Understanding Climate Change through Gender Relations

Abstract

Feminist analysis focuses on gender relations, thereby it goes beyond a mere focus on women and women’s role in climate governance. While the representation of women in politics and governance is of relevance to such studies, feminist theory makes it possible to also seriously discuss and question the relation between women’s and men’s interests and values in the gender order, and problematize the relation between a critical mass of women and critical acts in policymaking. There are different feminist perspectives, and here I suggest that particular attention be paid to theories with a critical epistemology because they call attention to the gender normative setting of climate governance and climate institutions, and draw attention to intersectional power relations, including how gender relations intersect with other power relations such as class, ethnicity and age. A critical analysis and problematization of climate governance using feminist perspectives is not merely an academic exercise but essential to advance climate governance towards gender sensitivity, equality, inclusion and justice. This chapter outlines the main elements in three different feminist perspectives to illustrate how they are relevant for an analysis of climate governance. Using several empirical examples the chapter demonstrates what feminist insights imply for the prospects of engendering climate governance, regarding representation in policymaking, in scientific discourse on climate and in the local context regarding transport planning. First, it is necessary to determine what climate governance is. (Less)