Gender & Climate Change

Does gender matter in global climate change?
Joane Nagel is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Anthropology Department at the University of Kansas. She is a political and cultural sociologist whose work focuses on ethnicities, genders, and sexualities in the US and the global system and the militarization of gender, science, and global climate change. Her most recent book Gender and Climate Change (Routledge, 2016) holds up a gender lens to find out what has been overlooked in popular discussion, research, and policy debates. We see that, around the world, more women than men die in climate-related natural disasters; the history of science and war are intimately interwoven masculine occupations and preoccupations; and conservative men and their interests drive the climate change denial machine. We also see that climate policymakers who embrace big science approaches and solutions to climate change are predominantly male with an ideology of perpetual economic growth, and an agenda that marginalizes the interests of women and developing economies.