As long as we live on Earth, all humans are bound to be affected by climate change. Among them, it is predicted that women will inevitably suffer much more adverse effects than men. The United Nations and the BBC both claim the same.
According to data released by the UK National Statistical Office, the proportion of women who do housework and care work without pay after the spread of COVID-19 was higher than that of men. Women carry full responsibility for the housework passed on to them while simultaneously living at the same time.
Professor Tahsin Zaffrey of the Climate Justice Center said climate change would have the same consequences. Professor Jaffrey, who warned, “If serious climate problems arise, it will be difficult to work at the same time,” said that it has already become a reality in countries experiencing climate change.
Photo by Rustic
Seventy percent of the 1.3 billion people on the planet in poverty are women. Most of them live as members of society who have to rely on natural resources for a living. In fact, the proportion of women in charge of production in the global agricultural market is 50-80%, but less than 10% of them are owned by women.
This means that while working in agriculture and making a living, women are excluded from the decision-making process within the community. This leads to women not being able to respond immediately to climate change.
In the event of natural disasters such as droughts and floods, women work harder for their families and the harder they work in fields and farms, the farther away their educational opportunities are. The opportunity to earn higher wages through education and training also naturally flies. In fact, in the 2000s, the literacy rate of women in Africa was 55%, 14% higher than that of men, which even reduced women’s access to information and decision-making.
In fact, Malawi’s gender and climate expert Chime Delobu told the BBC that most women are in charge of agriculture to feed their families, but there are no cases of receiving salaries. In addition, women who don’t earn money can become victims of domestic violence by men.
Many women also have difficulty obtaining information that can solve these problems. “During the negotiations (to solve the problem), all men sit at their desks and hold meetings, but women just stand behind and watch how it goes,” Delobu said, pointing out that the passage to represent women is blocked because there are no high-ranking women.
