Author Natasha Walter argues that the climate crisis is exacerbating threats to women, and calls on mainstream western feminists to connect the dots between environmental and gender justice. In her new book, Feminism for a World on Fire, she contends that women will suffer disproportionately from the effects of global heating, yet many feminist movements remain focused on individual advancement rather than systemic change.
Walter, whose 1998 book The New Feminism famously praised Margaret Thatcher for breaking barriers, now says she no longer believes it is possible to be both rightwing and a feminist. “I can’t support just any woman getting into power, because I think a system that leaves too many women in the shadows – that condemns too many women to poverty or worse – is not a feminist system,” she said. She admitted her younger self would have considered her too uncompromising, but added: “Maybe I’ve been radicalised.”
The book argues that environmentalism without feminism is “the patriarchy in the forest”, while feminism without environmentalism is “the women’s centre on a dead planet”. Walter said she began feeling real urgency about the climate crisis around 2017, following the IPCC’s warnings on 1.5°C warming and a personal tragedy – her mother’s suicide. “All the threats that women face seem to be amplified by climate change,” she said, citing studies showing women are more likely to die in climate disasters, such as the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, where many drowned because they had not been taught to swim.
