Alicia Lopez R.
While Europeans endure one of the worst heatwaves, with temperatures exceeding 40°C and uncontrollable wildfires, many parts of Mexico are seeing unseasonably cool weather caused by torrential rains that broke a record of 252mm in Mexico City—where flash floods caught most residents off guard. Join me as we examine the tongue-in-cheek idea that men are to blame for these natural disasters.
No, of course not. What we’ll actually explore is how these disasters are linked to global warming and to a socioeconomic system built on exploitation—not just of natural resources, but of the most vulnerable populations: children, adolescents, Indigenous peoples, and women. This perspective isn’t new, but it wasn’t until the 1970s and 80s that feminist and environmental movements gave it a name: ecofeminism—which attributes the ecological crisis to extractivism, colonialism, and patriarchy.
According to this framework, capitalist leaders—mostly men—transformed nature into a “resource” to dominate, just as they historically objectified women, all while framing “progress” as a masculine, positive, and necessary value. Hence the revival of the term “Mother Nature,” not just as a wise and nurturing feminine figure, but as a symbolic counterpart to the masculine-coded drive for domination and expansion. These associations are cultural constructs: caregiving was assigned to women because capitalism benefitted from unpaid labor to sustain itself, using biology as a convenient justification. Ecofeminism doesn’t romanticize “Mother Nature,” but instead relentlessly questions the systems—designed largely by men—that profit from unchecked exploitation.
To say all men are to blame would be simplistic. Not every man is responsible, but the system many designed—and from which many still profit—is: 90% of oil company CEOs are men, and the governments that subsidize fossil fuels are overwhelmingly led by men. Just look at Donald Trump, who twice withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, rolled back environmental regulations, and prioritized fossil fuel interests under the guise of an “energy crisis”—knowing full well this would drive global temperatures far beyond historic norms.
For decades, scholars like Vandana Shiva, Maria Mies, and others have shown that environmental destruction is a form of gendered violence. Climate collapse isn’t democratic. When disasters or corporations devastate communities, it’s women and their children who stay to rebuild survival networks. When water is privatized, it’s poor women who pay the highest price. This became tragically clear during Hurricane Katrina, when 80% of those trapped in New Orleans were poor Black women. In Mexico, unregulated real estate development and sprawling urbanization have pushed families into precarious, flood-prone settlements. And when floods hit, it’s women who are left to deal with the aftermath, often without institutional support.
Governments activate emergency protocols that rarely consider gender. Ecofeminism calls for climate shelters that are accessible to all, water justice through community-based systems, universal basic income for caregivers, and cities designed with fewer cars and more green spaces. While world leaders debate CO₂ reductions in air-conditioned conference halls, millions of women are already working—quietly and collectively—to slow down the disaster.
But adaptation alone isn’t enough—what’s needed is transformation. Across the globe, grassroots projects are pointing the way forward: urban farming networks like Mans al verd in Barcelona, rainwater harvesting schools like Escuelas de Lluvia in Mexico, and women-run agricultural and tourism cooperatives across Central America and southern Mexico. These aren’t just solutions—they are blueprints for systems of care, resilience, and shared responsibility.
The climate crisis is political and patriarchal. Europe’s heatwaves and Mexico’s floods aren’t “bad luck”—they’re the consequences of a system that prioritizes profit over life. Ecofeminism reminds us that there can be no climate justice without gender justice, because when collapse hits, it’s women—especially poor, Indigenous, and young girls—who hold up the world.
A livable future must be a just one.
