June 2016
AN INTERSECTIONAL
FEMINIST AGENDA
TOWARDS CLIMATE
CHANGE POLITICS
Submitted to the Department of Social Sciences in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science.
Supervised by: Dr. Eric Chu and Prof. Joyeeta Gupta
Joanna Wilson – 11129182
Abstract
Climate change does not now, nor will it in the future affect society evenly. It can, in fact, work to exacerbate existing inequalities such as enhancing the feminisation of poverty, the exacerbation of gendered divisions of labour and greater pressure on households to reduce waste, a task which typically falls to women. Furthermore, the masculinisation of climate change politics results in the absence of a gender-aware perspective in climate change policies resulting in the potential to exacerbate such inequalities. This paper analyses contemporary climate change policy, coupled with grey literature concerning women and climate change to envision a methodological approach towards a more intersectionally just and inclusive climate change politics. This paper concludes that the dominance of masculine discourses in contemporary climate change policies can potentially exacerbate existing inequalities; an intersectional feminist agenda towards climate change politics should avoid romanticising the feminine role and; the inclusion of gender priorities can begin to challenge traditional political agendas in climate change politics. Ultimately, while climate change is currently framed as an opportunity for economic growth, market economies and sovereignty, a more inclusive and just methodological approach, as it advocated, here can begin to reframe climate change as an opportunity for greater gender, and social, equality.
Keywords: gender; climate change; climate politics; feminist theory; intersectionality; discourse.
Acknowledgements
I owe my deepest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Eric Chu without whom this thesis would not have been possible. His endless support, encouragement, critique and advice not only throughout writing this thesis, but during the course of the MSc programme has been far above and beyond the call of duty and I cannot thank him enough for this. It has also been an honour working under the supervision of Professor Joyeeta Gupta, whose enthusiasm, immense knowledge and patience has enabled me to pursue a topic which I feel so passionately about. I thank her most sincerely for her enthusiasm, insightful comments and hard questions.
It is a pleasure to thank my family, friends and boyfriend who have supported and encouraged me through what has been a truly unforgettable experience. Particularly, I am indebted to the incredible women of the Human Geography Environmental Track with whom I have laughed, despaired, debated, worked late into the night and most of all shared this experience. Without these passionate, strong willed and determined women I would not be the person that I am today and for that I thank them with all my heart.
Table of Contents
1
Introduction ... 1
1.1 Gender and Climate Change ... 1
1.2 Women’s Equality and Climate Change ... 2
1.3
Thesis Structure ... 4
2
Literature Review ... 5
2.1
Background ... 5
2.2 Scientific, economic and political framings ... 6
2.3 Single story genders ... 10
2.4 New Theoretical Frameworks ... 11
2.4.1
Background ... 11
2.4.2 Ecofeminism ... 12
2.4.3 Feminist Political Ecology ... 13
2.4.4 Intersectionality ... 14
2.5 Gaps in Knowledge ... 17
2.5.1 Overview ... 17
2.5.2
Critique of the neoliberal, post-political arrangement ... 17
2.5.3 Critique of gender essentialism ... 18
2.5.4 Critique of the segmentation of discourses of injustice ... 20
3
Methodology ... 22
3.1
Rationale ... 22
3.2 Research Questions ... 23
3.3
Conceptual Framework ... 23
3.4 Feminist Policy Analysis ... 26
3.5 Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis ... 27
3.6 Document Analysis and Expert Interviews ... 27
3.7
Case Study selection ... 29
3.8 Validity and Reliability ... 29
3.9 Research Ethics ... 30
4
Results: Policy Analysis ... 31
4.2 Counting Women In ... 31
4.3
Gender Relations ... 34
4.4 Intersectionality ... 36
4.5 Feminist Critiques of Epistemologies ... 38
4.6 Feminist Critiques of Political Economy ... 41
4.7
Summary ... 44
5
Results: Discourse Analysis ... 46
5.1
Main Themes ... 46
5.2
Counting Women In ... 46
5.3 Gender Relations ... 48
5.4 Intersectionality ... 51
5.5
Feminist Critiques of Epistemologies ... 53
5.6
Feminist Critiques of Political Economy ... 56
5.7 Summary ... 58
6
Results: Content Analysis ... 59
6.1 Main themes ... 59
6.2 Count Women In ... 59
6.3 Gender Relations ... 61
6.4
Intersectionality ... 62
6.5 Feminist Critiques of Epistemologies ... 63
6.6 Feminist Critiques of Political Ecology ... 66
6.7 Summary ... 68
7
An intersectional Feminist Agenda for Climate Change Politics ... 69
7.1 Women and Climate Change ... 69
7.1.1
Options and Ideas ... 70
7.2 Gender Tools ... 76
7.2.1 Introduction ... 76
7.2.2 Gender Quotas ... 78
7.2.3
Gender Disaggregated Data ... 78
7.2.4 Gender Assessment ... 78
7.2.6 Gender Experts/Training ... 79
7.2.7
Gender-transformative Communication ... 80
7.3 The Essentials ... 80
8
Conclusions and Recommendations ... 81
8.1 Addressing the gaps in knowledge ... 81
8.2 Key Messages ... 82
8.2.1 Climate change policies can potentially exacerbate existing inequalities through the dominance of masculinist discourses ... 82
8.2.2 In order to minimise entrenching marginalisation and patriarchal structures, tools and guidelines should avoid romanticising the feminine role ... 83
8.2.3
Gender priorities can challenge traditional political agendas through a challenge to masculine discourses which perpetuate the neoliberal, post-political condition ... 84
8.2.4 A more just and inclusive approach towards climate change politics ... 86
8.3
Areas for further research ... 87
8.4 Final Thoughts ... 88
9
Appendix 1: Policy Analysis Code Book ... 89
10
Appendix 2: Discourse Analysis Code Book ... 90
11
Appendix 3: Content Analysis and expert interviews Code Book ... 91
12
Reference List ... 92
13
List of Policies ... 99
14
List of Grey Literature ... 99
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework ...16
Figure 2: Conceptual Framework ...26
Figure 3: Content analysis and interview instrument ...28
Figure 4: Count of terms in Policy Documents.. ...32
Figure 5: Masculine Discourses. ...32
Figure 6: Vulnerability Framings to Climate Change.. ...37
Figure 7: Vulnerability Framings to Climate Change. ...52
Figure 8: Advocated Feminist Values. ...53
Figure 9:Intersectional Feminist Agenda Towards Climate Change Policy ...77
Figure 10: Gender in the Policy Making Process ...77
Figure 11: An Intersectional Approach to climate change politics ...86
Table 1: Masculine and feminine attributes according to Dymen, et al., 2014 ...8
Table 2: Gender Relations themes in policy documents ...34
Table 3: Intersectionality themes in policy documents.. ...36
Table 4: Feminist Critiques of Epistemology Themes. ...39
Table 5: Feminist Critiques of Political Economy Themes.. ...41
Table 6: Counting women in themes. ...47
Table 7: Gender Relations Themes. ...48
Table 8: Intersectionality Themes. ...51
Table 9: Feminist Critique of Epistemology Themes. ...53
Table 10: Feminist Critiques of Political Ecology.. ...56
Table 11: Counting Women in Themes. ...60
Table 12: Gender Relations Themes. ...61
Table 13: Intersectionality Themes. ...62
Table 14: Feminist Critiques of Epistemologies Themes ...64
