Learn the Relationship Between Gender Inequality and Climate Change

A simple website that demonstrates how gender inequality and climate change, two issues seemingly unrelated, impact lives in connected ways.

What are the consequences of gender inequality?

The 5th goal of the UN Sustainable Development Goals suggests that we achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls. At the root of this principle lies the fact that there are many challenges women and other marginalized communities still face in our society today, including but not limited to [1]:

  • Gender wage gaps
  • Limited access to education and healthcare
  • Gender based violence
  • Underrepresentation in decision-making processes
  • Child, early, or forced marriages

What are the consequences of climate change?

The 13th goal of the UN Sustainable Development Goals suggests that we take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. Climate change refers to the increasing temperatures of Earth. It has negative consequences including [2]:

  • Intense droughts
  • Severe fires
  • Rising sea levels
  • Declining biodiversity

The relationship between gender inequality and climate change

While gender inequality brings challenges for women and other marginalized communities, climate change aggravates the impacts of these challenges, leading women and other marginalized communities to be disproportionately affected by climate change.

  • In societies where gender inequality is widespread, women who lack access to education often turn to agriculture. Climate-change-driven issues such as drought, decreasing water resources, extreme weather events, and coastal flooding can threaten farming areas and affect women whose livelihoods depend on agriculture. As soil yields decline due to climate change, women earn less income despite working longer hours. [3]
  • Climate change causes increased temperatures on Earth and leads to hotter environments. Being in an uncomfortably hot environment might result in feelings of irritability and aggression. These negative feelings may trigger violence perpetrated by men against marginalized communities, which is an outcome of a complex relation between heat and social norms that cast "aggression" and "dominance" as masculine traits for men. [4]
  • Climate-change-driven disasters may cause people to lose their jobs and put them on a mission to find new jobs. Due to gender inequality, marginalized groups may struggle with getting employed more.

Proposed solutions

  • Organizations that attempt to combat climate change should be concerned with and put emphasis on women's needs while working on their future plans.
  • Women should be encouraged to participate in decision-making processes against climate change, and discrimination in the workplace should be reduced.
  • The renewable energy sector should be expanded to create more job opportunities for women and other marginalized communities. This not only promotes the employment of women but also helps slow down global warming.
  • Children should be educated on the impacts of gender inequality and climate change. Thus, a contribution to achieving gender equality is made, and awareness of climate change may increase.

A simple modeling of the relationship

The relationship between gender inequality and climate change in an image

References

  1. Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment | Department of Economic and Social Affairs, https://sdgs.un.org/topics/gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
  2. What Is Climate Change? | United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
  3. The Climate Crisis Is Unjust for Rural Women: FAO Gender Expert, https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/the-climate-crisis-is-unjust-for-rural-women--fao-gender-expert/en. Accessed 6 Oct. 2024.
  4. Chersich, M. F., et al. “Violence in Hot Weather: Will Climate Change Exacerbate Rates of Violence in South Africa?” South African Medical Journal, vol. 109, no. 7, June 2019, p. 447. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.7196/SAMJ.2019.v109i7.14134.