Media Matters defend Barbara Lee’s link between climate change and effects on women

California Rep. Barbara Lee turned heads when she dropped remarks that hinted at a link between global warming and women becoming prostitute or facing worse conditions than everyone else. No Media Matters is circling the wagons to defend the Democrat.

Earthworms haven’t gotten blamed for global warming, but now Rep. Barbara Lee says it would put women in even worse life circumstances

“[F]ood insecure women with limited socioeconomic resources may be vulnerable to situations such as sex work, transactional sex, and early marriage that put them at risk for HIV, STIs, unplanned pregnancy, and poor reproductive health,” Lee read from her statement on a recent resolution to address the disproportionate impacts that women will face from climate change.

“The harmful impacts of climate change on women, which Rep. Lee’s resolution hopes to address, are no laughing matter,” Media Matters says, taking aim at the Conservative attacks on Lee’s remarks.

Here’s the evidence listed:

Conservative news sites published scandalizing headlines such as Breitbart‘s “Congresswoman Claims Climate Change Will Turn Women Into Prostitutes,” WorldNetDaily‘s “Lefty Lawmaker Warns: Climate Change Makes Women Prostitutes,” Powerline‘s “Will Global Warming Cause Prostitution?” and Daily Caller‘s “Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA): Global Warming Will Turn Women Into Prostitutes For Food.” A blog post on the American Spectator wrote that climate change “is going to be great for dudes, who apparently don’t have to worry about any negative effects of the transactional sex they engage in as a result of the warming climate.” An editorial at Tennessee’s Kingsport Times-News quoted the movie Forrest Gump to attack the proposal, writing: “Forrest Gump said that ‘stupid is as stupid does.’ Witness Rep. Barbara Lee, Democrat of California … [who says] that global warming will force women into prostitution.” Fox News’ late night show Red Eye devoted several minutes to mocking the idea that climate change harms women more than men. And Rush Limbaugh asked on the March 27 edition of his show, “which came first, prostitution or climate?”

Here’s the “rebuttal” from Media Matters:

U.N. Climate Chief Christiana Figueres noted further in a CNN.com op-ed that “women often bear the brunt in places where the impacts of climate change are already being felt”:

Although climate change affects all people, women often bear the brunt in places where the impacts of climate change are already being felt. This is due to their central role in their families and communities.

For example, most of the world’s small-scale farmers are women, producing most of the food. This is especially true in developing countries where men often must leave their villages in search of work.

When the climate changes, women work harder and longer. As food, fuel and water become scarce, women have to walk farther to collect them. Long treks often put women at a greater risk of violence. All of this in regions where women are also the health care providers and caregivers in their families.