List of Acronyms
Acronym Term
ANP Adjusted National Product
BME Black and Minority Ethnic
CCC Committee on Climate Change
CDM Clean Development Mechanism
CP3 Climate Public Partnership
DCLG Department for Communities and Local Government DECC Department for Environment and Climate Change DEFRA Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DTI Department for Transport and Infrastructure
EA Environmental Agency
FPE Feminist Political Ecology
GHG Green House Gas
GPEW Green Party England and Wales
IPCC International Panel on Climate Change
IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature
JRF Joseph Rowntree Foundation
LGBTIQ Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer
NAP National Adaptation Programme
NGO Non-Governmental Organisation
NPPF National Planning Policy Framework
SET Science, Engineering and Technology
STEM Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics
TSB Technology Strategy Board
UNDP United Nations Development Programme
UNFCCC United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change WED Women, Environment & Development
1 Introduction
1.1 Gender and Climate Change
“The main goal of feminism is the elimination of the male-gender privilege and power over women. Anything that helps to diminish the oppression and subordination of women, in any setting, is inherently a feminist issue” (Strzalkowski, 1997, p. 175).
Perhaps then, climate change can be, inherently, a feminist issue. Climate change does not now, nor will it in the future, affect society evenly, as has been noted by the IPCC (Smith, et al., 2014). It can, and it is, exacerbating existing inequalities including gender inequalities (Wonders & Danner, 2015), through enhancing the global feminisation of poverty (Arora-Jonsson, 2011); the exacerbation of gendered divisions of labour (Vinz, 2009; MacGregor, 2014); or even by promoting greater pressure in household consumption patterns (Sandilands, 1993) a task typically in the domain of women, to name but a few. Furthermore, climate change policy at large is male biased, masculinist or rooted in technological and scientific solutions which may be inadequate to address these social impacts (see Section 2.2). Yet, the link between women and climate change has been largely overlooked by both environmental and gender scholars (see Section 2.1). As feminist political theorist Sherilyn MacGregor points out, “there is a pervasive blindness to gender within mainstream (i.e. non-feminist) environmental disciplines” (MacGregor, 2010, p. 125) and, conversely, “if conference themes and journal articles are anything to go on, climate change is not on the academic feminists’ agenda” (MacGregor, 2010, p. 126). Therefore, there is a desperate need for feminist theorising of climate change politics.
Of course it is important to point out that the objective of feminist theorising should be to question and challenge all kinds of power imbalances, including, but not limited to, LGBTIQ1, the elderly, race and ethnicity, income level and class and not limit itself to the traditional feminine/masculine divide. Therefore, it is the purpose of this paper to address such a need. In other words, such an intersectional feminist agenda which pursues a more inclusive and socially just approach to climate change politics should not result in an essentialising exercise whereby equality, specifically gender equality, is confined as a woman’s only issue but instead should take a more intersectional approach which can illuminate all sorts of socioeconomic injustices which include those of sexuality, age, ability, ethnicity and income level, among others (see Section 2.5.4). This would allow for a feminism which is relevant for contemporary society and which leads the way into third, or even fourth, wave feminism (see Section 2.4.4).
There is the iconic, and arguably over-used, image of a woman carrying water on her head across a barren landscape, responsible for the wellbeing of her whole family (Leach, 2007, p. 67). It is the image that has become symbolic for women and development in recent years, used by popular media, NGOs, political agencies and campaigning organisations alike (see, for example, UN WomenWatch, 2016). It symbolises poor and vulnerable women who are struggling to cope with the effects of climate change, but yet hold the answers needed to solve the global crises through their roles as mothers and caregivers (see Section 2.3). Such images have been widely used in environmental rhetoric since the 1980’s, aiming to show the dependency women have on the earth, land and trees, yet, as environment and development scholar Melissa Leach asserts, “this, it seems, is because they offered a materialist discourse about women’s environmental roles which suited donor and NGO preoccupations at the time” (Leach, 2007, p. 68). That is that reasserting variations of ‘Mother Earth’ justifies women’s role and their natural, cultural and ideological closeness with Earth, positioning women, and their knowledge, as the key to the climate problem. In other words, this rhetoric was essential in ensuring that women and climate change related issues were on the debating table, yet positioning women, problematically, as virtuous. Even more problematic is that thirty years later, the discourse has seen little advance (see Section 2.3).
Though at least in academia the gendered nature of climate change is increasingly accepted (Denton, 2002; Terry, 2009), there is still much debate over why climate change is a feminist issue. But, as consensus that climate change is a feminist issue grows in social justice and equity, it is likely that gender and environment will become more prominent, both in academia, and in political rhetoric (Kennedy & Dzialo, 2015). As it does it is important that political and campaigning responses do not result in a technocratic exercise (see Section 2.5.3) whereby power structures in society, such as the barriers to access to those facing social stigma or the public/private sphere divide remain unconsidered at best, or further internalized at worst.
1.2 Women’s Equality and Climate Change
“It is not that private-sphere concerns are irrelevant to environmental change; the problem lies in their being uncritically aligned with feminized duty and their tendency to replace properly political acts of citizenship” (MacGregor, 2014, p. 625).
Any feminist agenda in climate change, therefore, must challenge the undue burden on the individual (translated as women), patriarchal systems, and the masculine/feminine role that can result from the neoliberal, and the post-political, economic and political system (see Section 2.2). For example, “feminist
critique shows that climate governance, while framed in terms of climate protection, actually works to extend capitalist free-market economies onto individual bodies and de-emphasise collective forms of action” (Bee, et al., 2015, p. 3). By framing climate change as a problem of science and inciting individual behaviour changes as a key point of climate policy, the door is opened for capitalist free-market economies of technical climate solutions (see Section 2.2). Such a response, without a thorough gendered analysis, can result in an increased share of the mitigative work for women, whether that be through more stringent ‘reduce, recycle and reuse’ rules or reducing dependence on plastic packaging while shopping, tasks which typically, and stubbornly, remain in the domain of women2.
