Environment and Race, Gender, Poverty and
Intersectionalities
Davina Vačkářová
Why gender, race, poverty and other aspects are
important?
• Impacts of global environmental change are not neutral with regard to gender,
race, poverty etc. (environmental injustice)
• People and communities are often marginalized based on these characteristics,
their voices are not heard and excluded from decision-making (situated
knowledges, epistemic injustice)
• Environmental and sustainability policies can exacerbate existing inequalities, if
they are blind (gender/intersectional lens, gender responsive, gender
transformative policies)
Brief history
Women in Development (WID) (1970´s)
Involvement of women in development programmes mainly through small-scale economic activities,
economic and social empowerment.
Failing to address the root inequalities and power relations and effectively leading to further
exploitation of women´s work („triple burden“)
Women, Environment, and Development (WED) (1970 - 1980´s)
„Ecofeminism“ rooted in the Global South (Chipko movement, Maria Mies, Vandana Shiva)
Gender equality in decision-making processes related to environmental issues, contribution to
conservation
Critique of „universal“ woman, omitting diverse experiences
Gender and Development (GAD) (1980´s)
Gender is a socially constructed concept that affects both men and women, power relations and social
norms perpetuate gender inequalities
Gender mainstreaming, call for gender transformative actions and policies
Environmental
justice
The principles of environmental
justice call for the fair treatment of
all people, regardless of race,
culture, national origin, or income, in
the development, adoption,
implementation, and enforcement
of environmental laws, regulations,
and policies.
Environmental justice also
necessitates dedicated outreach and
transparent opportunities for all
community members to represent
their concerns in the decisionmaking
process.
Intersectionality
• The concept of intersectionality describes the ways in which systems of inequality based on
gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, class and other forms of
discrimination “intersect” to create unique dynamics and effects.
• The term 'intersectionality' has its roots in Black feminist activism (Combahee River Collective),
and was originally coined by American critical legal race scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw in
1989.
• It recognises that people’s lives are shaped by their identities, relationships and social factors.
These combine to create intersecting forms of privilege and oppression depending on a person’s
context and existing power structures such as patriarchy, ableism, colonialism, imperialism,
homophobia and racism.
• It identifies hidden structural barriers and supports an understanding of how individual
experiences differ, even within already marginalised or underrepresented groups.
UN Women, 2021, Intersectionality resource guide and toolkit
Gender, consumption and environment
• Sustainable lifestyles shows clear patterns of differences between groups of
people depending on categories such as gender, class, age and ethnicity, and
where social norms are drivers in how people, with their values and behaviours,
express differences from and connection with others through paid and unpaid
work and leisure activities.
• Animal-based diets have a greater environmental impact than vegetable-based
diets, and men as a group consume more meat than women as a group. Attitudes
to climate change push individuals’ diets towards reduced meat consumption and
a more vegetable-based diet, regardless of gender, and women are more
concerned about the climate than men.
• However, motives other than concern for the climate seem to be significant for
the difference in meat consumption between women and men – motives which
have clear links to norms of femininity and masculinity.
Masculine meat and feminine vegan? Gender
stereotypes in food choices
• Vegetarian or vegan diets are not yet popular with most men, though they are beneficial for both
health and the environment. Men's low preference for such diets might stem from the prevalent
association of meat with masculinity, and of veganism with femininity.
• Meat consumption is linked to gender stereotypes of masculinity, probably explaining men's lower
willingness to adopt plant-based diets.
• Smaller servings, healthier foods, and even certain dishes (e.g., sushi, couscous, and green salad)
were perceived as more appropriate for women. Food for men, in contrast, was defined by large
portions, and by being hearty and filling (e.g., hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza).
• It was assumed that the salad and partly also the spaghetti carbonara have a more feminine
connotation, while goulash and burgers tend to have a more masculine connotation.
• Typically, men show a strong tendency to behave according to gender roles and to avoid products
and behavior associated with women. Women, on the other hand, seem less concerned about
maintaining their gender identity.
Alma Elisabeth Scholz, Jan Lenhart (2023) Masculinity and veganism: the effect of linking vegan dishes with masculinity
on men's attitudes toward vegan food. Frontiers in Communication, Volume 8 .
Most participants had an
omnivorous diet, but there were
clear gender differences in the
number of vegans and vegetarians
compared to omnivores, with
women being more likely to be
vegan and vegetarian than men
Masculine framing of vegan dishes
slightly shifted the perspective but it
did not lead to significant changes in
men's broader attitudes toward
vegan dishes or veganism in general.
