Environment

A Feminist Perspective on Carbon Taxes

Citation:

Chalifour, Nathalie J. 2010. “A Feminist Perspective on Carbon Taxes.” Canadian Journal of Women and the Law 22 (1): 169–212.

Author: Nathalie J. Chalifour

Abstract:

FRENCH ABSTRACT:
Il y a un besoin urgent d'adopter des politiques canadiennes efficaces pour contrer le changement climatique. On consacre beaucoup d'énergie au choix et à la conception d'instruments de politique optimale et les questions d'efficacité environnementale et d'efficience économique dominent le débat. Il est néanmoins tout aussi important d'analyser comment ces politiques vont agir sur différents segments de la société et de s'assurer qu'elles soient conçues de manière juste afin de ne pas aggraver les inégalités systémiques. Le présent article traite de cette question de justice sociale en examinant les taxes sur le carbone d'une perspective féministe, plus particulièrement en analysant comment les taxes sur le carbone produisent des conséquences pour les femmes. L'article propose une analyse de genres dans le cadre des taxes environnementales, qui va au-delà de l'évaluation des impacts distributionnels pour tenir compte aussi des impacts qui ne touchent pas le revenu, des implications de l'allègement connexe et des politiques concernant l'utilisation des revenus aussi bien que le résultat de la mise en oeuvre de ces taxes. L'application de ce cadre d'analyse à la taxe sur le carbone en Colombie-Britannique ainsi qu'à la redevance annuelle prélevée par le Québec révèle que les femmes vont vraisemblablement souffrir de façon disproportionnée des augmentations de coûts créées par les taxes sur le carbone. L'analyse démontre également que les politiques destinées à mitiger l'impact des taxes sur le carbone pour les familles à faible revenu ne tiennent pas compte des disparités de revenus entre les femmes et les hommes, ni du statut socio-économique des femmes. En conclusion, l'auteure recommande d'adopter des politiques concernant le coût du carbone qui évitent de perpétuer les inégalités systémiques actuelles entre les femmes et les hommes et qui pourraient même aider à corriger ces inégalités.
 
ENGLISH ABSTRACT:
Effective domestic policies are urgently needed to address climate change. A great deal of energy is devoted to selecting and designing the optimal policy instruments, with questions of environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency dominating the debate. However, it is equally important to consider how those policies will impact upon different segments of society and to ensure that they are designed in a way that is fair and does not further entrench systemic inequalities. This article approaches this social justice issue by examining carbon taxes from a feminist perspective, specifically considering how carbon taxes impact upon women. The article proposes the gender analysis of environmental taxes framework, which goes beyond the evaluation of distributional impacts to consider non-income impacts, implications of related mitigation, and revenue-use policies as well as the outcome of the measure. Applying the framework to British Columbia's carbon tax and Québec’s redevance annuelle reveals that women may bear a disproportionate burden of the increased prices created by carbon taxes. The article also demonstrates that policies designed to mitigate the impact of carbon taxes on low-income households do not address income disparities between women and men, nor do they take into account the socio-economic status of women. The author concludes with recommendations for developing carbon pricing policies that avoid perpetuating existing systemic inequalities between women and men and that might even help to overcome these inequalities.

Topics: Economies, Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Gender, Gender Analysis, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equality/Inequality, Infrastructure, Energy, Justice Regions: Americas, North America Countries: Canada

Year: 2010

Renewable Inequity? Women’s Employment in Clean Energy in Industrialized, Emerging and Developing Economies

Citation:

Baruah, Bipasha. 2017. “Renewable Inequity? Women’s Employment in Clean Energy in Industrialized, Emerging and Developing Economies.” Natural Resources Forum 41 (1): 18–29.

Author: Bipasha Baruah

Abstract:

Women are globally underrepresented in the energy industry. This paper reviews existing academic and practitioner literature on women's employment in renewable energy in industrialized nations, emerging economies and developing countries. It highlights similarities and differences in occupational patterns in women's employment in renewables in different parts of the world, and makes recommendations for optimizing women's participation. Findings reveal the need for broader socially-progressive policies and shifts in societal attitudes about gender roles, in order for women to benefit optimally from employment in renewables. In some industrialized countries, restructuring paid employment in innovative ways while unlinking social protection from employment status has been suggested as a way to balance gender equity with economic security and environmental protection. However, without more transformative social changes in gender relations, such strategies may simply reinforce rather than subvert existing gender inequities both in paid employment and in unpaid domestic labor. Grounded interventions to promote gender equality in renewable energy employment – especially within the context of increasing access to energy services for underserved communities – are more prevalent and better-established in some non-OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries. OECD countries might be well-advised to try to implement certain programs and policies that are already in place in some emerging economies.

Keywords: women, employment and labor, renewable energy, OECD countries, Emerging economies, developing countries

Topics: Economies, Environment, Gender, Gender Roles, Gendered Power Relations, Gender Equity, Infrastructure, Energy, International Organizations, Livelihoods

Year: 2017

Climate Change, Energy-Related Activities and the Likely Social Impacts on Women in Africa

Citation:

Annecke, Wendy. 2002. “Climate Change, Energy-Related Activities and the Likely Social Impacts on Women in Africa.” International Journal of Global Environmental Issues 2 (3–4): 207–22.

