Sexism in the climate change activist movement has to end

This past Friday, the members of the Occidental Democrats — of which I am one — marched in Downtown LA as part of the city’s Climate Strike. It was 80 degrees, and we were covered in sweat in front of City Hall. As if that weren’t irritating enough, I looked around and realized that many of the signs the protesters around me carried, and those that were affixed to surrounding booths run by progressive climate change organizations, were sexist. 

“Recipe for cheese: rape bull or go vegan,” read a sign on an intrusive booth. The treatment of animals on factory farms is not only inhumane, but also environmentally unsustainable — and as such certainly demands our attention. But these signs trivialized rape to make that point. And that sign wasn’t the only one I saw that used the word “rape” out of context. It was disturbing in light of the fact that we were blocks away from USC, where 31% of female undergraduates were sexually assaulted sometime during their college years — a number higher than the national average. They held these signs in a country led by a president who has trivilized the word by saying things like “China is raping the U.S.,” for example. 

I tried to put these thoughts aside and focus on the strike, but as I marched, the signage became more pervasive. “Pro life for Earth,” read several signs — just days after the ACLU defended abortion rights in the Alabama courts last Tuesday. The apparent reclamation of pro-life rhetoric on behalf of the environment feels unfair to women currently fighting for their reproductive freedom. In California alone, there is a history of anti-abortion rights violence, including an attempted bombing in July 1987, and fires at abortion clinics leading up to the early 2000s. 

The use and abuse of pro-life and sexual assault-related rhetoric on behalf of climate activists is unfair to survivors, plain and simple. It is unfair to the #MeToo movement. It is unfair to the women who fought for ownership of their bodies in 1973 in Roe v. Wade. Each of these political protests set historical precedent and were significant. While it may not be intentional, when the language of the opponents of those movements is appropriated, the successes of those protests is diminished and disrespected. 

If we want to create true change for everybody, our activist movements must coexist; justice for women cannot exist without addressing global warming, and global warming cannot be adequately addressed without respecting the issues women face. Consider the fact that studies show women are more likely to be affected by climate change and that 80 percent of people displaced by climate change are women. Climate change, while it affects us all, affects the poorest and socially disenfranchised most severely. 

What’s more, this nation’s current administration seeks to invade the bodies of women, hindering our rights to justice and privacy. Every day, therefore, is already a march for survivors of rape and sexual assault. Every day is already a march for the women who have to fight for their reproductive freedom. I can only hope, therefore, that so-called progressive activists will not only cease using experiences of rape and sexual assault as political tools, but consider taking up the fight for those rights in addition to, and as a part of, their fight to combat climate change.