International Women’s Day is an annual global day focused on women’s rights and issues affecting women. While many discussion topics include gender equality, reproductive rights, and violence against women, we cannot ignore how climate change threatens women, too.
As we pause to celebrate International Women’s Day, let’s explore why women are more vulnerable to climate change and how women are leading the way in environmental activism!
Why Women are More Impacted by Climate Change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPOC) found that “people who are already most vulnerable and marginalized will also experience the greatest impacts [of climate change].”
We are increasingly aware that while climate change impacts everyone, women are increasingly seen as “more vulnerable than men to the impacts of climate change, mainly because they represent the majority of the world’s poor and are proportionally more dependent on threatened natural resources.”
Did you know that 80% of people who are displaced by climate change are women? Women disproportionately suffer from the long-term health and economic impacts of droughts, lower food production, severe weather, and other environmental crises.
Women also suffer more adverse effects of pollution, natural disasters, and socio-economic turmoil. Women are more susceptible to violence and health problems.
Women are more susceptible to health conditions from exposure to coal-fired power plants. Additionally, one in six women of childbearing age has unsafe levels of mercury in their blood.
In many countries, women are usually the primary water, food, and fuel gatherers. Women are the dominant workforce in subsistence farming, cleaning, and caregiving. These responsibilities are more prone to be impacted by climate change and rising global temperatures.
It’s critical to acknowledge how women are bearing the greater weight of climate change so we can learn how to protect and advocate for women!
Women Are Critical to Preventing Climate Change
Though women are suffering the impacts of climate change at a much higher rate, we are also a key to the solution! Women have many essential skills and gifts that help lead the global climate care movement.
Women are excellent leaders and organizers.
Women are often uniquely networked within the community, which gives them a greater ability to collaborate and problem-solve. When empowered and equipped to actively participate in disaster planning, prevention, and relief, time and time again, women rise to the occasion and showcase unique knowledge and skill sets that allow communities to recover more quickly and effectively.
Here are just a few examples of excellent women leading disaster planning and response:
- Indigenous women in Nicaragua responded to more severe hurricanes by creating seed banks to protect biodiversity. This helped create more sustainable livelihoods that aren’t dependent on industrialized agriculture.
- After the devastation of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, architect Carla Gautier and her friend Maria Gabriela Velasco rebuilt more than 300,000 homes by repurposing shipping containers!
- Local women established a media network around the Pacific Islands to monitor and broadcast the impacts of climate change in Fiji.
Research shows that women adopt innovative and preventative measures faster than their male counterparts. Women also tend to think more about the good of the collective whole rather than themselves. This is an incredible gift that women can bring to every area of life–including climate care.
When you uplift women, it benefits communities.
Did you know that where women have higher social and political status, their countries have 12% lower carbon CO2 emissions?
Another study by the UN revealed that when the same resources are given to women as to men, women can increase agricultural yields by 20-30%! Women farmers tend to practice more regenerative agriculture, helping close the hunger gaps in their countries.
Global studies show that the entire community thrives when women are empowered and uplifted. When women are uplifted, local economies grow and become more sustainable, populations tend to stabilize, and children’s health and education improve. All of these are critical for the stability of the community.
Celebrate Women in Environmentalism this International Women’s Day
No matter how you look at it, women are critical to the climate care puzzle. It’s time to acknowledge how women are bearing the weight of climate change and celebrate how women lead the way in environmental activism!
Women have long been leading the fight against climate change. Let’s take a moment to look at just a few women we can celebrate this International Women’s Day!
Isatou Ceesay: “The Queen of Plastic Recycling in Gambia
As a child, Isatou Ceesay noticed how much trash was building up around her home village of N’jau in Gambia. The problem only got worse as she grew older. There were no weekly trash collections, so piles of rubbish built up along the streets and everywhere around the village.
Plastic bags and other waste began harming the local wildlife. When it rained, the plastic would collect water, attracting mosquitos that spread dangerous diseases. Many villagers were even burning plastic in their cooking fires, which released harmful toxins into the air!
After volunteering with the Peace Corps, Ceesay became passionate about finding a way to save her beloved village from plastic waste. She gathered a group of women and began weaving purses from the plastic trash. Their little initiative grew until it became the N’jau Recycling and Income Generation Group (now the Women’s Initiative Gambia).
Not only does Ceesay’s project help women learn skills that can generate an income, but it also encourages recycling, upcycling, and creative problem-solving around waste.
Wangari Maathai: the first Black African winner of a Nobel Peace Prize
Wangari Maathai was born to a rural farming family in Kenya. She later studied in the US and Germany. She was the first woman in East and Central Africa to earn a doctorate degree. She deeply understood that conflict, environmental degradation, food insecurity, and poverty are interconnected.
Maathai said, “Poor people will cut the last tree to cook the last meal. The more you degrade the environment, the more you dig deeper into poverty.”
She observed and heard from rural women in Kenya that their food supplies were unstable, there was less water, and they had to travel longer distances to find wood for fuel. Maathai began to see tree planting as a way to improve the quality of life for these women, fight poverty, and care for the environment.
In 1977, Maathai founded the Green Belt Movement, which organizes and empowers women to plant trees that prevent soil erosion and deforestation while also creating a nearby source of firewood.
Wangari Maathai said, “When we plant trees, we plant the seeds of peace and hope.” Since 1977, the Green Belt Movement has planted 51 million trees in Kenya!
Maathai was voted into the Kenyan parliament in 2002 and became the first black African woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004.
Sylvia Earle: ocean activist
At age three, Sylvia Earle fell in love with the ocean while playing on the beach. Born in 1935, Sylvia became a marine biologist, oceanographer, explorer, author, and lecturer. She was a pioneer in using scuba gear and holds the record for the deepest untethered walk on the ocean floor–1,250 feet!
Sylvia has spent thousands of hours in and on the oceans, working to understand the impacts of pollution, overfishing, and other threats to the ocean. She said, “[People] should know that with every breath they take, every drop of water they drink, the ocean is touching them. You should treat the ocean as if your life depends on it–because it does.”
In 1998 Time magazine gave Sylvia the first Heroes for the Planet award.
Sylvia was the first female chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
More Women Environmentalists to Study on International Women’s Day
There are countless women–known and unknown–fighting against climate change. Here are a few more to learn about as we celebrate International Women’s Day
- Mollie H Beattie
- Arundhati Roy
- Berta Isabel Caceres Flores
- Winona LaDuke
- Marjory Stoneman Douglas
- Maria Gunnoe
- Lisa Jackson
Who are you inspired by the most?
