Women are the answer to the climate crisis - but not because they should add to their workload by fixing it for us. Instead, we need gender equality. The highest-profile climate activists today are women and girls, but it's a very different story at the top table: the future of the planet is being decided by men.
Here's a perverse truth: dominant masculinist assumptions helped produce the climate emergency, and yet it affects women particularly. Across the Pacific, domestic abuse spikes after bushfires and cyclones. In the global south, climate breakdown forces girls to drop out of school. In Northern Europe, many of those killed by heatwaves have been elderly women. And, from New Orleans to Bangladesh, the lives of poor women of colour are being profoundly re-shaped by a crisis they did nothing to create.
This vital book shows that we're not all in it together - but we could be. Drawing on feminist research and innovative climate policies introduced by women, Anne Karpf interviews female activists around the world about how they're fighting back. Faced with the most urgent catastrophe of our times, Karpf offers a powerful, fresh vision: a Green New Deal for Women.
About the Author
Anne Karpf is a sociologist and award-winning journalist, contributing regularly to 'The Guardian' and other publications. Her books include 'How to Age', translated into ten languages, and acclaimed family memoir 'The War After: Living with the Holocaust'. She is Professor of Life Writing and Culture at London Metropolitan University.
Industry Reviews
'Inspiring [...] Karpf writes with a strong and invigorating moral purpose - and also warmth. She is not interested in exploring what women can and should do about the climate crisis, but rather seeks to draw attention to how the politics of gender is intermingled with it.' -- The Guardian
'Karpf's rousing call for a coalition of hopers, initiators and enablers, united to create a healthy planet with climate, racial and gender justice at its heart, is one we must not only listen to, but act on. Fast!' -- Caroline Lucas MP
'Eye-opening, overtly polemical, admirably angry. Often staggering, and ultimately unputdownable.' -- Danny Dorling, University of Oxford, author of 'Peak Inequality'
'A book for women who want to change the world. Karpf writes with engaging warmth and conviction about the many conflicts faced by women from both the Global North and South.' -- Ann Pettifor, author of 'The Case for the Green New Deal'
'This book makes an important point. Women have long been at the absolute forefront of the climate movement, and they need to be equally well represented in climate policymaking. Climate feminism is a crucial force for the future.' -- Bill McKibben, author of 'The End of Nature' and founder of 350.org