Feminism and Climate Change

[ByGrabtharsHammarWhatASaving]

I've been thinking a lot about climate change recently with all the Xr protests going on. Call me naive but I really didn't realise things were that bad. I mean, I knew they were bad, but I thought we were on track to fix it. I thought we had time to fanny around with recycling and reusable coffee cups. Reading the Xr website and seeing the phrase "mass extinction event" used over and over really got to me. I thought things were going in the right direction, but it turns out we're at ground zero. My own fault for having my head in the sand and not looking deeper into it. Anyway, I was thinking about the ways this all intersects with feminism:

1. Reproductive rights . Clearly over population is a big problem here. On the one hand, increasing access to abortion, contraception, and sex education helps with this. But any attempts to limit population growth in a more active way, such as through legislation, will necessarily infringe on women's rights. China's "single child" policy is an obvious example of this, with it's double effect of not only controlling women's reproduction but also increasing sex selective abortions/ the murder of female infants.

1. Consumerism . Rightly or wrongly, when it comes to things like food shopping, gift buying, and fashion, women have a lot more consumer power than man. Obviously this ties into patriarchal expectations such as women being "just better" at gift buying, women doing the food shop because they're SAHPs, and pressure on women to wear the last fashion which lead to the rise of cheap "fast fashion" like Primark. Under patriarchy we earn less of the money, but in many ways have a lot more say in how it's spent.

1. Unpaid labour . A lot of the stuff we're encouraged to do at an individual level to halt CC comes down to an increase in unpaid labour. Off the top of my head this includes sorting and cleaning things to be recycled, washing reusable nappies, researching and buying eco friendly products, and taking longer over cleaning jobs from using less effective but greener cleaning products. This increase in labour disproportionately affects women.

1. Politics . The main green political party in this country has aligned itself against women and alienated thousands of it's female voters. Women are being excluded from women only short lists. The ability of girls to participate fully in education is being reduced. We are seeing first hand how poorly female activists are treated by the police. In short, climate change activism and feminism have a large cross over, and in many ways a lot of the power for change is in female hands, but women are being excluded at a political and social level, and being discouraged from activism. We need more power but even the small amount we have is being taken from us.

So, those were my thoughts so far. How do we re-engage women in green politics? How do we make the changes that we need to make as a society when many of those changes will disproportionately disadvantage women? How do we balance our fight for women's rights with our desire to not go extinct?

whenever there is a commitment level required domestically, feminists should be asking questions about on whom this commitment will fall.

Absolutely, and good to bring things back to how we can mitigate this. Domestic food shopping and meal prep is a good example. As a vegetarian, going vegan wasn't hard but for an omnivore it would require a large initial time investment. You need to re-work out most of your meal plans, then work out how to source the ingredients locally, work out how to cook the new ingredients, and also expend emotional labour persuading the rest of the people you're cooking for if they aren't already on board. Under our current social model these labours will fall on women.

1. Ways to mitigating this within the current social model - "striving for equality under patriarchy":

• Increase the number of peer-generated resources available to women, like ready made online meal plans, vegan recipe blogs etc. Mostly this just displaces the mental load onto other women.
• Convince more supermarkets to introduce a filter function on their online shopping service to locate products which are both vegan and local more easily, like Sainsburys have done.
• Get "climate footprint" information displayed on all food packaging to make it easier for women shopping in store to make eco friendly choices.
• Encourage the male side of the traditional domestic roles coin, by getting more men into allotment keeping/ vegetable gardens, to eliminate the need for women to source as many ingredients locally.
• Eco friendly eating encouraged in schools to lesson "resistance" to parent led dietary changes

These things reduce the burden to women, but still presuppose the idea that they are ultimately a woman's responsibility.

1. Ways to mitigating this by changing the current social model - "equality is only possible without patriarchy":

• Basically this means getting more men to actively and willingly take on these domestic burdens by undermining and ultimately dismantling the patriarchy
• Increasing the visibility of men taking on non-traditional roles like food shopping and cooking. Books, TV, celebrity chefs etc. Maybe a Jamie Oliver esque campaign by a male TV chef about eco friendly cooking.
• Empowering women to insist on shared domestic labour. Been banging that drum for years though and it hardly seems to make any impact.
• Challenging the narrative that economic success rather than domestic engagement, is the best measure of personal success. Practically speaking this means increasing the social value of care work, and also reducing the ways in which care work is a barrier to social progress. So as well as encouraging girls into STEM, and all girl open days for STEM subjects, we need all boy open days for nursing, childcare, and eldercare. We need part time, remote, and flexible working hours to be more available at higher management level. We need more people actively challenging sex based workplace discrimination, maybe by trying to create a network of solicitors willing to do reduced cost or pro bono work in that area.

