Article Review: Gender Climate Change: A Feminist Criminological Perspective
Executive Summary
The article “Gendering Climate Change: A Feminist Criminological Perspective” by Wonders and Danner (2015) represents the study on the dialectical relationship that exists between socially constructed gender and climate change. Within their study, the scholars examine several issues to support their idea and explain logically the importance of the problem under consideration and the usefulness of feminist criminological perspective for analysis of climate change issues.
First of all, they provide the results of the review of the current criminological literature, stating that feminist perspective has been largely ignored in most criminology literature covering the issues of climate change and explaining the importance of gender in the context of the problem under consideration. Secondly, taking into consideration the fact that decisions of some men represented by masculinities have led to the climate change, as well as the fact that they have greater access to political decision-making and power, authors make research on scholars’ studies about masculinities and climate change. In this regard, authors refer to a number of feminist scholars arguing that women and gender are being ignored in numerous research due to the fact that men dominate almost in all spheres such as government, science, business that are related to climate politics. Further authors logically move to the question of femininities and climate change (Wonders and Danner 2015).
Talking about this question, authors highlight the fact that according to different research findings, women are likely to be considered as vulnerable or victims, which poses a risk of stereotyping them and ignoring the fact that they can be not only victims but active political subjects. Wonders and Danner (2015) point to the facts that women are getting extremely vulnerable in the society because of the consequences of climate change such as floods or droughts, emphasizing the fact that natural disasters are always social disasters. In other words, they point out that social gender construction is a process that produces masculinities bringing harm and femininities that are considered vulnerable within the context of climate change (Wonders and Danner 2015).
One of the research questions is the history of feminist activism on issues of gender and climate change. Wonders and Danner (2015) pay attention to women’s participation in the decision-making about policies in the context of the climate change and environmental problems, touching upon both women's success and failure. Moreover, these question can be considered as the foundation that allows making a smooth shift to the feminist criminological interventions question, which in fact reflects the aim of the article, encouraging feminist criminologist to challenge the legitimacy of the legal framework that sets the boundaries for criminological research on climate change issues. Authors suggest that a tendency seen in the literature on climate change is to focus on individual level decisions and solutions to mitigate the climate change, which makes it clear that women's role is great in altering climate change as they can become a "better household managers" mitigating climate change consequences. Moreover, they talk about the importance to move from "crises" concept to "human security" concept, which allows taking personally as political and make change according to the feminist approach (Wonders and Danner 2015).
Finally, Wonders and Danner (2015) conclude that feminist criminological approach plays an important role in the movement for social change.
Introduction
One of the most discussable problems today is climate change. This problem has already affected lives of millions of people through frequent natural disasters like hurricanes, floods, heat waves, etc. However, the consequences of climate change are not limited only to natural disasters and its destroying force, as it also exacerbates different inequalities that we face today globally, including gender inequalities.
Article Review: Structure and Contribution
In this regard, Wonders and Danner (2015), authors of the article “Gendering Climate Change: A Feminist Criminological Perspective” suggest that the climate change issues can be examined through a feminist criminological perspective, which will allow to "think critically" about the above-mentioned issues.
Authors support their idea with research findings of different scholars in the area of feminist criminological and social science that help them “sharpen critical criminological analysis of the etiology of climate change, the nature of the harm the climate change can cause, and how criminologists might best respond”. Thus, they consider “dialectical relationship” between the issue of climate change and the process of gender construction in the society, paying attention to how gender inequalities within the context of capitalism, especially in its “Neoliberal incarnation”, contributed to global warming and appearance of gendered unequal impacts and vulnerabilities (Wonders and Danner 2015).
The article is based on a profound research of numerous studies and aims at encouraging criminologist to consider the issues of climate change as one of the topics of criminological concern and to further focus on more research and educational aspect of climate change issue with the given professional field and at the same time to focus on power and global inequalities issues that global warming’s mechanics depend on (Wonders and Danner 2015).
As for methodology utilized by the authors, it should be said that they stick to the qualitative approach having analyzed 65 different sources and picked out the most significant and vital findings of different scholars to provide a comprehensive view of the problem and introduce proposed interventions based on the findings. Therefore, key methods used by the authors are analysis and criticism of scholars’ studies.
Argument
Moving to the analysis of the argument in the article, it should be said that clearly stated hypothesis that a feminist criminological perspective is vital for the right understanding both harmful consequences of climate change and its etiology is supported throughout the whole article via the findings represented within the above-mentioned questions. The evidence seems to be credible and reliable, as authors have made a profound analysis of 65 sources and compiled the review of the most important statements and findings, including statistics of scholars in the relevant sphere. For example, the share of women's death during the natural disasters confirming the vulnerability of women in the context of climate change (Wonders and Danner 2015).
The central argument of the article is that a feminist criminological approach to the analysis of climate change issues is extremely vital and should be applied accordingly. Moreover, authors conclude that gender being a socially constructed phenomenon and natural disaster being a social disaster shouldn't be excluded from the criminological literature on climate change. The above-mentioned arguments and conclusions are clearly formulated and supported by both statistical data and findings of different scholars, which gives to the article credibility and enhances the effectiveness of the text. It is very useful that authors clearly define the terms they operate with (gender and climate change) from the social perspective, which makes it easier to perceive their conclusions and findings and follow their thoughts throughout the article. In general, the article represents an alternative view on the problem of climate change giving the idea that women are not simply vulnerable to climate change and can be treated as victims but can be social actor mitigating the climate change consequences (Wonders and Danner 2015).
Writing Style and Structure
Taking into consideration the fact that the authors consider themselves as “feminist criminologists” it may be said that the text can be emotional and contain bias, which may be seen in the usage of emotional words like “we urge caution”, “the effort to develophas largely been a failure”, “criminological researchmust focus”, "we believe that a feminist perspective suggests the need to take a more proactive role", etc. However, it doesn't make the article less important and author's findings and proposed interventions less valuable, as the text has reached its aim and will be useful for its target audience represented by criminologist scholars, teachers, and students (Wonders and Danner 2015).
Conclusion
The article can be considered as a profound and detailed research of the problem, which may be used by scholars as one of the sources for their research or as foundation for creating specialized literature, in particular, criminological literature on climate change, as well as by teachers developing an issues-related course for students or by students themselves when preparing this or that paper.
Works Cited
Wonders, Nancy A. and Mona J.E. Danner. 2015. “Gendering Climate Change: A Feminist Criminological Perspective”. Crit Crim 23:401-416. doi: 10.1007/s10612-015-9290-7