Alma Elisabeth Scholz, Jan Lenhart (2023) Masculinity and
veganism: the effect of linking vegan dishes with
masculinity on men's attitudes toward vegan food.
Frontiers in Communication, Volume 8 .
Gender assumptions and stereotypes
• Women are caring and connected to the environment.
Interpreting caring norms and connection to nature as innate feminine qualities obscures a wide
range of factors that shape people’s experiences and expectations about their roles.
• Women are homogenous and vulnerable.
Essentializing women as a vulnerable group with homogenous climate change experiences and
adaptation needs can exacerbate inequalities and obscure opportunities to address different
people’s needs.
• Gender equality is a women’s issue.
Narrow focus on women in climate change adaptation or mitigation can eclipse understandings
of local socio-cultural contexts and power structures, leading to misguided strategies that risk
backfiring and creating greater inequality.
• Gender equality is a numbers game.
Equality in numbers is a poor proxy for gender equality. It obscures whether opportunities,
access and participation translate into meaningful and actionable change for different people.
Lau, J.D., Kleiber, D., Lawless, S. et al. Gender equality in climate policy and practice hindered by
assumptions. Nature Climate Change 11, 186–192 (2021)
Illustrative story
What a hurricane means when you
live in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’
https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/06
/us/hurricane-ida-cancer-alley-
pollution
Questions
• How would you define „compounded risks“?
• Which major environmental risks are mentioned in the article?
• Which aspects of intersectionality can be observed?
Environmental racism
• Communities of colour (or other ethnic or marginalized communities) are
disproportionately burdened with health hazards through policies and practices that force
them to live in proximity to sources of toxic waste such as sewage works, mines, landfills,
power stations, major roads and emitters of airborne particulate matter. As a result, these
communities suffer greater rates of health problems attendant on hazardous pollutants.
• Indigenous populations often suffer from environmental racism. In the US, Native
Americans communities continue to be subjected to large amounts of nuclear and other
hazardous waste
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/07/what-is-environmental-racism-pollution-covid-
systemic/
Tessum, C.W., et al. (2019). Inequity in consumption of goods and services adds to racial–ethnic disparities in
air pollution exposure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 116 (13) 6001-6006.
Hispanics (LatinX) on average breathe in 63 percent more of the pollution that
leads to heart and breathing deaths than they make. For African-Americans
the figure is 56 percent.
Non-Hispanic whites (Caucasians and other) on average are exposed to 17
percent less air pollution than they make.
PM2.5 Polluters Disproportionately and Systemically Affect People of Color in the United States,” by Christopher W. Tessum et al.,
in Science Advances, Vol. 7; 2021
Racial ethnic exposure disparities in
air pollution
Of the emission source sectors that cause
the largest absolute disparities, four out of
the top six source sectors are the same for
POC, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians:
industry, light-duty gasoline vehicles,
construction, and heavy-duty diesel
vehicles. Residential gas combustion and
commercial cooking are among the largest
sources of relative disparities for all four
groups.
Whites are exposed to lower-than-average
concentrations from most emission sectors.
The only sectors that affect Whites
substantially more than average are coal
electric generation and agriculture. Blacks
are exposed to higher-than-average
concentrations from all sectors.
Racial disparities and ecosystem services
• Addressing how ecosystem services (ES) are distributed among groups of people
is critical for making conservation and environmental policy-making more
equitable.
• Distribution and equity of changes in ES benefits across demographic and
socioeconomic groups in the United States (US) between 2020 and 2100.
• Specifically, land cover and population projections are used to model potential
shifts in the supply, demand, and benefits of the following ES: provision of clean
air, protection against a vector-borne disease (West Nile virus), and crop
pollination.
• Changes in ES benefits are unevenly distributed among socioeconomic and
demographic groups and among rural and urban communities, but are relatively
uniform across geographic regions. In general, non-white, lower-income, and
urban populations disproportionately bear the burden of declines in ES benefits.
Gourevitch, J.D., et al. Projected losses of ecosystem services in the US disproportionately affect nonwhite
and lower-income populations. Nature Communications 12, 3511 (2021)
Climate change and inequalities
• Climate change impacts, adaptive capacity as well as drivers behind the climate
change proved to be highly gendered
• Feminist and gendered perspective on climate change adaptation shows, that
ignoring gender can lead to maladaptation and increases vulnerabilities of those
already burdened disproportionately and/or by creating new types of exclusions
The global bottom 50% emit on average
1.4 tCO2e per year and contribute to
11.5% of the total. The top 10% emit
28.7 t (48% of the total).
