climate justice + gender equality: what’s the connection?
*This is an except from a feature article I’ve written about women, the environment, and the climate change/feminism intersection. Feel free to leave your two cents on my writing or any of the ideas/philosophies present. And, please reblog! Informing is the first step towards action.*
Patty O’Keefe wore an olive green rain jacket and a grey woolen scarf when I met her to talk about the environmental correlation. She’s one of those youth climate justice activists who, as Gaard said, “gets it.”
I met her at a coffee shop called Cupcake on University Ave. near the University of Minnesota, where she graduated in 2012 with a degree in Youth Studies. I asked out of curiosity what that exactly entailed, to which she replied with a laugh, “Everybody asks me that, and I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain it for years… basically just encouraging critical pedagogy, so getting students to question curriculum they see as oppressive in nature. It’s really not cool that students are still seen as voiceless.”
She was with a man whom she introduced as her ‘partner,’ rather than boyfriend, whose name was Steve; she’s very progressive like that. She interned through Higher Education Consortium for Urban Affairs (HECUA) with MN350, as they felt their youth presence was lacking. She worked on fossil fuel divestment campaigns - this is a big part of climate justice - throughout the Midwest, though specifically at the U of M. She said, “I absolutely loved what I was working on, felt like I was really helping to make a difference. I pleaded to the MN350 folks to help me make my position full time after graduating, and here I am.” Her official title is Divestment Coordinator.
Her ‘Our People’ bio on the MN350 site describes her hobbies as “learning about the intersections of social injustices and climate change, and identifying the barriers to building powerful movements addressing systemic oppressions.” Needless to say, she was the right person to talk to when exploring how women and the environment intersect.
After minutes of obligatory small talk, she told me she was about to be featured in the Minnesota Women’s Press in an article about the U of M divestment campaign. “I’m so excited to be getting the word out, finally… and learning how to do this whole interview thing a little better.”
O’Keefe has considered herself a feminist since around the same time she started considering herself an environmentalist- she took an extra semester of school to study the environment. When asked if she would identify as a feminist, and why, she replied, “Yes, absolutely yes. I think they’re kind of inseparable, you know? Inextricably linked… I think where I’m most interested is thinking about the similarities between how we treat the planet and how it’s correlated with how women on the planet are treated.”
Patty feels very strongly that women have a deep connection to the Earth, and are in a way more in tune with the cycles. “Women possess this ability because we can bring forth life,” she said, “we can really understand and consider future generations in a unique way, and are able to, through connecting with other women, establish that type of ethic and power together.”
Ecofeminism is the label she would align her beliefs with. “Women have systematically been taken advantage of throughout human history, just as the Earth has. I think there’s this theme of... extraction,” she said. “So, taking what we want, using what we want, without permission, without consent… um… and using in a way that’s super destructive and oppressive for women. I think if you take into consideration our culture or rape on women, you can easily see how the patriarchy sees both females and the Earth as disposable” she said, as she fiddled with her small copper coin-shaped earrings
She continued to speak about this deep ecofeminist philosophy. “I think historically, women have been the caregivers for the sacred, and for the whole, and the earth” she said. “I see feminism as a way for us to really consider how we can be using this ability as women to be able to talk about protection of our water, air, our resources, and planet as a whole for future generations in a different way than a man could. I see it as a protection of the spirit of our Earth.”
Her insights brought about a realization that the mainstream feminist movement hasn’t had: That everyone is apart of the earth. There has unfortunately been a deep disconnect between western culture and the Earth; the average westerner views themselves as somehow different from the plants, animals, biospheres, rather than a part of the whole biome. Just as I was thinking this, O’keefe spoke to this point.
“I think as a species, especially as Americans and Westerners, we’ve lost the ability to feel, adapt, and connect with the Earth and nature, our surroundings, and really, with each other as well” she said. “That’s part of it. Feminism has become too issue driven and politicized; it’s easy to think about feminism in issue specific channels, rather than thinking in a more holistic and connected way.”
Since the beginning of time, man has been taking from the earth, without giving much back. Especially with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, the over extraction, consumption, and rise of consumerism have been direct causes of our changing climate. Companies like Enbridge Energy, which O’keefe has been working to combat this year, is the epitome of such an entity. This has caused a deep disconnect between humans and the world we live in.
“Oil companies do not care about the rights of indigenous people, especially indigenous women, much at all” she said. She told me about the lack of care on the part of Enbridge to preserve the wild rice fields of Minnesota’s Ojibwe band of Mill Lacs.
“Enbridge has an oil pipeline through a wild rice crop in this beautiful wetland up North. Every inch is supposed to have a black enamel covering” she said. “Last fall, Andy and I were up north on our tour to stop the Sandpiper from going in. I went there and stood on that, the oil pipeline, and it was shocking to see how bad it was. It was rusty and bending, dented… If I took a hammer to it once, or if a moose stepped on it, it would have broken. And that’s really scary.”
Such an anecdote made me really consider what exactly the human species is doing to the land. Patty was the last person I’d talked to about this subject, and I had come to the conclusion that feminists are simply not concerned with environmental issues because we don’t have to deal with them on a daily basis, and probably will not for quite a long time. However, answering this question wasn’t enough. The real question I should have been asking was, “What are we going to do, as a species, to stop this from happening?”
