March for Women Highlights Need for Climate Justice and Gender Equality

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โ€œWhatโ€™s the point of gender justice if you donโ€™t have a world in which to live?โ€, asks Dr Helen Pankhurst, great-granddaughter of suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst, and granddaughter of womenโ€™s rights campaigner Sylvia Pankhurst. โ€œWe need both gender equality and climate justice together. I donโ€™t think you can get climate justice without a genderedย lens.โ€

Wet weather didnโ€™t deter hundreds of protesters from joining Pankhurst, as well as Game of Thrones actor Natalie Dormer, singer-songwriter Emeli Sande, and London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Sunday in London for the annual March4Women. The event was organised by Care international, for which Pankhurst is an advisor, with the march this year focused on gender inequality and climate justice.ย 

She told DeSmog that there are a number of qualities that closely link both the gender and climate justice movements, including their shared tactics of direct action: โ€œI think climate activists have to some extent modelled themselves on previous social reformers and those arguing for change both in terms of social norms and in terms of policy change. So there is a link through that to the feminist movement more generally in terms of people being fed up, frustrated saying โ€˜Ok what can weย do?โ€™โ€ย 

โ€œPut that all together and put together the fact that feminism is a global movement, just as environmentalism is, with the understanding that you canโ€™t just solve it one country at a time. I think for all of those reasons that we have an amazing link between climate justice and genderย justice.โ€ย 


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Care International is calling for women and girls to be central part of the solution to the climate crisis, and is asking the UK government to accelerate the shiftย to net zero emissions, setting ambitious national plans to respond to the climate crisis by September 2020, and significantly increase funding for gender-just climate resilience measures that support poor and vulnerable people in developingย countries.ย 

Pankhurst argued that the lack of gendered solutions to the climate crisis isย problematic.ย 

โ€œIf you look at the experience women are disproportionately affected by climate emergencies. They are often the ones that have to go and collect water from further afield. They are often the ones who are responsible for the young, elderly, disabled in conditions that are aggravated by climate emergencies.ย I think they are disproportionatelyย affected.โ€

โ€œTheir voice in terms of power and decision making is silenced so their experiences are not center stage in ways that could help with having a genderedย lens.โ€

Nonetheless, she said the youth climate movement that is being led by large numbers of teenage girls was โ€œsoย inspiringโ€.ย 

โ€œI think itโ€™s fabulous and I think itโ€™s the voice of those who are fed up and are calling out for change and historically that often is young people. Itโ€™s the female reaction to a literally man-madeย world.โ€

โ€œThereโ€™s a history of women calling that out, and right now it feels like a particularly strong expression of that in the form of Greta Thunberg but also manyย others.โ€ย 

Women hardestย hit

The day started with a pre-march rally in Royal Festival Hall at the Southbank Center, where broadcaster Emma Barnett hosted musicians Emeli Sande and Raye, as well as panelists and activists discussing the link between the climate crisis and genderย justice.ย 

Climate scientist Dr Tamsin Edwards explained to the audience how climate change negatively impacts women and girls. She said: โ€œIn a nutshell, climate change is all about more heat being trapped in our atmosphere and oceans and what that does is it amplifies everything, it amplifies a lot of types of extremeย weather.โ€ย 

โ€œIt amplifies our water cycle so that means places that are already hot in tropical areas and cities become hotter, that places that are already experiencing heavy rainfall can have more intense, heavy rainfall, and the same with drought; if you already suffer drought you can see more drought in the future and sea level rise exacerbating coastalย flooding.โ€ย 

Edwards explained that all the risks that come with poverty are multiplied by climate change, with women and girls feeling the highestย impact.ย 

Her comments were echoed by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who began by saying: โ€œUnlike the President of the USA, I am a proud feminist andย ally.โ€ย 

โ€œWeโ€™ve got to make sure that weโ€™ve got zero tolerance towards sexism, weโ€™ve got to make sure weโ€™ve got zero tolerance towards discrimination and weโ€™ve got to make sure weโ€™ve got zero tolerance towardsย misogyny.โ€ย 

โ€œWhat Milicent [Fawcett] talked about more than 100 years is ago is as relevant today as it was then because we know, thereโ€™s a consequence to climate change and it impacts women and girls more than everyoneย else.โ€

โ€œClimate change to me is an issue that is a climate emergency, and as Helen [Pankhurst] said we need climate justice. If we get climate justice, it addresses gender justice, but also itโ€™s an issue of social justice asย well.โ€ย ย 

Khan called on the protestors to help the movement because โ€œour government is not listening.โ€ He said: โ€œWe have COP26 taking place in Glasgow, and weโ€™ve got to make sure weโ€™re in Glasgow so the world hears climate justice is the issue of gender justice is the issue of socialย justice.โ€ย 

Genderย justice

Many of those marching shared the speakersโ€™ desire for a greater emphasis on the crossover between gender justice and climateย action.ย 

Emily Reichardt, 22, came to the March4Women armed with a homemade sign after recently attending a climate march in London a few weeksย ago.ย 

She told DeSmog, โ€œWe came to support womenโ€™s rights but also for climate change too, both issues are equally as important to me. I went to the climate march a couple of weeks ago and I think they are pretty similar in what they are fighting for, and both this march and the climate march I feel are reallyย impactful.โ€ย 

Speaking about the main change she would like to see happen soon, Reichardt said: โ€œI want to see some actual action towards climate change, because we havenโ€™t really seen much. And we need more women’sย representation.โ€

Ela Mete, 23 and Sandra Revuelta, 21, told DeSmogย โ€œWe came here for both gender equality and climate justice. But there was a moment where I thought โ€˜how do they go hand inย hand?โ€™โ€ย 

15-year-old climate activist Scarlett Westbrook gave a rousing speech in Parliament Square that largely answered that question, telling the crowd: โ€œWe donโ€™t want politicians’ words, we want politicians’ deeds. We may be the future of tomorrow, but we canโ€™t let you steal ourย today.โ€ย 

Mete told DeSmog: โ€œIn the past the world has been ruled by men, and the decisions that have been made including the climate decisions that brought us here were made by men. Women didnโ€™t have much of a voice in issues regarding theย climate.โ€ย 

Revuelta added: โ€œIf they did, we wouldnโ€™t be in thisย situation.โ€ย 

Images ยฉ Guy Bell/CARE

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