. J., Arbon, P., Gebbie, K., Muller, R., Kako, M., & Steenkamp, M. (2022, April 28). Lived-Experience of Women’s Well-Being in the Cyclone Shelters of Coastal Bangladesh. NCBI. Retrieved July 9, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9280069/
3. Merchant, C. (1980) The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution, HarperCollins, New York
4. Ortner, S. (1974) ‘Is female to male as nature is to culture?’ in M. Roslado and L. Lamphere (eds) Women, Culture and Society, Stanford University Press, Stanford
5. UBINIG (UnnayanBikalperNitnirdharoniGobeshona) (ed) (2003) ‘Beesh’: Poisoning of women’s lives in Bangladesh, UBINIG (Policy Research for Development Alternatives), Dhaka in collaboration with PAN-AP

Bibliography

1. Dankelman, I. (Ed.). (2010). Gender and Climate Change: An Introduction. Earthscan
2. Mies, M. (1986). Patriarchy and accumulation on a world scale : women in the international division of labour. Bloomsbury Academic.
3. Terry, G. (Ed.). (2009). Climate Change and Gender Justice. Practical Action Pub.

• Preeti Saha

Intern, Asia in Global Affairs

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