The problem, as a woman sees it:
There is something called “male domination” that is an underlying driver of the Climate Emergency.
We women are familiar with male domination. In the form of “sexism,” it undermines our confidence and our thinking. We run into it all the time, whenever men tell us what we should look like and what we should do with our bodies and our lives. Often it does not occur to men to ask for our opinion and input on important matters.
The key thing here is that men dominate each other, too. Male domination actually begins with little boys. Men and older boys tease and bully the small ones, and shame them when they get upset at being treated this way. It is also humiliating when a boy has to watch a friend being shamed.
A boy who doesn’t get to tell about his upset, to somebody who cares about him, has to bottle it up inside. He has to become really good at not feeling his own feelings.
(It breaks our hearts to see what this does to the grown men around us. And we get frustrated with you, because we don’t have the whole picture — most of us have never witnessed a little boy getting dominated.)
A boy with bottled-up memories of being dominated is susceptible to dominating. He will act out his domination memories on smaller boys and on girls. When he grows up, he will tend to dominate women and treat us with disrespect. To me, our society’s disregard for the Earth is an extension of male domination of women.
What would the world be like if women were safe? “Women spend pretty much every day wondering if they’re in a situation where they’re going to be raped. They have to think about it all the time.” (Marco Cochrane)
What if all that energy focused on our safety could be turned to making an economy that prevents climate change? Women are brilliant and creative, and currently a lot of that intelligence gets wasted on avoiding rape.
I want to make it very clear that male domination is not men’s fault. You are not to blame for its existence. You are not “bad.” Male domination is the result of how each of you was treated as a young boy.
However, it is men’s responsibility to work with other men, to end male domination and the related domination of Earth. We women can cheer you on, but you have to do the work yourselves, because it was you who got dominated as young boys.
There is a simple, though not easy, way that men can work together to end male domination.