Lunch Seminar "Virtue and Vulnerability: Women, Gender and Climate Change"

The social effects of climate change have gained attention within academic and policy literature. With few exceptions, questions of gender has been silent in this literature. In the limited literature on gender and climate change, two themes predominate - women as vulnerable or virtuous in relation to the environment. Two viewpoints are regarded as obvious: women in the South will be affected more by climate change than men in those countries and that men (in general and especially so) in the North pollute more than women. The debates are structured in specific ways in relation to the North and the South. In the talk, I trace the lineage of the arguments about women’s vulnerability or virtue to previous discussions about women, development and the environment and examine how they recur in new forms in climate debates. Questioning assumptions about women's vulnerability and virtuousness and the methodological approaches underpinnings these, I highlight how a focus on women's vulnerability or virtuousness deflects attention from inequalities in decision-making. By reiterating statements about poor women in the South and the pro-environmental women of the North, these assumptions reinforce North-South biases. Generalizations about women's vulnerability and virtuousness can lead to an increase in women's responsibility without corresponding rewards. There is need to contextualize debates on climate change to enable action and to respond effectively to its adverse effects in particular places.