Author: Wendy Annecke

Abstract:

This paper attempts to draw the links between climate change, energy-use, gender relations and the subsequent impacts on the every-day lives of poor women in Africa. The approach is one of broad-brush strokes in an attempt to provide an overview of the breadth and complexity of factors to consider in such an analysis. It is anticipated that climate change will result in aridification, decreased runoff, increased air temperatures and increased extreme weather conditions such as floods, droughts and high winds. Water resources, agriculture, human health, forestry, rangelands, biodiversity, fishing, forestry and tourism are all sectors that women are engaged in and that will be affected. Gender, the socially constructed relationships between men and women, plays a part in vulnerability. The paper highlights the difference in energy use in developed and developing countries and between men and women and goes on to explore the impact of energy use on climate change. The most vulnerable energy sub-sector is biomass fuels, which are used by the largest and most vulnerable category of consumers - poor women. The paper examines women's susceptibility to changes in the sectors mentioned and concludes with some recommendations on preparations which should be made towards sustainability. (Abstract from original source)

Keywords: climate change, energy, women and gender, sustainable development

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Climate Change, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Infrastructure, Energy, Water & Sanitation Regions: Africa

Year: 2002

Gendered Fields : Rural Women, Agriculture, And Environment

Citation:

Sachs, Carolyn E. 2019. Gendered Fields : Rural Women, Agriculture, and Environment. New York: Routledge. 

Author: Carolyn E. Sachs

Abstract:

This book aims to expand feminist theory to include the study of rural women, while recognizing that many rural women no longer depend exclusively on agriculture or the land for their livelihoods. It emphasizes the depth and value of women's knowledge with the natural environment. (Abstract from Tayor & Francis Group) 

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
  1. Situating Rural Women in Theory and Practice
  2. Feminist Theory and Rural Women
  3. Rural Women and Nature
  4. Rural Women’s Connections to the Land
  5. Women’s Work with Plants
  6. Women’s Work with Animals
  7. Women on Family Farms: Reappraisal
  8. Global Restructuring, Local Outcomes, and the Reshaping of Rural Women’s Work
  9. Conclusion

Topics: Agriculture, Environment, Feminisms, Gender, Women, Livelihoods

Year: 2018

Pioneers of U.S. Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice

Citation:

Mann, Susan A. 2011. “Pioneers of U.S. Ecofeminism and Environmental Justice.” Feminist Formations 23 (2): 1–25.

Author: Susan A. Mann

Abstract:

From the late-nineteenth through the early decades of the twentieth century, women in the United States played important roles in the conservation and preservation of wildlife, as well as in environmental activism that fostered clean air, water, and food in our nation’s urban centers. This article examines the contributions of women of different classes and races to these environmental struggles. It not only synthesizes the findings of previous environmental histories, but also focuses more attention on the ways environmental contamination affected the lives of women of color and their struggles against environmental racism. In this way, an environmental justice lens is used to excavate and reclaim the history of our ecofeminist predecessors to better ensure that the visions and voices of marginalized peoples do not remain hidden from history.

Keywords: ecofeminism, environmental history, environmental justice

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Women, Justice

Year: 2011

The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism

Citation:

Warren, Karen J. 1990. “The Power and the Promise of Ecological Feminism.” Environmental Ethics 12 (2): 125–46.

Author: Karen J. Warren

Annotation:

Summary:
Ecological feminism is the position that there are important connections-historical, symbolic, theoretical-between the domination of women and the domination of nonhuman nature. I argue that because the conceptual connections between the dual dominations of women and nature are located in an oppressive patriarchal conceptual framework characterized by a logic of domination, (1) the logic of traditional feminism requires the expansion of feminism to include ecological feminism and (2) ecological feminism provides a framework for developing a distinctively feminist environmental ethic. I conclude that any feminist theory and any environmental ethic which fails to take seriously the interconnected dominations of women and nature is simply inadequate.

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Women, Gendered Power Relations, Patriarchy

Year: 1990

States and Markets: An Ecofeminist Perspective on International Political Economy

Citation:

Tickner, J. Ann. 1993. “States and Markets: An Ecofeminist Perspective on International Political Economy.” International Political Science Review / Revue Internationale de Science Politique 14 (1): 59–69.

Author: J. Ann Tickner

Abstract:

This article examines the way in which the interaction between states and markets since the seventeenth century has depended on the exploitation of nature. The accumulation of wealth and power by the early modern state depended on the enlightenment ideology that saw nature as a resource to be exploited for human progress. An expansionary Eurocentric state system imposed this ideology on other cultures through imperialism and the globalization of capitalism. Feminists believe that this attitude toward nature has also been associated with the exploitation of women and other cultures. While environmentalists look to international regulation to solve ecological problems caused by the development of the international system, feminists and social ecologists claim that not until all these forms of exploitation are ended can an ecologically secure future be achieved.