Feminism has gone through many transitions, especially in recent years, constantly adapting to the current political and social climate. For example, the politically tumultuous 1960’s saw the emergence of second wave feminism that was recognised as women’s liberation. It moved feminist priorities from the economic and political parity of the sexes to a wider discussion of reproductive rights and the politics of difference (Young, 1990). It was also around this time that the term gender emerged over sex, which give rise to the idea of gender as a social construct (Freedman, 2002). A third wave of feminism began to emerge in the 1990’s which was more radicalised and sexualised. Today, as we enter into fourth and even fifth wave feminism there are four major aspects: equal worth (challenging the notion that men’s historical experience is what should be aspired to); male privilege (male entitlement such as greater worth placed on male children or sexual double standards in society); social movements (which are necessary to achieve equality between women and men); and intersecting hierarchies (the idea that gender is integral to other forms of social hierarchy, specifically around class, race, sexuality and culture) (Freedman, 2002). Together these aspects of contemporary feminism challenge the patriarchy, or institutionalised sexism from which males primarily benefit (hooks, 2000).
Furthermore, patriarchal structures in society have been heightened in the wake of capitalism which has encouraged a new economic division by separating wage labour from the household. With capitalism, money became the measure of persons worth and as women were bound to the household due to child rearing responsibilities they became more reliant on men (Freedman, 2002). As a result of this historical patriarchy women are still excluded from the public sphere, disproportionately responsible for socially constructed private sphere, household and caring roles. Women’s role in society as mothers and caregivers are so internalised that even as women enter the workplace in greater numbers, they still remain responsible for these household duties. Of course, it is important to note that women themselves
also accept and reinforce such traditional gendered roles (Koalagama, et al., 2016), but this an extension of patriarchy and a result of highly internalised oppression and marginlisation in itself. In the context of climate change, this results in women’s remaining responsibility for household waste reduction and added pressure to be an ‘ecomom’. Furthermore, as climate change policy favours technical and economic fixes opportunities created tend to fall in these sectors further excluding women from the public sphere.
The benefits, therefore, of broadening the political debate on climate change to include an intersectional feminist view would result in a more holistic understanding of climate change rather than just the economic, a wider perspective from all corners of society as well as avoiding the worsening of economic inequality and avoiding furthering the public/private sphere inequality (Hemmati & Rohr, 2009). This level of understanding has the potential to result in a fairer and more just climate change policy response. Therefore, there is a need for “the development of a deeper gender analysis where materialist-informed empirical research on women is complemented by critical feminist theorising of the discursive constructions and categories that shape climate politics today” (MacGregor, 2010a, p. 223), an academic conversation to which this paper contributes.
1.3 Thesis Structure
To facilitate a deeper gender analysis of this kind, this research examines a range of climate change policies in order to draw conclusions on how dominant discourses of climate change affect women’s equality globally (see Section 2.2). Conversely, this research further considers how feminist discourses can influence the formation and implementation of climate change policies (see Section 2.4). What follows in the subsequent chapters is a comprehensive review of the literature and an identification of the gaps in scholarly knowledge that this research contributes towards, and the theoretical framework upon which this research is based (see Chapter 2). Following this, the methodology of this research is presented, including a guiding conceptual framework (see Chapter 3). Chapters 4-6 consist of the data presentation and analysis (see Chapters 4, 5 & 6), immediately followed by the presentation of an ‘intersectional feminist tool towards climate change politics’ complete with policy recommendations (see Chapter 7). Finally, conclusions including theoretical and methodological contributions and recommendations for future research are presented (see Chapter 8).
2 Literature Review
2.1 Background
“Although the current body of gender and climate change research provides a much needed antidote to gender-blindness in the dominant policy and academic areas, there are some inevitable shortcomings. Several of these, it must be acknowledged, are the unavoidable results of prioritising the urgent needs of women in impoverished local places over the longer-term feminist political goal of challenging patriarchal discourses and structures” (MacGregor, 2010a, p. 226).
Of course, it is essential that the needs of impoverished women are met first and foremost, but we should recognise that this cannot be at the total expense of ending the patriarchal order which keeps women subordinate to men in both the Global South and North (see Section 1.2). Scholarly work on gender and environment is rare, and research specifically regarding climate change is even rarer (MacGregor, 2010, p. 125). In fact, a simple, inclusive, Web of Science search of the term “gender and climate change” returns a mere 14 unique results. Research that does exist is often published by Women in Development (WED) circles, with over half of the returned results above. This developmental focus also results in a huge proportion of the research being located in the Global South, thus allowing the conversation to be dominated by discourses of women’s disproportionate vulnerability to the effects of climate change (see Section 2.3) and omitting discussions of wider patriarchal discourses and structures that result in this very vulnerability.
What follows is a review of the existing body of literature, through which my aim is to address the limited body of work on gender and climate change in order to establish areas which require further research. Literature was located through ‘Web of Science’ searches using terms such as: ‘Gender and Environment’, ‘Gender and Climate Change’, ‘Gender and Policy’ and ‘Feminist Environmental Theory’. The search results were then filtered by basis of abstract and key words to determine the most relevant to this study - that is articles specifically regarding women and climate change, or climate change policy. As a result, the literature can be categorised into three prevailing thematic areas. The first of these areas, ‘scientific, economic and political framings’, is concerned with the ways in which different, though mainly masculinist, framings of climate change and climate politics can override underlying patriarchal power structures concerning environmental issues. The second theme, ‘single story genders’, focuses on how the growing body of literature largely presents a single story of women, which places undue burden on them while doing very little to recognise difference between women, and diverts the conversation
away from deeper questions of power imbalances, such as the social structures that result in women’s vulnerable status. Finally, the third theme, ‘new feminist frameworks’, focuses on the need for new feminist approaches towards climate change politics. Such an approach should move away from traditional liberal (or eco-) feminism towards a feminist approach in line with third and fourth wave feminism. This is not to suggest that this list is exhaustive nor are categories mutually exclusive of each other. However, this review aims to provide a broad overview of the most prevalent scholarship available in this limited, yet growing, field.
