Why gender is an important part of the fight against climate change

Gender is the sum total of the societal roles that come assigned to a given sex. This means that there are implicit and explicit roles and way of life that a person is expected to abide by based on their biological makeup. For example, women are expected to be mothers and wives, home keepers but also career women.

Climate change affects everyone on the globe but in different ways and with different intensity. Some people are affected more because of other secondary factors. One of these factors is gender. In terms of gender, women are affected significantly more than men and in unique ways.

The effects of climate change manifest as heat waves, intense floods, long droughts, rising sea levels, hurricanes and erratic weather patterns among others. All these affect natural resources in such ways as impacting the availability and quality of water as well as the fertility and ability of soils to produce crop harvests.

In the global South and elsewhere in the world, people rely on subsistence small scale farming to produce food for household consumption. Often women as opposed to men are responsible for tending these farms, and long droughts or flash floods either wilt crops or destroy entire harvests affecting the food security of that particular family, and to an extrapolated extent, that of an entire region.

Beautiful Maasai women - Indigenous women are an important part of climate action

 

Activities dependent on the natural environment such as animal rearing and subsistence farming also provide women with a livelihood, generating just enough to support their families. This income is what covers household expenses, takes children to school and assures them of a future. This is the case particularly for single parent - female headed households. Whatever little margin left provides economic sustenance to the woman; giving her a measure of independence and freedom however little.

Women are also domestic caregivers choosing to stay at home to take care of their families. Health conditions brought about by climate influenced lack of clean drinking water, or respiratory problems due to heat waves or dust storms, increase of vector borne diseases such as malaria or even unpredictable and unexpected heavy rainy seasons consequently affect these women as the health of their little ones is compromised.

Notably, women’s health is uniquely affected by climate change as compared to men. Climate forced migration exposes women to higher risks of sexual violence in refugee camps. This results to sexually transmitted diseases and has repercussions on mental health. Also, in the developing world, wood fuel used for preparing meals affect women’s health, since again, they are required to stay and take care of the home.

According to UN Climate Change (UNFCCC), most of the world’s poor are women; and climate change increases poverty in several ways. Africa is the most affected continent by climate change and a big percentage of the 54 - country continent’s economy is supported by rain fed agriculture. Agriculture is in turn affected by unpredictable and erratic weather patterns, and this impacts the economy at large, leading to loss of jobs, depressed income and a spike in poverty rates, with women being affected the most.

Let me draw a scenario for you. Tea growing zones employ slightly more women than men as workers in the fields. Climate change affects weather patterns which leads to unpredictable rainfall patterns thus depressed harvests. The women who are dependent on these menial jobs to support their families are laid off and have to seek financial support elsewhere leading them to stay or seek out unsavory circumstances such as abusive marriages if only to assure security  for them and their children.

In this way, a parallel can be drawn between climate change and negative social consequences such as early marriages for girls, dropping out of school and discontinuation of education, teenage pregnancies and abusive marriages as well as deepening intergenerational poverty. For the poorest, land is a source of income and support, and anything affecting the land also affects them. Therefore they are forced to fall back on the aforementioned alternatives, notwithstanding the dangerous impacts this will have on their rights, happiness and future.

In pastoralist communities, male children are given precedence in getting an education due to cultural biases. Efforts by governments and different organizations through laws, policies and programs have for some time borne fruit, gradually encouraging communities to educate girl children as well. But financial resources are scarce, so when long unexpected droughts reduce the numbers of herds thus affecting income, regression occurs and the boy child is again given preference. The girls are forced to stay at home or are married off because the limited resources have to force a choice between the two.

Young African women, some of the sharpest in the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Generally, there are significantly unique social consequences of climate change for the female gender. In this case, climate change has a generational effect on communities. Poor farmers, pastoralists or fisher folk dependent on the environment further suffer losses as their children drop out of school and are deprived of an education, which means that future generations will also be ensnared by poverty because of both lack of education and lack of resources.

In most cases, women are not on equal footing with men when it comes to decision making in climate action. This is due to several reasons. One is due to lack of enough education. This is a result of culture. In some communities, education for the girl child is not a priority in the manner it is emphasized for male children. Girls are discouraged from furthering their education to a tertiary level and are expected to learn how to stay home and take care of their husbands. They are also not encouraged to take up certain disciplines deemed to be “manly” such as the sciences but are expected to be content with the arts and simple courses such as secretarial work.

Two, girl children are also socialized to shun leadership and assertiveness but give it up to the boys and act submissive instead. Three, in some areas women are denied the right to inherit family property and because of land tenure systems are denied any chance of deciding how land is used or conserved. Land is both a sink and source of greenhouse gas emissions. Additionally, lack of land ownership means women lack a voice because property ownership denotes power.

Indigenous and grassroots women are also looked down on, on the presumption that they are not educated enough to handle matters such as climate change. Yet this is quite ironical given that they have worked for generations with the environment and have inbuilt skills that may not be documented in ink and paper. Women leaders are also “expected” to be softer and not as assertive and forceful in their leadership. In some patriarchal societies, there is a viewpoint of looking to men as leaders and women as followers. That means women leadership is rejected on this flimsy basis no matter how good of a leader the woman is.

These are some of the biases that contribute to women lacking a voice and equal representation in climate action decisions.

Truthfully, women are a resource in the fight against climate change and their participation must be included for climate action to succeed. As one half of the global population, women need and equal seat at the table, and positions that reflect their numbers as well. The saying goes that you cannot act on behalf of a certain demographic without directly involving them in the process, because any such decision would be imposed, not consensual.

That being said, the female gender is not lacking in ideas and inspiring leadership. Research shows that women leaders are more empathetic, because they are in touch with the affairs of their constituents. They have firsthand experience. They are therefore likely to focus their efforts to bring about long lasting and impactful change to social and environmental issues in their communities.

Women leaders are also more emotionally intelligent and therefore able to handle and navigate issues that need a certain aptitude such as holding negotiations and building consensus. Such soft skills go a long way in rallying and gathering together a wide range of actors with differing priorities around a certain goal say climate action.

Indigenous and grassroots women are also carriers of a great wealth of wisdom, because of their longstanding daily interactions with the environment. They possess great knowledge and skills, learnt from experience and passed down for generations. They have a vast treasure trove of practical knowledge and skills on how to take care of the environment in such a way that it serves their needs but does not deplete the natural resources they depend on. In other words, they know how to take for today while ensuring enough for tomorrow.

These women may not in all honesty have scientific papers to their names, but they have age tried and tested methods and processes of taking care of the environment, healing it and restoring it. The climate action fight would do well to recognize these women and involve all stakeholders given that this is their fight too, they are the first to be directly affected and they have such invaluable knowledge that it would be a significant misstep to not include it.

The inclusion of these women would propel the climate fight years ahead using such simple solutions that are easily understood by the whole community at the grassroots. Local women know their societies best and therefore would be instrumental in canvassing support. They would also serve as valuable go-betweens, partners and leaders between local communities and organizations involved in climate action.

Women are also better educators because their impact is wholly felt on the entire community and society, their impact is large scale. The saying goes, “if you educate or empower a woman you educate/empower a nation.”

Women in general are just as educated and capable of leading and participating in the climate action process at all levels. There also can be no progress without factoring in gender as demonstrated by the reasons above.

Decisions that affect everyone should also reflect the contributions of all, of which women are major stakeholders.