Topics: Economies, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Globalization, Political Economies

Year: 1993

Land Tenure Dynamics in East Africa : Changing Practices and Rights to Land

Citation:

Otto, Opira, Aida Isinika, and Herman Musahara. 2019. Land Tenure Dynamics in East Africa : Changing Practices and Rights to Land. Current African Issues 65.

Authors: Opira Otto, Aida Isinika, Herman Musahara

Abstract:

Agriculture remains the main source of livelihood for most rural people in East Africa. Farming is dominated by smallholders, of whom the majority are women. Their tenure and access to land is important for reducing rural poverty, enhancing food security and stimulating agricultural development. Secure tenure represents one of the most critical challenges to the development of sustainable agriculture in the region. In an effort to understand the land question and its variation across the region, this book analyses the land reforms, their context and dynamics. The book presents recent studies on the dynamics of land tenure and land tenure reforms in East Africa with a focus on Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda. By selecting these five countries, the book is able to show the changing practices and variations in the land tenure dynamics and explain how they relate to historical and more contemporary issues. The chapters are written by researchers, policy makers and activists with a diverse background and experience/expertise in relation to the land question. Their contributions offer a multiperspective basis for critical rethinking and reflection on the future of the land question in East Africa. 

Keywords: land tenure, land ownership, land acquisition, farmers, women's rights, agricultural development, urbanization, East Africa

Annotation:

Table of Contents:
Preface

Kjell Havnevik
 
1. Introduction

Opira Otto
 
2. When customary land tenure meets land markets : Sustainability of customary land tenure in Tanzania

Aida C. Isinika, Yefred Myenzi and Elibariki Msuya
 
3. Securing peasants’ land rights through dispossession of the landed rich in Uganda

Fredrick Kisekka-Ntale
 
4. Land matters in South Sudan

Ole Frahm
 
5. Effects of large-scale land acquisitions by local elites on small-holder farmers’ access in Tanzania

Hosea Mpogol
 
6. From male to joint land ownership: The effect on women’s possibilities of using land titles as collateral in Rwanda

Jeannette Bayisenge
 
7. The benefits for women from land commodification – a critical reflection

Mary Ssonko Nabacwa
 
8. Is agriculture a generational problem?: The dynamics of youth engagement in agriculture in northern Uganda

David Ross Olanya
 
9. Legal pluralism and urban poverty in peri-urban Kisumu, Kenya

Leah Onyango
 
10. Crossroads at the Rural–Urban Interface : The Dilemma of Tenure Types and Land Use Controls in Housing provision and Urban Development in Kenyan Cities

Jack Abuya
 
11. Our Inheritance: Impacts of Land Distribution on Geita Communities in Tanzania

Godfrey T. Walalaze
 
12. Land use consolidation and water use in Rwanda: Qualitative reflections on environmental sustainability and inclusion

Theophile Niyonzima, Birasa Nyamulinda, Claude Bizimana and Herman Musahara
 

Topics: Agriculture, Economies, Poverty, Environment, Gender, Women, Land Tenure, Livelihoods, Rights, Land Rights, Women's Rights Regions: Africa, Central Africa, East Africa Countries: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda

Year: 2019

The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy

Citation:

Sandilands, Catriona. 1999. The Good-Natured Feminist: Ecofeminism and the Quest for Democracy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.

Author: Catriona Sandilands

Annotation:

Summary:
Heroic mothers defending home and hearth against a nature deformed by multinationalist corporate practice: this may be a compelling story, but it is not necessarily the source of valid feminist or ecological critique. What’s missing is the democratic element, an insistence on bringing to public debate all the relations of gender and nature that such a view takes for granted. This book aims to situate a commitment to theory and politics—that is, to democratic practice—at the center of ecofeminism and, thus, to move toward an ecofeminism that is truly both feminist and ecological.

The Good-Natured Feminist inaugurates a sustained conversation between ecofeminism and recent writings in feminist postmodernism and radical democracy. Starting with the assumption that ecofeminism is a body of democratic theory, the book tells how the movement originated in debates about “nature” in North American radical feminisms, how it then became entangled with identity politics, and how it now seeks to include nature in democratic conversation and, especially, to politicize relations between gender and nature in both theoretical and activist milieus. (Summary from University of Minnesota Press)

Topics: Democracy / Democratization, Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender

Year: 1999

Eco-Feminism: Lessons for Feminism from Ecology

Citation:

Rosser, Sue V. 1991. “Eco-Feminism: Lessons for Feminism from Ecology.” Women’s Studies International Forum 14 (3): 143–51.

Author: Sue V. Rosser

Abstract:

For almost two decades feminists have successfully used the lens of gender to critique the extent to which androcentric bias has distorted the theory and practice of science. More recently ecofeminists have extended this critique to ecology, recognizing male domination and exploitation of both women and the environment. In this paper I pose the question in the other direction, to explore what the science of ecology in its theories, methods, and practice might contribute to the critique of feminism. In their fusion as ecofiminism both theories can intertwine and complement to form a strong framework for praxis.

Topics: Environment, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Feminist Political Ecology, Gender, Gendered Power Relations

Year: 1991

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