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Environmental Justice and Feminism
Environmental injustices affect women disproportionately in comparison to men. These injustices are addressed in feminis t research and by feminist movement s. Gendered environmental injustices occur in different forms. One of them are distributional environmental injustices like unpaid care work by women which brings them in direct contact with polluting activities. This injustice is exacerbated by women's higher biological vulnerability to environmental pollution and extreme climate events. The physical impact of environmental pollution and climate events typically affect women twice as being impacted themselves and taking care of those who are impacted like other family members, especially child ren and elderly. Additionally, to the "invisible, care responsibilities undertaken by women", the influence of environmental household policies is seen as a gendered burden since it mainly impacts women. Buckingham presents campaigns as zero waste and slow food as such household-policies which are a burden for women, since they are the ones who manage the household. Gendered injustices can also be of representational nature which undermines the dominance of women in environmental organizations (68% of the workforce in the voluntary sector have been women in 2006) with predominantly male leadership in these organisations. Further, especially in academia, injustices of recognition are discussed. Feminists argue that their research is not acknowledged appropriately in the environmental justice literature and that feminist scholars offered solutions to persistent environmental justice debates which are disregarded. Additionally, based on the understanding that environmental justice "affirms the fundamental right to political, economic, cultural and environmental self-determination of all peoples", violence and injustices towards queer people, especially if they claim "their right to a place" is seen as an issue of environmental justice as well.

For further information, see Climate justice and gender

Influence of Feminism on Environmental Justice Theory
Justice is generally one of the core themes in different Feminisms. Ecofeminism, feminist political ecology and queer ecology specifically engage with (in)justices related to the environment. Ecofeminism aims to erase all kinds of injustices and sees the oppression of women and nature as related. Ecofeminists have argued that (environmental) injustices are result of the same male-dominant force. Feminist political ecologists assess the access and control to resources and how it is related to gender, class, ethnicity, culture, and caste. They therefore address one of the core themes in environmental and climate justice. Queer ecologists address central themes of environmental justice like complexities in biopolitics and the connection of material and cultural dimensions of environmental issues. All three philosophies and social movements (Ecofeminism, Feminist political ecology and Queer Ecology) operate at the intersection of feminism and environmentalism. Nevertheless, feminists critique that gender is an underrepresented category within environmental justice research. To address the intersectionality of environmental injustices, which has been proven, researchers argue that the environmental justice work should additionally focus on gender.

Feminist philosophers like Nancy Fraser and Iris Marion Young have shaped the contemporary environmental justice theory. The expansion of the understanding of environmental justice from a mainly distributive issue to a combination of recognitional, representational and redistributional issues can be originated in the work of feminist scholars like Fraser and Young. Recognition refers to the cultural dimension of justice. Representation refers to the political and redistribution to the material dimensions of justice. Many of the environmental justice movements are addressing all three dimensions in their activism simultaneously since these notions of justice are interrelated. Environmental justice is, therefore, a combination of postmodern identity politics and concrete material struggles.

Ecofeminists' perspectives have shaped the understanding of environmental justice issues in the Global South. The most known account is from Vandana Shiva. She critiqued systems and processes which enrich people, especially large corporations of the Global North, based on the oppression of people, especially women and indigenous groups, and their sustained livelihoods in typically less developed countries. This condemns the globalization of mono-cropping in agriculture and sees it as a threat to cultures and local knowledge. For Vandana Shiva, there is a link between food and cultural diversity. With these discussions she contributed to the development of environmental justice debate thematically and geographically.

Female Activists and the Environmental Justice Movement
The following section presents a few examples of female activists who played a crucial role at the origins of the environmental justice movement. As mentioned earlier in the article, social movements are central to environmental justice as well as they are to feminism. The majority of the initiators of environmental justice movements are women. Rachel Carson's book “Silent Spring” is seen as the jumpstart of the environmental movement in the United States of America. According to Greta Gaard, she applied ecofeminist practices. The environmental movement later resulted in the anti-toxic movement in the United States of America, which covers a variety of issues and initiatives related to environmental threats to human health. During this time period of the environmental justice movement, the largest network, which tied the social movement together, was the Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ). The CHEJ was founded by Lois Gibbs as an information centre for the community in the anti-toxic movement as a reaction to the leak at the Love Canal. She initiated a study which proved that people living closer to waste facilities suffer severe health issues. The results of that study and the inaction of the US government sparked the environmental classism movement and discussion within the environmental justice movement. Indigenous women, like Winona LaDuke, called on environmental injustices experienced due to mining, military bomb tests, hydropower constructs and contamination. Dana Alston was a leader of the environmental racism movement in the African-American community. She organized the first National Environmental Justice Leadership Summit in 1992. She said “we speak for ourselves” which was one of the main slogans of the social movement. Both women played a crucial role in the Environmental racism movement in the United States. Researchers argue that the media fails to give voices to these grassroots movements since they are mainly initiated by women of color.