2.2 Scientific, economic and political framings
The construction of narratives around climate change is strongly rooted in environmental science, economic framings and political, specifically neoliberal, rhetoric. This hypothesis can be tested in climate change policy examples. For instance, climate change is regularly defined in purely physical terms from meteorological measurements and is constructed as a global problem (Hulme, 2008; Moosa & Tuana, 2014; Seager, 2009). This kind of scientific and global framing is unhelpful in recognising that climate change neither affects all nations, nor all communities within nations, evenly, since it places everyone in the same category. Furthermore, the debate over representations of climate change data or information is always present since science and the data produced from it is so often laced with western economic, social and cultural values and will, by nature, actively work to promote these very values. Joni Seager (2009) illustrates this by suggesting that while 2oC of warming might be tolerable for some nations, it is entirely intolerable for others, specifically small island states who are already being hardest hit by rising sea levels and warmer climates. Meanwhile, nations of the Global North can comfortably consider the benefits which warmer climates might bring3.
Due to these kinds of framings, the literature suggests that solutions proposed by policy makers disproportionately include technical fixes and economic measures which can largely ignore the human aspect and the underlying societal or structural causes of the climate problem - that is societies dependence on fossil fuels (Magnusdottir & Krosnell, 2014; Tuana, 2008). For example, climate change policy is largely concerned with economically lucrative technological advances such as carbon capture and storage (DTI, 2007; DECC, 2011; DECC, 2013; DCLG, 2012), geo-engineering (DECC, 2013) and genetically modified crops (DEFRA, 2013). This can result in an ignorance of the power structures that climate politics can represent, or even enhance. Such power structures, or imbalances, include the male dominated nature of climate politics itself or the underlying assumed, or socially constructed, gendered
3 See Gray, 2011 Climate change will be good for Britain's growers says Met Office. [Online] Available at:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/8935793/Climate-change-will-be-good-for-Britains-growers-says-Met-Office.html [Accessed 11 June 2016].
roles and divisions of labour that confine women to a subordinate, and often private sphere based, position (see Section 1.2). In other words, unequal power structures are a result from a patriarchal society. Furthermore, moving away from the traditional masculine/feminine patriarchal system, such power structures can completely ignore differences in vulnerability between different societies, communities or the intersections of women across other social groups such as age, class or race. One often cited example of this is that the most marginalised communities of New Orleans knew that they were unable to afford to live elsewhere, and had much less prospects if displaced and so were less likely to evacuate. Yet, adaptation plans did not account for this intra-societal difference and many citizens of the most marginalised communities were left abandoned, resulting in distressing, yet all too common, scenes of predominantly black communities being left unaided (Elliot & Pais, 2006; Tuana, 2008). Clearly, climate responses should be much more situated in socio-political, or socio-economic reasoning (see Sections 2.5.2 and 2.5.4) if this kind of devastating result is to be avoided as such kinds of climate related disasters become more commonplace4.
Yet, as it stands climate change responses are underpinned by economic measures which model the masculine underpinning of mainstream economics (Arora-Jonsson, 2011; Nelson, 2007; Dymen, et al., 2014; Hemmati & Rohr, 2009; Banjeree & Bell, 2007). Traditional economic theory has been largely modelled on ideas of a rational, autonomous white male while mostly rendering more ‘feminine’ characteristics of softness and emotion of less value. This perhaps explains the lack of such socio-economic perspectives in climate management and policy responses. Feminist economists such as Marilyn Waring (1988) argue that economic models are biased by an exclusive attention to masculine related topics of autonomy and logic, resulting in a diminishing of women’s priorities of family economics, for example.
One reason for this ‘masculinsation’ which emerges from the literature is that while men continue to dominate all spheres of climate politics, science, government and business there will continue to be an overwhelming ignorance of women and gender (Wonders & Danner, 2015; Magnusdottir & Krosnell, 2014; Banjeree & Bell, 2007), much in the same way that have men traditionally dominated economics. Discourses of green economy, ecological modernisation, sustainable development (meaning continued economic growth) and environmental security allow the conversation to be steered towards scientific and technological fixes, which promote economic growth first and foremost, and which ultimately frame the problem as scientific and gender neutral (MacGregor, 2010; Edwards, 2015). While “men dominate the
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-issue at all levels, as scientific and economic experts, entrepreneurs, policy makers and spokespeople” (MacGregor, 2010, p. 128) climate change continues to be cast as a human crisis in which gender has no relevance. Climate solutions, in this masculine setting, must instead constitute of ‘male’ responses of power and authority over the environment as ‘feminine’ responses of ‘cooperation’ and ‘environmental care’ are ridiculed and deemed unfeasible (see Table 1), something which has long since plagued the Green Party, who are regularly dismissed as vegetarian ‘hippies’.5
MASCULINE ATTRIBUTES FEMININE ATTRIBUTES
GENDERED RELATIONS TO ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE
Main focus is development defined as economic growth
Main focus is sustaining the way of life Sees nature and humans as separate Sees humans as part of nature
Utilitarian Preservationist (including cultural preservations GENDERED APPROACHES TO CLIMATE CHANGE RESPONSE IN THE PLANNING PROCESS
Technical and economic rationality Political and social rationality Stresses hard sciences, quantitative
techniques
Stresses the social sciences, unquantifiable values Top down sources of knowledge only
are considered
Bottom up sources of knowledge are given legitimacy
Scientific sources of knowledge only are considered
Non-scientific sources of knowledge are also considered
Process controlled by experts Process stresses participation by citizens
Table 1: Masculine and feminine attributes according to Dymen, et al., 2014
A second, structurally deeper still, implication provided in the literature is that the political, neoliberal discourse around climate governance is inherently problematic since “the focus on individual action in neoliberal climate governance de-emphasises the wider political economic context under which climate change is produced” (Bee, et al., 2015, p. 7). That is by placing the onus on individual action of recycling or reducing household waste, whilst doing very little to change energy sources or the endless capitalist free-markets that have contributed largely to the problem (Bee, et al., 2015, p. 5). This is presented in the literature as the post-political condition, whereby society is distancing itself from, or losing faith in, structured government and moving towards a collective governance resulting in underlying inequality and difference being obscured. Climate change is generally seen as highly politicised or a priority for
5 See Dewhirt, 2013. Is the Green Party a real political alternative for students?. [Online] Available at:
http://www.independent.co.uk/student/istudents/is-the-green-party-a-real-political-alternative-for-students-8841377.html, [Accessed 7 June 2016].
politicians. However, a closer analysis can show that the post-politicisation of the public sphere has been a key marker in the neoliberal political process in recent years and can be recognised by the indicators below (Swyngedouw, 2010):
1. The widespread acceptance of climate change and the recognition that something needs to be done immediately;
2. The increased frequency that climate change is presented as a threat to humanity in which we are all victims;
3. The acceptance that the crisis requires immediate action which comes in the form of consensual governance since state responses are too slow;
4. The power of scientific discourses in defining the problem and telling us how we should treat nature, i.e. a separation of the human/nature nexus.
