By ARPITA PRIYADARSHINI MISHRA
INTRODUCTION:-
In most climate change discussions, we talk about melting glaciers, rising temperatures, and extreme weather. But we rarely talk about the people who experience these changes every single day, especially women. For millions of women in India, climate change is not a future threat. It is already part of their daily routine, silently shaping their health, work, and dignity.
Women do not just face climate change as victims. They face it as caregivers, workers, farmers, mothers, and survival managers. When water dries up, it is women who walk longer distances. When crops fail, it is women who manage food shortages. When disasters strike, it is women who hold families together while losing their own sense of security.
Climate change may be global, but its burden is deeply unequal.
CLIMATE CHANGE BEGINS AT HOME FOR WOMEN:-
In rural India, women are responsible for most household resources - water, food, fuel, and health. As climate patterns become unstable, these basic tasks become harder.
In drought-prone regions of Rajasthan, Bundelkhand, and parts of Maharashtra, women now walk several kilometres every day just to fetch water. What used to take 30 minutes now takes two to three hours. This time loss directly affects their health, education, and income opportunities.
A report by The Hindu highlighted how in many villages, girls drop out of school during drought seasons because they are needed to collect water and manage household stress. Climate change, in this way, quietly steals not just resources but futures.
FARMING WOMEN, FAILING CLIMATE:-
Nearly 70% of women in rural India are engaged in agriculture in some form, either as farmers, farm labourers, or unpaid workers on family land. Yet most climate policies ignore their role completely.
Unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, and soil degradation hit women farmers the hardest. Unlike men, women often do not own land, have access to credit, or control agricultural decisions. When crops fail, they face hunger first and last.
In Telangana and Vidarbha, where farmer distress is severe, many women have taken up multiple informal jobs after crop losses, working as domestic workers, construction helpers, or seasonal migrants. Their workload doubles, but their recognition remains zero.
As reported by the Indian Express, climate change has increased the number of women-headed households in farming communities, especially where male farmers have migrated or died by suicide due to debt.
CLIMATE DISASTERS AND INVISIBLE TRAUMA:-
When floods, cyclones, or heatwaves strike, women suffer differently.
During the Kerala floods, relief camps lacked basic privacy, sanitation, and menstrual facilities. Women reported discomfort, infections, and humiliation, but these issues were barely covered in mainstream disaster reporting.
In Assam floods, women often avoid relief camps altogether due to safety concerns, staying in unsafe homes instead. This exposes them to higher health risks but gives them a sense of control over their dignity.
Disaster management systems are built around infrastructure, roads, power, and rescue teams. But they rarely consider emotional labour, unpaid caregiving, or gender safety. Women carry invisible trauma long after the floodwaters disappear.
HEAT, HEALTH, AND UNPAID LABOUR:-
Rising temperatures directly affect women’s physical health. Construction workers, street vendors, domestic workers, and sanitation staff, most of whom are women, work long hours under extreme heat with little protection.
Heatwaves increase risks of dehydration, miscarriage, fatigue, and chronic illness. But most women cannot afford to rest. If they don’t work, families don’t eat.
A study quoted by The Hindu showed that women lose more working hours than men during extreme heat because their labour is considered flexible and replaceable. This leads to income loss, food insecurity, and emotional stress.
Climate change, therefore, does not just warm the planet; it drains women’s bodies.
CLIMATE AND GENDER: A SILENT INEQUALITY -
One of the biggest problems is that women are rarely included in climate decision-making. Village councils, disaster committees, and environmental policy bodies are mostly male-dominated.
Women know exactly how climate change affects daily life, water quality, food shortages, disease patterns, and migration stress. But their voices are not heard.
The United Nations has repeatedly pointed out that women are among the most vulnerable groups to climate change, yet remain underrepresented in climate governance.
In India, climate adaptation plans rarely include women-specific strategies. This makes women frontline workers without frontline rights.
REAL STORIES FROM THE GROUND:-
In the Sundarbans, women have lost farmland due to rising sea levels. Many now work as informal labourers in cities like Kolkata, leaving children behind. Migration separates families, increases emotional stress, and exposes women to unsafe work environments.
In Marathwada, women farmers describe how irregular rainfall has destroyed kitchen gardens once their main source of nutrition. Now families depend on market food that they cannot afford regularly.
In urban slums of Delhi and Mumbai, women living near landfills face respiratory problems due to pollution and heat. They cannot move because rent is cheaper, but health costs rise every year.
These stories rarely make headlines. They are not dramatic disasters, just slow suffering.
WHY WOMEN ARE MORE VULNERABLE:-
Women face climate change more deeply because:
They handle unpaid labour (water, food, caregiving)
They have less access to education and resources
They lack property ownership
They have limited political representation
Their health needs are ignored.
Climate change multiplies existing inequalities. It does not create new problems; it makes old ones worse.
WOMEN ARE ALSO THE SOLUTION:-
Despite the burden, women are also leading local climate solutions.
Across India, women’s self-help groups manage water conservation, seed banks, and waste recycling. Tribal women protect forests and biodiversity through traditional knowledge.
In Odisha, women-led disaster preparedness groups saved hundreds of lives during cyclones by early warning and evacuation.
Women are not just victims of climate change; they are agents of resilience.
But their contributions remain underfunded, underreported, and undervalued.
CONCLUSION :
Climate change is not just about rising temperatures or carbon emissions. It is about whose lives become harder and whose voices are ignored.
For Indian women, the climate crisis means longer walks, heavier workloads, fragile health, unsafe spaces, and shrinking opportunities. It is a slow erosion of dignity disguised as environmental change.
If climate policies continue without women’s participation, they will fail not because women are weak, but because solutions built without real experiences are incomplete.
Women do not need sympathy. They need visibility, resources, and power in decision-making.
Because a climate solution that does not protect women is not a solution, it is another form of injustice.
REFERENCES:-
The Hindu – Reports on climate, gender and rural distress
Indian Express – Women farmers and climate vulnerability
United Nations (UN Women) – Gender and Climate Change reports
World Health Organisation – Heat stress and women’s health
Down To Earth Magazine – Climate impacts on Indian women
Wikipedia – Gender and climate change (background)
Oxfam India – Climate inequality studies
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