User:Sameeharashid/Climate Change and Gender

"Women as vulnerable" vs "Women as virtuous"[edit]
There are two concurring themes that emerge when examining climate change and gender: "women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment." This means that women living in countries in the global South are more likely to be affected by climate change than men in those countries and that men in the global North are more likely to contribute to climate change than women. These assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness are negative because they are reinforcing the global North/South biases, which is that women in the global South are poor and helpless and women in the global North are well-educated and pro-environmentalists. These debates are also negative in that they are deflecting the attention away from climate change.

Women furthermore possess unique skills and knowledge, which are important in building equal and sustainable responses to climate change. The UNFPA report State of world population 2009 - Facing a changing world: women, population and climate identifies women as important actors in mobilizing against climate change. The report quotes Wangari Maathai that “Women hold the key to Climate’s Future”; “when we talk about reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, we need to focus on women […]” Specifically, Carolyn Sachs discusses the struggles women face on a global scale against environmental factors such as gender arrangements in agricultural development. Often times women become oppressed by their Corporate counterparts as a more focused point of reference in women's vulnerability. Women labor is exploited as a way to keep them from fighting back in turn, during the mid year season change they face vast struggles of extreme climate change and availability to natural resources.

Gender differences in perceptions of climate change
A study of young people in Finland shows that concern over climate change has a higher impact on climate friendly consumption in women compared to men. This may be incidental to differences in perception of climate change. Women tend to agree with the scientific opinion that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions are mainly responsible for climate change (m: 56%, f: 64%) and are more concerned about its effects: 29% of men and 35% of women in the US "worry about global warming a great deal".

Another study was conducted in 2016 using men and women from Brazil and Sweden to measure and inspect the effects of gender and political orientation on perceptions of climate change. Data was collected via online questionnaires from 367 participants from Brazil consisting of 151 men and 216 women, and 221 participants from Sweden with 75 men and 146 women. The results of the study showed a strong positive correlation between conservative men and denial of climate change in both groups (rSweden = .22, rBrazil = .19) indicating that men (typically with conservative political orientation) are more likely to deny the existence of climate change. Women in both groups mostly showed the opposite results, indicating that women are more likely to believe in the existence of climate change.