The result of these conditions of the post-political is the masking of underlying inequalities and the political role in challenging them. For example, by framing climate change as a common threat to humanity there leaves very little room for alternative approaches such as any debate over the socio-economic futures which could result from inadequate climate change policy. Secondly, when we are confronted by a crisis which is so huge it will affect everybody on the planet regardless of status, colour, age, sexuality, gender or even location “it says that, when we are all in the same leaking boat careening toward the apocalypse, there is no space, time or need for politics (MacGregor, 2014, p. 620). Third, by recognising that state responses are too slow to combat the problem effectively, the onus is then placed on the individual to take action to reduce personal CO2 emissions. In this way, the neoliberal discourse has
conditioned society to change lifestyles and behaviours instead of questioning the neoliberally based global economic system that has not only created the problem, but has resulted in huge social inequality (Bakker, 2007; Banjeree & Bell, 2007). Finally, by framing climate change as a scientific issue which requires scientific responses, we are essentially accepting the apolitical nature of climate change and so do not expect political responses. Yet despite the connections of women’s confinement to, or disproportionate time spent in, the private sphere (see Section 1.2), the gendered nature of the post-political condition has, thus far, received little academic attention. Therefore, research should consider the ways in which the neoliberal enclosure of the political sphere has displaced any engagement with climate change into the private sphere, an area which is particularly ripe, for the reasons set out here, for a feminist analysis (MacGregor, 2014).
2.3 Single story genders
The limited literature aligning women to climate change so often follows one, or both, of these hypotheses: women as vulnerable or women as virtuous (Gupta, 2015; Aguilar, 2009; Arora-Jonsson, 2011). This results in framings of poor, often uneducated, women in the Global South and environmentally conscious women in the Global North. However:
“Make no mistake: women are indeed the ones most severely affected by climate change and natural disasters, but their vulnerability is not innate; rather it is a result of inequalities produced through gendered social roles, discrimination, and poverty” (Gaard, 2015, p. 23).
In other words, it is fundamentally important to ensure that the conversation is not diverted away from issues of power structures that place women to these vulnerable positions in the first place. However, equally as dangerous is the flip hypothesis that portrays women as the key actor in solving environmental issues, or as ‘virtuous’. Viewing women in this sense risks placing further burden on women to address environmental impacts at the local level since while women’s role has changed, or expanded, we have not seen corresponding changes in the lives of men resulting in an increased, and disproportionate, workload for women (Rosser, 1991, p. 148). It is therefore fundamentally important to ensure that framing women in this way does not result in the burden of a double, or even triple day (see Section 1.2), where environmental responsibilities become another chore which women must undertake, both in developed or developing nations.
This is the danger of a single story of women (Adichie, 2014). While academic writing focuses on the vulnerable versus virtuous debate, so can climate change policy. Through a lack of focus on deeper questions of gendered social roles, discrimination and poverty in academia, there is a lack of understanding regarding how to insert these feminist concerns and priorities into climate change policy. Early liberal feminism is largely critiqued for its middle class whiteness (Nussbaum, 2000; Kaijser & Krosnell, 2014; Prindeville & Bretting, 1998), or its tendency to treat all women the same, regardless of age, class, colour or caste. In the environmental context this has resulted a single story of all women and environment issues - that is the story of poor, rural and uneducated women of the Global South who are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, but who hold the key, through their knowledge as farmworkers, caregivers and mothers, to the solutions to the climate problem. However, by framing women in this way the deeper rooted questions of power imbalances remain unaddressed. Instead:
“The analysis needs to move beyond seeing ‘impacts’ as only material and measurable effects (for example, increased poverty, intensified burden of domestic labour) experienced by ‘empirical’ and ‘vulnerable’ women in the Global South towards a feminist constructivist approach with the tools necessary for digging down and pulling up the deep roots of the discourses that frame gender and climate politics everywhere” (MacGregor, 2010a, p. 236).
Such an approach must be achieved through a theoretical framework which considers the gendered impacts of climate change, and climate change policy, whilst avoiding essentialist language and ideas. For example, such an approach should consider women’s exclusion from the climate change domain and patriarchal social norms, such as women’s primary role as caregivers (MacGregor, 2010; Tuana, 2008). In other words, such an approach should provide a deeper understanding of the women and climate change link outside of a vulnerable versus virtuous discourse, or the single story of women, as well as moving away from viewing women as one entity, or as one single social group which can obscure spatial, societal and cultural difference. For example, a white, middle-class and married woman has very different needs to a single black mother who has a low income. The former may be much more easily able to retrain for jobs in a changing energy market, for example.
2.4 New Theoretical Frameworks
2.4.1 Background
The intersectional conversation is appearing increasingly in the literature as the ‘environment as a women’s issue’ gains greater prominence and recognition in global politics. Arguably, the inability to connect women and climate change outside of the ‘vulnerable versus virtuous’ is rooted in the understanding of the issue being closely aligned to ecofeminist thinking. The political conversation concerning women’s environmental considerations first began within the UN in 1985, in Nairobi, but really took off in 1991 with a focus on mothering the Earth (Gaard, 2015, p. 24). For instance, the UNFCCC Gender and Climate Change website addresses women’s environmental issues by drawing on liberal and essentialist ecofeminist ideas stating that “even though women are … disproportionately affected, at the same time they play a crucial role in climate change adaptation and mitigation actions” (UNFCCC, 2015). This is a classic representation of the women as vulnerable or virtuous argument. Several theories have arisen in response for the need for new theoretical frameworks including ecofeminism, environmental feminism, post-structural feminism and feminist political ecology. However, it is ecofeminism and feminist political ecology which have seen the most widespread and successful use, and so make up the focus of the remainder of this review.
