A feminist agenda for a Green New Deal

Abstract

In 2019, transnational feminist climate activists developed ten principles that center ecological concerns and gendered perspectives for a US Green New Deal. Aptly termed the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, this evolving policy platform and ecofeminist manifesto provide innovative and cross-cutting perspectives on how policymakers, activist organizations, and civil society should plan for greener, regenerative, and care-fueled futures for all. The following chapter outlines and examines the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal principles for tensions and congruences, as well as analyzes opportunities and challenges for coalition building and communicating across epistemic divides. As a co-founding and steering committee member of the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, I argue that economic, environmental, and social policies that fail to center climate and COVID recovery solutions devised by feminists and BIPOC communities will continue to exacerbate global inequality, as well as the rights of nature and human rights abuses. Policy approaches that lack considerations of gender and reproductive justice will likewise consolidate white supremacist, fascist, neocolonial, and patriarchal power across geopolitical borders. To manifest the liberatory vision(s) of the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal, I believe that feminist policy advocates and educators must utilize communication strategies that appeal to more diverse and less insular audiences (including politically conservative audiences and technocratic policymakers), rethink multilateralism, and nurture collective action guided by healing justice and feminist fellowship. Irrespective of these challenges, the Feminist Agenda for a Green New Deal offers a unique opportunity to increase global awareness of the linkages between neoliberal policy solutions and the institutionalization of gendered and racialized environmental violence, while transforming the decolonial contours and futurist imaginings of global environmental governance.