Climate change has long been an issue for ecology, and just recently we are realizing how it specifically affects impoverished communities. If we want to zoom in on this specific category, we see that global warming targets women and girls more than any other group. Why is this? In many cultures around the world, women are expected to take care of the children. Because of this long-standing stereotype, when some climate-change induced disaster hits a community, women have less opportunity to find shelter or a safer place due to the fact that they are putting the children’s needs before their own. Additionally, because women are forced into staying with the children, they are usually looking for fuel and clean water. Along with typical gender inequalities such as being at risk for sexual violence and having lesser political and economic status, the burden of adapting to climate change only adds to this weight. 

I don’t think that this is the case in necessarily every society, but it certainly is true in many different areas of the world. When such extreme climate tragedies occur, the challenges women face are often overlooked. What is not acknowledged as often is how women are a necessary factor in the road to a better world, and how they are globally more attuned to girls’ specific needs. Without women having the opportunity to contribute to the workforce, the world’s efficiency rate goes down by 50%. Women bring attention to overlooked issues such as period poverty and gender inequality, and this is so because they have first-hand experiences of these problems. This is not to say that men do not try to help these problems, but women have a deeper understanding. 

Each person deserves the opportunity to pursue the life they want for themselves. If a girl is born into an environment in which she is the one who is expected to take care of her younger siblings, find food for the family, and collect money to keep everyone safe, this does not mean that she does not have dreams for herself. Her dreams deserve to come true. Climate change adds such a heavy burden to her, so often times those dreams she once had will be almost impossible to attain. While preventing climate change is not going to end gender inequality, it will lessen the burdens and expectations on girls. By using our reusable water bottles, walking places, and protesting fossil fuels not only helps humans, animals and preventing extreme weather, but the well-being and equality of women and girls. 

Image: Tapert, Becca. “Group of women facing backward photo.” Unsplash, 31 August 2017, https://unsplash.com/photos/group-of-women-facing-backward-u5e1kqW6E3M