Women are more aggressively affected by climate change than men, according to U.N. Environment. They estimate that 80% of the people displaced by climate change are women. As a result of enviromental disasters, women are far more vulnerable to physical and sexual violence while in emergency shelters or refugee camps.
A 15-year-old who serves as a national delegate for the National Movement of Organized Working Children and Adolescents of Peru spoke with the U.N. about how the climate crisis has affected her family of farmers.
“Due to climate change, frost and other drastic changes in temperature occur, causing women and girls to work harder to obtain an income and resources for their families,” she said.
Those experiences create a unique voice that holds significant merit in conversations about environmental issues. Like many professional fields, environmental studies is male-dominated, but women are increasingly becoming more prominent in research, even at SUU.
Aspen Manning is an assistant professor at Southern Utah University who has taught many classes in environmental studies and sciences in the past two years she has worked at the school. Her primary research focus is rivers and riparian landscapes.
Although Manning is a fresh face in the university, she has noticed development in her students’ attitudes toward climate change.
“I have actually seen a big change from when I started teaching in 2020 as a graduate student to now in how students are much more aware of climate change, much more educated about it and much more concerned about it,” Manning noted.
Not only has the status of climate change developed over the past few years, but so has women’s involvement in the matter.
“I’ve noticed that half of my students are women, so I think that in the future more women are going to become leaders and even are [leaders] today,” said Manning.
Manning noted that, although she is the only woman in the department, she has been met with an incredible amount of respect and acceptance from colleagues and students alike.
“One of our goals for the department and the university as a whole is to increase diversity and opportunities for people who have been left out of science in the past,” Manning mentioned. “I see my role here as being around so the students in the department can see that there are women doing this kind of research.”
There are many women today who do exactly that. Manning listed some women that she looks up to, including Ellen Wohl, a professor at Colorado State University who is well respected among river researchers. She also brought up Lindsay Reynolds and Julia Reynolds, who study ephemeral streams, rivers that only appear after irregular levels of rainfall.
Women everywhere are working to bring awareness to climate and environmental issues. Inger Anderson, the under-secretary-general of the U.N. and executive director of the U.N. Environment program, is a prominent climate change activist. She has spent 30 years leading projects regarding sustainability and trying to solve water issues in desert environments like the Middle East and North Africa.
Casey Camp-Horinek is a Ponca Nation leader and an Indigenous environmental network representative. Aside from being an accredited author and actress, she is a longtime environmental activist. Because of her work, the Ponca Nation is the first tribe in Oklahoma to prohibit fracking — a method of extracting natural gas and oil — on tribal lands.
While women’s history month is coming to a close, it is important to note that, although the hardships faced by women across the globe are ever-present, the influence women have on the world is only just beginning. Change does not just stem from established leaders but also from the young women sitting in an environmental studies classroom at SUU, like Manning’s.
For more information, students can learn more about SUU degree programs in environmental studies and women and gender studies.
Author: Heather Turner
Photo courtesy of SUU
Editor: Lily Brunson
outdoors@suunews.net