2.4.2 Ecofeminism
Arguably, ecofeminism presents the most popular and pragmatically applicable, feminist theory of critique available in environmental research. Ecofeminist literature focuses on three major issues: women’s relationship with nature (Salehi, et al., 2015), the connection between the domination of women and the domination of nature (Howell, 1997; Salehi, et al., 2015; Goebel, 2002) and the role of women in solving ecological problems (Momsen, 2000; Strzalkowski, 1997). Representing dominant feminist discourses of its time, ecofeminism should certainly be credited for its role in putting women’s issues on the environmental research agenda. However, ecofeminists have long been criticised for being essentialist, suggesting that women’s role in caring for children, the elderly and the frail means that they are more sympathetic towards caring for the Earth, again perpetuating masculine/feminine assumptions, and for ignoring difference between women (MacGregor, 2010a; Leach, 2007; Momsen, 2000). However:
“Ecofeminism, the one scholarly field that is concerned with the links between gender oppression and the exploitation of nature (or the environment), has been plagued by a negative reputation as being spiritualist, essentialist, and downright ‘fluffy’ and so arguably has kept feminist-environmental scholarship confined to a ghetto” (MacGregor, 2010, p. 126).
Notwithstanding, the ecofeminist link between women and nature has held considerable sway in development circles since the 1980’s, with many campaigning organisations, NGOs and even politicians taking this kind of view, as can be seen in the example from the UNFCCC above.
However, the role of feminism is to break down the barriers of the patriarchal society in which we live and that holds women as subordinate to men in everyday life. It is important not to romanticise women, women’s knowledge or women’s participation in climate change mitigation or adaptation plans but to recognise their roles, responsibilities, constraints and opportunities (Sultana, 2014). Glorifying the feminine role is a dangerous path towards heightening these patriarchal social norms and confining gender to socially constructed binary gendered roles. Whilst ecofeminism may not be essentialist as much as a reflection of thinking of the time and an accident of historical practice (Goebel, 2002), a stronger framework may be found in feminist political ecology and intersectionality in order to account for structural oppression and difference. However, the inclusion, or even domination, of essentialist discourse in contemporary climate change policy, should be considered in policy and discourse analysis.
2.4.3 Feminist Political Ecology
Feminist political ecology originated in the 1990s as a critique of corporate- and state-driven sustainable development (Baksh, et al., 2015, p. 1) and is concerned with gendered power relations that encompass both social and ecological relations. In its most basic and original form, feminist political ecology evokes three major themes: gendered knowledge and sciences of survival; gendered rights and responsibilities with respect to land, resources and environmental decision making; and gendered social movements and organisations (Rocheleau, et al., 1996). Furthermore, the literature suggests there is a need for a move away from essentialist connections between women and nature to a post structural re-conceptualisation of the gender-environment nexus, which goes beyond the household and community to a larger focus on national or global institutions (Nightingale, 2006).
As a feminist perspective on the more general theory of political ecology, feminist political ecology has drawn on theories from post-structuralism, feminist geography and cultural ecology and was largely developed by Dianne Rocheleau et al. (1996) in her book, Feminist Political Ecology. This now canonical writing showed not only how usage of environment and labour patterns are gendered, but also how environmental issues can have particular negative effects on women through the power structures of society, for example the historical exclusion of women from decision making bodies. In other words, feminist political ecology challenges traditional ecofeminist thinking by challenging the notion that gender differences in environmental impacts are rooted in biology, rather they are derived by social constructs of gender. That is the social construction of women as mothers and caregivers which creates the assumption that they are closer to the Earth than men, who are seen as strong, powerful heads of families.
Furthermore, while accepting the traditional gender role, gender becomes implicated in the vulnerable versus virtuous debate (see Section 2.3) and so in order for a fair and just climate politics to exist, it is this type of social construction that should be challenged. However, this move toward a post-structural position ignited strong criticism that, as a theory, feminist political ecology had strayed too far from ecofeminism. Though Rocheleau had attempted to create a theory which encompassed the non-essentialist ideas of ecofeminism, bringing it into second wave feminism, many felt that this split was too wide and too far from environmental feminist roots (Baksh, et al., 2015; Warren, 1987; Jackson, 1993). As a result, despite Feminist Political Ecology being on the academic feminist radar for 20 years now, we still see gendered connections with climate change framed in essentialist ecofeminist ways. Furthermore, recent criticisms of feminist political ecology insist that:
“FPE continues to have a troubled marriage with ‘difference’ for a number of reasons. One is the fear of losing policy relevance, another is that the operation of whiteness within scholarly research obstructs a focus on race and racialisation, and third is that gender continues, problematically, to be understood as a shorthand for other differences” (Baksh, et al., 2015, p. 7).
For this reason, feminist political ecology is at a crossroads - that is to say that feminist political ecology, in this form, represents the second wave feminism of the 1960s. To remain relevant in the 21st century and beyond, feminist political ecology needs to find a way to move into fourth, or even fifth, wave feminism accounting for deeper gendered power structures and recognising difference in women as a social group. In fact, Crenshaw argues that “it is fairly obvious that treating different things the same can generate as much inequality as treating the same things differently” (Crenshaw, 1997, p. 285). Of course there is a global aspect to this, women in the Global South face very different feminist issues to women of the Global North. Yet difference also occurs locally. A straight, white, married, middle class woman requires a very different feminism to a gay woman of colour with low income. In order to move into third and fourth wave feminism, feminist political ecology needs to embrace a ‘messier’, more complex version of itself that recognises not only gendered patriarchies but also acknowledges that both racial and patriarchal norms are bound up in processes and institutions (Mollet & Faria, 2013) which manifests in the further oppression felt by women on the intersection of other marginalisations. Such a version a feminist political ecology would recognise that different women require different responses. In the sense of climate change and relating policies, FPE would encourage recognition that while vulnerability to natural disaster events is gendered, it is also shaped by ability, class and income. Furthermore, in a policy specific context, recognition of difference could avoid framing vulnerability or disadvantage people as referring to all oppressed people including women, the disabled the elderly and the poor. In other words, a more nuanced version of FPE could “help conceptualise who and how people are isolated from planning discourse” (Osborne, 2015, p. 136).
2.4.4 Intersectionality
Perhaps then a more nuanced version of feminist political ecology can be found in Kimberle Crenshaws' theory of intersectionality. Crenshaw posits that in order to better understand injustice locally in our cities, we must incorporate multiple factors that shape identity power in our societies including race, class, gender, ethnicity and sexuality - a theory otherwise known as intersectionality (Osborne, 2015). Intersectionality deals with ‘structural intersectionality’ or the ways in which the position of women of colour on the intersection of class and sexuality makes for difference between them and white women,
and ‘political intersectionality’ or the cultural construction of people of colour (Crenshaw, 1994). Intersectionality has seen a resurgence in popularity in recent years as a social movement which ever growing but is still a work in progress, as a theory with its strong dimension of social change and as a method as well as a heuristic and analytical tool (Carbado, et al., 2013). “Traditional liberal discourses tend to frame the problem of discrimination in terms of state failures to transcend difference, while race- and gender-neutral regimes escape scrutiny” (Cho, et al., 2013, p. 799). In other words, in order for the state or for policy to transcend issues of difference between women, or even within society, policy creation must not be gender- or race-neutral in the first place.
