Climate change is most dangerous to those who are already disempowered, and as such is disproportionately harmful to women, LGBT+, and Two-Spirit people. Globally, women overwhelmingly undertake the work required to ensure their own survival and the survival of their families. Taking actions toward climate justice and dismantling extractivist industries is therefore essential to fighting violence against women, girls, LGBT+, and Two-Spirit persons. In North America, extraction of fossil fuels directly results in gendered violence, disproportionately perpetrated on Indigenous folx. Thus, feminism, the rejection of patriarchy, and pursuit of a society rooted in mutual respect and care, is crucial in order to solve the climate crisis and usher in a just transition. Hawaii’s explicitly feminist COVID-19 recovery plan, for example, recognizes that now is a “moment to build a system that is capable of delivering gender equality,” and emphasizes paid and unpaid caregivers as essential components of a society that must be supported. We at Divestment and Beyond recognize that the solutions to the climate crisis, to gendered violence, to inequality, already exist: many are being implemented NOW by Indigenous women, Black women and womxn throughout the “global south”. A just transition heeds their wisdom and follows their lead.
A few more sources for further reading:
- Violence on Our Land, Violence On Our Bodies (Land Body Defense)
- Without Feminism, There Is No Agroecology (Civil Society and Indigenous Peoples’ Mechanism for Relations with the UN Committee on Food Security)
- Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto (Tithi Bhattacharya, Cinzia Arruzza and Nancy Fraser)
- Idle No More
- Solar Sister organization
- Green Belt Movement
- #MMIW land, bodies and consent — Red Nation podcast episode
- Indigenous Rising — Solutions to the Climate Crisis (Kandi Mossett and Eriel Deranger) at 5:05