Realistically I think we need to act on both fronts, because we need both short term (first option) and long term (second option) results. We need change to happen fast to avert the CC crisis, and I doubt that "smashing the patriarchy" is going to catch on sufficiently in the next decade, to produce the results that we need. But long term I don't want even a reduced domestic burden to be born entirely by women - that's not a satisfactory result for it's own sake, and real eco changes are, one way or another, going to need male engagement at every level. The problem, of course, is that the first option ultimately strengthens the patriarchy by streamlining gender roles instead of challenging them, making them more palatable and therefore less visible, leading to the idea that we don't need to change anything, which directly undermines the second option. In short, can liberal and radial feminists work together, or are our beliefs mutually exclusive?

If we're going to have a future as a species on this planet, and if it's going to require radical action, I think we can build in to that radical action an understanding that women are not the collateral we can afford to exploit.

This on a t-shirt please

Challenging the narrative that economic success rather than domestic engagement, is the best measure of personal success. Practically speaking this means increasing the social value of care work, and also reducing the ways in which care work is a barrier to social progress. So as well as encouraging girls into STEM, and all girl open days for STEM subjects, we need all boy open days for nursing, childcare, and eldercare.

God, I actually love this. What a brilliant idea.

Challenging the narrative that economic success rather than domestic engagement, is the best measure of personal success. Practically speaking this means increasing the social value of care work, and also reducing the ways in which care work is a barrier to social progress. So as well as encouraging girls into STEM, and all girl open days for STEM subjects, we need all boy open days for nursing, childcare, and eldercare.

Indeed. A world adequate to dealing with climate change is going is going to have to place more value on traditionally female areas.

Incidentally, having a related conversation about this at the moment, so that's some serendipity, at least!

No feminist angle, but DP recommended R4’s Costing the Earth ‘Could Britain Feed Itself?’ (28 mins, available for a year).

I haven’t listened yet, but relevant to some of the discussion on this thread:

Could Britain feed itself? Tom Heap assesses how much more of our own food we could potentially produce. Currently we import nearly half - 30% from the EU but in a time of growing population and political change could we step up our home grown fare? He asks about the innovative technology helping farmers make smart use of the land they have, visits labs to ask what changes we might need to allow and sizes up our allotments, gardens and window boxes to see if we could be more productive at home. With some theoretical ideas and practical realities he aims to give you food for thought.

A world adequate to dealing with climate change is going is going to have to place more value on traditionally female areas.

Only took a mass extinction event for "women's work" to be valued then. Or not. Men may yet decided they would prefer going extinct to doing the food shop. I wouldn't put it past them.

I work a low paid job, rely on public transport, and have more than 2 kids. I stretch a menu budget, don't have a lot of free time as I also volunteer. I know a lot of exhausted women who are run ragged, and barely have the headspace to plan a menu for the following day, let alone sit and research bulk vinegar purchases and so forth. I just think there are an awful lot of assumptions in some suggestions that are pegged as 'easy' that don't understand the reality of life for some women, and do nothing to help or encourage those women to do anything at all.

I’m not sure if your last comment above was aimed at me specifically, but I make no assumptions nor do I specifically suggest anything is easy. I also mentioned a few times I have my own challenges, chronic fatigue from multiple disorders which enormously affect my quality of life and energy levels. Out of all the things I have to deal with, researching vinegar prices was relatively easy in comparison! It’s a google search after all. The practical aspects are shared with my husband, who usually has to do more of the cooking and cleaning on top of a full time job, because of my health.
I also have helped a lot of people, I used to run a large group of 50,000 on FB, and a blog which shared tips including all the links and research I spent time on to make it easier for others. I help other women a lot. Again, not sure if that was aimed at me but it’s also not fair to make assumptions about those who share their experience and attempt to explain that this lifestyle doesn’t have to be difficult or an enormous burden. Despite a complex life, with a family with autism who also need my help, I manage this well, have a happy life and do not find the eco friendly aspect difficult. That is not suggesting it might not be harder for others, nor dismissing questions or problems that might exist in families with less choices. I’m trying to be positive and helpful, but it seems nobody wants to believe this is less than extremely difficult or a burden for women. I am here to say it doesn’t have to me. I’d appreciate less assumptions coming my way too.

Challenging the narrative that economic success rather than domestic engagement, is the best measure of personal success. Practically speaking this means increasing the social value of care work, and also reducing the ways in which care work is a barrier to social progress. So as well as encouraging girls into STEM, and all girl open days for STEM subjects, we need all boy open days for nursing, childcare, and eldercare.