The essence of intersectionality rests on how a persons’ status in the oppression, domination or discrimination matrix is based on more than just their gender, but also upon other intersecting social identities on multiple, and often simultaneous, levels (Crenshaw, 1994). For example, women of colour face oppression on two fronts – gender and race with less representation than white women6. Equally poor women are marginalised on the basis of gender and class or income with less opportunities afforded to them than middle-class women7. In order to fully understand a persons’ identity, we must consider all intersections of that identity. As a framework, intersectionality provides a strong basis upon which to understand systematic injustice and social inequality, while understanding that the classic conceptualisations of oppression, including racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, transphobia or ableism, do not exist independently. In other words, all women and all men are not the same, there is difference between and within these two groups and that difference is not mutually exclusive.
This leads to the notion that intersectionality is based on the idea of ‘othering’, or that there is some sort of human base from which others deviate (Osborne, 2015, p. 133). That base, Crenshaw (1994) argues, begins with the white male, or even white female, ignoring other intersections of race, class, age or sexuality. Though this is arguably due to the maleness of leadership, feminist scholar bell hooks (1984) argues that feminism which has not originated from those most oppressed cannot claim to best represent the interests of those very groups. Therefore, any tool which does not consider questions of power, and of who holds that power, as is shown above, cannot truly address feminist issues of equality (see Section 2.4.3). Furthermore, that must go further than the traditional masculine/feminine divide, understanding that women’s oppression occurs across a series of intersections of discrimination. Of course, the benefit of a feminist critique over a typical leftist critique, such as environmental justice, is that it allows us to
6 See Adams & Bengtsson, 2016. Black and Asian students under-represnted in university offers. [Online], Available at:
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/jun/09/black-and-asian-students-under-represented-in-university-offers, [Accessed 14 June 2016].
move away from a discourse centred around distribution, or mal-distribution (Schlosberg, 2004; 2013) and of vulnerability and instead focus on deep rooted power imbalances and patriarchal systems of a neoliberal society, cutting across various intersections of discrimination. An integrated framework of feminist political ecology and intersectionality, while acknowledging the prevalence or even domination, of essentialist notions of women in climate politics however, can provide a much stronger framework under which to challenge the neoliberal economic and patriarchal political system. This can be achieved by asking questions around identity politics and recognition of difference.
These theories feed into this research as depicted in Figure 1. The diagram shows that climate change policy is analysed under a framework incorporating issues of feminist political ecology (in order to challenge patriarchal power imbalances) and intersectionality (in order to assess the inclusion of multiple intersecting factors which extend discrimination). These theories are supplemented by consideration of the extent to which ecofeminist discourses are apparent within policy documents, including identifying essentialist language.
Figure 1: Theoretical Framework
!
!
Feminist Political
Ecology
Challenge to
underlying structures
of patriarchal power
that disadvantage
women.
Intersectionality
Multiple, intersecting,
factors which extend
simply gender and result
in discriminatory
processes
Critique of
ecofeminism
A critique of gender
essentialism and its
dominance in the
women and climate
change discourse.
Climate change policy and tools and
guidelines relating to women and climate
2.5 Gaps in Knowledge
2.5.1 Overview
The literature, as set out above, shows that the current body of academic research in the gender and climate change theme leaves the following gaps in academic knowledge:
1. A feminist critique of the neoliberal, post-political arrangement - through critical normative
discussions of power and masculinity particularly in climate change politics;
2. A critique of gender essentialism - through a critical view of current understanding of the women
and climate change link and the essentialisation of women’s issues;
3. A critique of the segmentation of discourses of injustice - through a critical view of elitist or
liberal feminism which ignores other intersections of discrimination.
Ultimately, it is these gaps in knowledge that this research seeks to address by considering how an intersectional feminist agenda might engage with climate change politics. Such an agenda should be critical of the neoliberal and post-political arrangement (see Section 2.5.2), provide a thorough understanding of the link between women and climate change that moves away from the vulnerable versus virtuous discourse debate (see Section 2.5.3) and which is inclusive to various intersections of discrimination (see Section 2.5.4). These knowledge gaps are explained in detail below.
2.5.2 Critique of the neoliberal, post-political arrangement
As previously discussed (see Section 2.2) the implications of the post-political nature of climate change from a feminist perspective have thus far been under-theorised and in fact there are no empirical case studies specifically linking the ways in which neoliberal and post-political discourses can work to invisibilise or marginalise women and their concerns.. Yet there are some specifically feminist questions to be asked concerning the dominant climate change framings, particularly concerning the ways in which neoliberalism shifts the focus from the public (male) domain to the private (female) domain, thus placing the onus on the individual (women). Examples include the ways in which the Governments Carbon Calculator encourages individual carbon reductions, and the onus placed on reduce, recycle and reuse. These schemes and programmes shift the focus from business and industry to the household. Therefore, it is especially important to consider the gendered implications of the post-political condition if effective feminist agendas are to be met in climate change politics. MacGregor (2014) sets out the ways in which the post-political condition can create issues for a feminist agenda as highlighted below:
1. The celebritisation of climate change as the most important issue facing society today eclipses issues of inequality and patriarchy since social difference is irrelevant if the world is going to end regardless;
2. The neoliberal discourse has displaced climate change related issues from the public sphere into the private sphere and the individual (translated as women), which can be seen, for example, in the UK’s department of Energy and Climate Change’s ‘carbon calculator’ which encourages individuals to take action to reduce their personal emissions;
3. While climate change discourse is firmly rooted in science it is difficult for feminists to question the implications of that science without being stigmatised as ‘eco-sinners’ who are unwilling to do their part;
4. The post-political framing of climate change diverts attention away from questions of power and “structural analysis of both the root causes and the differential impacts of climate change” (MacGregor, 2014, p. 266) as a result of these characteristics.
Despite the obvious concerns, there are no empirical studies which consider how the neoliberal, post-political framing of climate change policy affects women and women’s equality in contemporary climate change policy. Therefore, this research aims to address the post-political condition in climate change policy from a feminist perspective that considers how masculine discourses of technology, science, economics and security perpetuate the neoliberal system.
