Barbara Lee follows Hillary Clinton on ‘sexist’ climate change with ‘Women And Climate Change Act’
Yesterday, Congresswoman Barbara Lee introduced the Women and Climate Change Act of 2018, H.R. 4932, to develop coordinated strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on women and girls around the world. The bill has nineteen original cosponsors. Joining Hillary Clinton on the “Sexist” nature of the weather was the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood, who endorsed the bill.
photo/ Darwin Laganzon
“Climate change is already impacting communities around the world, with a disproportionate effect on the world’s poorest residents. Women make up the majority of the world’s poor and are especially vulnerable to abrupt changes in the environment. As leaders in their families, women are called upon to find food and clean water, secure safe housing, and care for loved ones,” said Congresswoman Barbara Lee. “As climate change worsens, provoking historic droughts, rising sea levels and violent storms, women and girls will bear the brunt of this global crisis. My legislation, the Women and Climate Change Act, encourages approaches to climate change mitigation that uplift, include and empower women.”
The California rep may be following the lead of the former Democratic candidate, Hillary Clinton, who told a group of college students at Georgetown University, as part of a panel on “Women & Human Rights,” that weather, typically an objective force that impacts populations equally regardless of their innate characteristics, was, in fact, sexist.
“I would say that particularly for women, you’re absolutely right, they will bear the brunt of looking for the food, looking for the firewood, looking for the place to migrate to when all of the grass is finally gone as the desertification moves south and you have to keep moving your livestock for your crops are no longer growing, they’re burning up in the intense heat that we’re now seeing reported across North Africa, into the Middle East, and into India,” she said.
“So yes,” Clinton continued, “women once again, will be the primary…primarily burdened with the problems of climate change.”
“While women play an integral role in their families and communities, all too often they are excluded from key policy decisions,” added Congresswoman Lee. “If we want to effectively alleviate climate change and develop sustainability initiatives, we need women leaders at the table. My legislation takes an intersectional approach to the climate crisis and affirms the role of women in the effort to save our planet.”
The bill was endorsed by the Sierra Club and Planned Parenthood. The full text of the legislation is available here.