Absolutely this!
I think your other points are worthwhile too. With regards to the points you made about cooking, food shopping, blogs and resources with menu planning etc etc I actually feel that a lot of the prominent and popular vegan/plant based/cheap or eco resources like blogs and YouTube are from males! In any case I really like your overall suggestions and focus on education, provision of practical resources and support etc as I think simple practical tools are important and can be very effective. We are disconnected from the food system, which is a huge part of the problem. Knowing what goes into what we eat and what it takes to get to our plate, I think that’s a crucial part of tackling this.

I’m quite surprised at the scepticism about growing your own veg - posters saying not efficient etc - on a thread about trying to improve things for the environment. Tell the bees in my garden that it’s not efficient! Plus outwith cities most people will have some kind of outside space/ garden / allotment. So this land is there and not being utilised for food. A veg patch is better than a patio or decking for bees and other pollinators which are crucial in producing food. It also is better if there is lots of rain in avoiding localised flooding. Imagine the impact if everyone with outside space grew a single type of veg or plant attractive to bees.
The inefficiency of crofting was also mentioned - completely missing the point that this tends to be land that is not suitable for large scale farming due to geography / weather and that small scale crofting utilises land which would not be all that useful otherwise. Crofting communities also often have established bartering/ exchanges of food eg my sister had small holding and would exchange a lamb for some pork sausages her neighbour had made (from their pigs) On an environmental level this is a great use of difficult to manage land

Kilbranan Have you seen the growing cities movie? I found that extremely inspiring, an incredible use of previously unused land, very little investment needed other than time and free unused space. I watched it as part of a course, Urban farming, that I was chosen to be part of a trial of before being offered at this uni. It was an overall fascinating course run by two guys, that taught me that urban farming is really vital when it comes to tackling climate change and food supply. There was also this cool thing with disused London Underground being used to grow microgreens. I’ll try and find some info.

Here it is, I have no idea who they supply to or what they sell this for but it’s the concept I found interesting- growing-underground.com/

Kilbranan check out this (admittedly badly titled) thread for 13 pages of people insisting they don't have the time/ space/ money to grow so much as a packet of cress:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/parenting/3230871-Grow-veg-with-your-children-there-is-no-excuse

Looks interesting jessica hydroponics is a really amazing process. I’ve also seen stuff about vertical gardening and green tower blocks etc which are great but maybe not sustainable yet. But an area to be developed I’m sure
I didn’t talk about about city gardening as I know for many people this is much more challenging due to lack of outside space

I’m in London but have enough outside space for a small allotment sized plot, and many pots! We vertical plant a lot of it. One trellis is made from parts of the neighbours old shed, and string! Beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, small squash etc are all easy to grow vertically, I sow from seed and take care of seedlings and my DH takes care of the garden, making homemade sprays, pruning and harvesting. We get seeds from Moreveg.com and Wilke. Also saved seeds is extremely economical. We get pots from freecycle.org

Jessica, I'm not 'aiming' anything at anyone, it's not a contest. The topic is specifically about climate change in relation to feminism. You're clearly doing very well, under trying circumstances. I'm just suggesting that a more multi pronged approach than saying 'If I can do it, so can anyone.' is going to be needed to really have an impact or be cognizant of how women will be affected whichever way the future pans out.

Who said anything about a contest? You said this which was directed at someone! If it’s not at someone on the thread then it seems misplaced.
I just think there are an awful lot of assumptions in some suggestions that are pegged as 'easy' that don't understand the reality of life for some women, and do nothing to help or encourage those women to do anything at all.

Personal responsibility is something I’m really keen on and I don’t feel that I get to choose easy options when the survival of ourselves and our planet is at stake. Some effort is not too much to ask, my focus here would be how to avoid the effort being left mostly to women. That eternal fight for fair distribution of work is no less relevant when discussing climate change.

A few women have taken over a patch of land between two two lane roads, near where I live. They have planted lots of beautiful flowers that attract butterflies and bees and it looks lovely.

Jessica, I've repeatedly said that personal responsibility is important. I've been talking about people other than the posters on thread since my first post on it. We seem to be talking at cross purposes because I'm not disagreeing with anything you are doing, I'm just pointing out that there are women who face significant barriers to achieving some of what you are doing, and that I don't want those women to be left behind or additionally burdened beyond what is fair.

UN biodiversity report coming out today.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-48169783

This one?

graziadaily.co.uk/life/opinion/women-are-being-told-they-need-to-breastfeed-to-stop-climate-change/