Women and the Environment

By

Crea Nolan

That women should take the lead in a global movement in environmental issues is felt by some to be a natural expression of an intrinsic relationship between women and the environment.  A holistic vision of the earth has been present in many communities, cultures and civilisations throughout history and has often been allied with the belief in the Earth Mother, where the earth was seen as a sacred nurturing being. Women have a unique relationship to nature, ground in their intuitive ethic of caring and preserving.  Women concerned about environmental damage are voicing their concerns on issues ranging from dumping toxic waste to over-packaging, from deforestation to insecticides, which affect the whole ecosystem.

Women have a key role to play in preserving the environment and natural resources, and in promoting sustainable development. For example, women still have the main responsibility for meeting household needs and are therefore a major force in determining consumption trends. As such, women have an essential role to play in the development of sustainable and ecologically sound consumption and production patterns

Women's participation in the formulation, planning and execution of environmental policy continues to be low. At the same time, the international community has recognized that without women's full participation, sustainable development cannot be achieved. The Platform for Action, adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, identified the need to actively involve women in environmental decision-making at all levels, and to incorporate a gender perspective in all strategies for sustainable development, as one of the 12 critical areas of concern requiring action by states, the international community and civil society.

The United Nations Commission on the Status of Women took up the issue of women and the environment for discussion during its forty-first session in 1997. The Commission proposed further action to be taken to promote women's active involvement in environmental management at all levels, including the mainstreaming of a gender perspective into all environmental policies and programmes. Among the agreed conclusions of the session were measures to encourage gender-sensitive research on the impact of environmental pollutants and other harmful substances, including their impact on the reproductive health of men and women, and the active involvement of women in the development and implementation of policies aimed at promoting and protecting the environmental aspects of human health, such as setting standards for drinking water. Toxic chemicals and pesticides in air, water and earth are responsible for a variety of women's health risks. They enter body tissues and breast milk, through which they are passed on to infants.

The link between poverty and environmental degradation is well established. Eradication of poverty has been recognized as an indispensable requirement for the achievement of sustainable development. The empowerment of the world's poor, the majority of whom are women, particularly rural women, must therefore be seen as a necessary part of any environmental conservation strategy.

The direct and critical relationship between women and natural resources draws its strength not from biology—that is, not because women are born female—but from gender, and the socially created roles and responsibilities that continue to fall to women in households, communities and ecosystems throughout the world. 

Sustainable development demands recognition and value for the multitude of ways in which women's lives intertwine with environmental realities.  Around the world, women's lack of representation in government limits their influence over governance and public policies. Worldwide, women held only 14 percent of seats in parliaments in 2000; this limited participation means those women's perspectives, needs, knowledge and proposed solutions are often ignored.

At the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, women came together as never before and presented their vision of a world in which all women are educated, free from violence, and able to make their own reproductive choices. As a result of this mobilization, the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21 called for women’s full participation in sustainable development and improvement in their status in all levels of society

‘Advancing gender equality, through reversing the various social and economic handicaps that make women voiceless and powerless, may also be one of the best ways of saving the environment, and countering the dangers of overcrowding and other adversities associated with population pressure. The voice of women is critically important for the world's future—not just for women's future’

Prof. Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel laureate (Economics)

Women have a spiritual relationship with the earth, connecting the life support system of nature with women's innate life support systems and nurturing beings and because of this relationship; women have the potential to bring about an ecological revolution to save the planet