2.5.3 Critique of gender essentialism
As discussed in Section 2.3, many of the arguments concerning the women and climate change connection centre on women as more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, whether due to increased mortality from natural disasters, or increased risk associated with longer journeys to collect food and water (see, for example, Brody, et al., 2008). These are generally arguments which are associated with the Global South, yet that is not to say that climate change in the Global North is not of feminist concern. However, discourse surrounding women in the Global North (as well as the Global South) tends to focus on the flip hypothesis of women as virtuous, through their roles as mothers and caregivers. Outside of this argument, it remains unclear what aspects of climate change policy or practice should be questioned, queried or criticised from a feminist lens. It is, perhaps, even more unclear what should be argued for in a gender-transformative politics and it is difficult to critique climate change policy if solutions or alternatives cannot be offered. If a woman’s position is socially constructed as a wife, mother and homemaker, then it these kinds of structural inequalities, or ingrained and internalised assumptions of the feminine and masculine role, which risk being exacerbated by the growing pressures
of global climate change. Without a greater understanding of the ways in which women’s equality is relevant to all manner of policy responses, including climate change responses, then women’s equality will remain essentialised to women’s only issues and social policies of equality. For example, traditional gendered roles and the public/private sphere should be considered within climate change policy, and not essentialised to policies of equality. Of course these kinds of policies are indeed needed, but they should be supplemented by a gender analysis throughout wider policy also.
Gender mainstreaming, therefore, has emerged as an attempt to move away from essentialising women’s issues and has been widely popular as a political tool, to the extent that organisations such as the UN have formally committed to gender mainstreaming in policy (Hemmati & Rohr, 2009), with the aim of ensuring that gender is considered in all areas of policy. However, as a process, gender mainstreaming has been accused of being limited in scope and resulting in gender becoming a technocratic exercise, or a checklist, which must be scored off but not necessarily followed up upon (Buckingham & Kulcur, 2009; Alston, 2009; Alston, 2014; Arora-Jonsson, 2014). The difficulty here is that challenging power structures and social norms, as is needed (see Section 2.3), is not something that can happen overnight, and so in a world where increasingly funding, or even approval, for specific projects is based on substantive evidence of gendered considerations, it is easy to see why gender mainstreaming is a popular option. By reducing the process to a checklist of tangible outcomes you can, to all intents and purposes, include gender, gender considerations or even specifically women, but not necessarily create the meaningful, long term or systemic change that is actually needed.
“It is perhaps too soon to say, but the arguments of women’s climate justice groups may, by strategic necessity, be confined to getting the word “gender” included in key policy documents and to gaining recognition of the material impacts of climate change on women” (MacGregor, 2014, p. 625).
An intersectional feminist agenda, therefore, must go further than this end. It must go further than simply getting the word in the document, or even simply ‘counting women in’, though an important part of the process, and instead address the root of inequality (Wonders & Danner, 2015; Wod, 2005).
Of course, gender mainstreaming is not entirely without merit, and it should be credited as a major mark of political success for feminism “resulting from the hard work of gender advocates both outside and within development institutions” (Wod, 2005, p. 594) and is an important tool in ensuring women’s issues are prevalent throughout policy and not simply essentialised as ‘women’s only’ issues (Alston, 2014). For example, employment policies should include gender considerations to ensure that female and
maternal employment remain high. Sweden is a world leader in this with its generous parental leave schemes ensuring a 73.1% employment rate of women, close to that of men at 76.5% (Europa, 2016). Gender mainstreaming also provides a “standard operating procedure” or “best practice” for those who do not specialize in gender (Wod, 2005, p. 594), yet find they are expected, purely by virtue of being a woman, to pursue a feminist agenda in policy making, or at least to make the case for gendered priorities. Yet notwithstanding, in the past decade gender mainstreaming has had little success, arguably due to the lack of understanding, and has been associated with winding back previous feminist wins. For example, it has been argued that countries and politicians have used gender mainstreaming rhetoric as an excuse to cut resources to women specific policy units and to downgrade women focused infrastructure in the name of mainstreaming gender throughout (Alston, 2006; Prugl, 2013). Margaret Alston (2006), found that employees from national and state rural women’s units in Australia felt that their work was trivialised, ignored or even excluded entirely by bureaucrats arguing that gender equality was no longer an issue. Therefore, it is essential that there is a clear understanding of the women and climate change link, and the policy implications associated with this, in order to present a method which has the potential to provide more positive change than gender mainstreaming has seen thus far.
2.5.4 Critique of the segmentation of discourses of injustice
Throughout Western feminism, and even Western feminist geography (Valentine, 2007), there is a persistent ignorance of issues of difference, or of multiple intersections of discrimination that cut through race, age, class, sexuality or ability (Gaard, 2015; Rosser, 1991; Valentine, 2007) - climate change research is no exception. Yet, despite this omission, identities and cultures which are based upon multiple intersections are relevant and important to understanding the impacts of climate change, and, further still, to understanding how society can adapt in a fair and just manner (see Section 2.3).
Climate change policy which does not consider various intersections of identity politics can have profound effects for societal inequality. For example, the gender and class differences in transportation behaviour are well documented but are regularly not considered in climate strategies (Kaijser & Krosnell, 2014, p. 427). Currently, climate change policy represents masculine travel patterns of private car ownership and so promotes this kind of travel patterns. However, a less masculinised transport system could reduce environmental degradation, traffic related deaths and social exclusion (Polk, 2009). Furthermore, the decision making power in the energy industry is, almost invariably, held unequally in terms of class and gender (Raty & Carlsson-Kanyama, 2010) and while changes in energy production take place in a top down pattern it is highly possible that those under-represented groups will be further marginalised (Kaijser & Krosnell, 2014, p. 427).
Therefore, it is important for a feminist analysis to look beyond adverse effects of climate change has on more vulnerable communities, and instead begin to uncover and problematise norms and underlying assumptions that have become naturalised within climate change policy. “Using intersectionality in the study of climate issues makes it possible to reach a more complete and accurate understanding of the social and political conditions for climate governance” (Kaijser & Krosnell, 2014, p. 428). In other words, intersectionality allows critical analytical research to uncover underlying norms and assumptions beyond those of the traditional male/female divide. As such, a framework which integrates identity politics of difference such as one based on intersectionality can begin to address these sorts of patriarchies of race, class, age and ability that are broader than the traditional male/female power imbalance. It is important that such a framework challenges the prevalence of the white male, or even the white female, as normal while all ‘others’ (Buckingham & Kulcur, 2009, p. 664) deviate from this.