Chancel, L. Global carbon inequality over
1990–2019. Nat Sustain 5, 931–938
(2022).
Inequalities in
carbon/GHG
footprints
Nitya Rao et al., A qualitative comparative analysis of women’s agency and adaptive capacity in climate change
hotspots in Asia and Africa. Nature Climate Change 9, 964–971 (2019)
How women’s agency
contributes to adaptation
responses in different
climate hotspots
Women’s agency and climate change adaptation
• Environmental stress is a key depressor of women’s agency even when household
structures and social norms are supportive or legal entitlements are available.
• Male migration does contribute to enhanced incomes, but the degree of such support is
both uncertain and irregular. Confronted with issues of everyday survival, in the absence
of supportive infrastructure and services, women often work harder, in poorer conditions
and for lower wages across the hotspots studied, with negative wellbeing outcomes,
seen particularly in the neglect of their health and nutrition.
• What emerges is an acknowledgement that environmental stress can combine with
other contextual conditions to act as a major depressor of women’s agency, despite the
existence of other enablers.
• There will always be exceptions, pointing to the need for further disaggregation and
acknowledgement of differences among women, whether of caste, class or location.
• A 41-year-old woman from case A3 (semi-arid South India) said ‘It is so difficult to
get labour to work on our farms, especially during harvest season and when they
do come, they demand too much money for us to pay… I have started working
more on the farm now, I do not have a choice. My husband goes for construction
work in the neighbouring town and if I do not do agricultural work the crops will
die’.
• In the case of P1 (D.G. Khan, Pakistan), monsoon rains and floods destroyed the
cotton crop and, as a young woman noted, ‘Men can easily migrate for work
whereas we have to stay here (at home) to take care of the family. After floods, my
daily wage decreased from Rs. 200 ($1.62) per bale of cotton to Rs. 75 ($0.61)’.
• Similar testimonies emerged from the other sites.
Disability and environment
• Climate and environmental change places disabled populations in
more socially and economically disadvantaged positions.
• Data on climate and environmental change impacts on disabled
populations is deficient.
• We need an active engagement of the disabled community in the
research on climate and environmental change.
• Sustainable futures require global policies that include disabled
populations.
Kosanic, Aleksandra, et al. (2022). An inclusive future: disabled
populations in the context of climate and environmental change.
Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, Volume 55, April 2022,
101159.
Anthropocene?
“The Anthropocene marks severe
discontinuities; what comes after will not be
like what came before. I think our job is to
make the Anthropocene as short/thin as
possible and to cultivate with each other in
every way imaginable epochs to come that
can replenish refuge.
(Donna Haraway, 2015)
Good Anthropocene (E. Bennett et al.)
Capitalocene (J. Moore)
Chthulucene (D. Haraway)
(Plantantionocene)
(M)Anthropocene (G. Di Chiro)
Planthropocene (N. Myers)
Fabrice Monteiro, The Prophecy
Revisiting human-nature dualism and the
Anthropocene
• According to Donna Haraway, Anthropocene should
be regarded more a boundary event than an epoch
and we should make the Anthropocene as short/thin
as possible.
• STS scholars and feminist critique of the
Anthropocene: Plantationocene, Capitalocene and
(M)Anthropocene are just equivalents reflecting the
continuing gender and species inequalities.
• In the Chthulucene, humans are not the only
important actors – they, along with other beings, are
with and of the earth, and “the biotic and abiotic
powers of this earth are the main story”
Feminist critique of the Anthropocene
• Anthropocene has been criticized to promote existing gender, race, class and
other social inequalities, even in the name of environmental conservation.
• The common critique of the Anthropocene includes universality of humanity. We
need to move from normative figure of universal human, usually represented by
white male colonizing modernist Man, towards an expanded theorization of the
body, sexuality, materiality, affect, and non-human life.
• The Anthropocene era is loaded with capitalist, postcolonialist and masculinist
regimes, which triggered searching for alternative names of current epoch.
Multispecies justice
• Expanding environmental justice
beyond human to non-human
• What about degraded, transformed,
modified, manipulated, blasted
landscapes?
Patricia Piccinini: Multispecies salon