The Sexual Politics of Climate

“Manhood is constructed in our culture, in part, by access to meat eating and control of other bodies.”

Carol J. Adams, ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory’

Male dominance over women (in which definition I suggest should include female-presenting and female-passing individuals) is inextricably interrelated with human oppression of animals and the environment (Adams 1990). Climate change today is a result of, and continues to be reproduced and exacerbated by, patriarchal subjugation of women, animals, and the environment. The brunt of this suppression is borne by women of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, Indigenous women, and economically underprivileged women.

Male oppression of women

The roots of patriarchy and male oppression of women can be traced back to the Neolithic Revolution when the shift from hunting and gathering to agriculture, and increased fertility, saw women confined to more domestic duties (Hansen et al 2015). In 8,000 B.C., when early agricultural endeavours gained momentum, males, using newfound tools of militia, took control of surplus yield and of women (Omvedt 1987). Male-female inequality may have taken root even earlier: there is proof that girls were subject to forced marriage (often as one of multiple wives) and sexual and other violence even before 10,000 BC (Evans 2022). A study of Central European grave goods from about 5,000 BC suggest patterns of violence inflicted by males (who were buried with such weapons) on adult females and juveniles (whose skeletons indicated the receipt of violence-related trauma) (Masclans et al 2021).

In more recent times, while gender inequality is said to have undergone a global decline across several indicators (Dorius and Firebaugh 2010), today, women remain disadvantaged in the labor force , for instance, occupying less than one third of all business leadership roles globally (WEF 2022). The inequality of women is still evident in the prevalence of gender-based and other forms of violence, child marriage, female genital mutilation, reduced proportion of participation in government and management relative to men, and lower protection of land rights relative to men (UN 2022: 36-37). Women are the majority or a significant proportion of some of the world’s most labour-intensive and lowly-remunerated professions such as domestic work (Bonnet et al 2022), agricultural work (FAO 2011), and healthcare (WHO 2019). If one further takes account of the gender wage gap and the proportion of women in unpaid labour (ILO 2016), the female body is the cheapest source of backbreaking labour. Women’s bodies are objectified and sold in slavery, forced labour, or human trafficking. The United Nations estimates that “one in every 130 women and girls is subjected to contemporary forms of slavery such as child and forced marriage, domestic servitude, forced labour and debt bondage” (UN 2021).

Women’s bodies are exploited not only in their physical forms but also in the mental and visual planes. Images of the female body are commodified and consumed in various forms of visual renderings, including art, pornography, modelling, advertising, and films. Female-like and feminine bodies serve to attract and please the male gaze either as the subject matter of the work, or are deployed implicitly to enhance the appeal of the subject matter, acting as a present or “absent referent” (Adams 1990). The women portrayed in art are viewed as an extension of the art; the act of deriving pleasure from the gaze is a form of assertion of control (Ketz 2014). The female body is often utilized as a means to sell a product. This exploitation in marketing and advertising manifests in unrealistically perfect portrayals of women, depictions of disjointed female body parts, and characterisations of women as objects to be purchased or manipulated (Wani 2016).

I propose that the injustices of gender imbalance and power dynamics support the position that, at this time, male oppression continues to disadvantage and hegemonize women across the board.

Human oppression of animals

The imbalance in human-animal relations originated as a necessary pre-cursor to sedentary cultivation and the subsequent enshrinement of property rights, when animals were enlisted to hunt, for protection, and to work the land. Humans began to domesticate animals more than 11,000 years ago in the Near East (Vignes 2011), save for wolves (dogs) who were tamed by hunter-gatherers even earlier, between 15,000 and 30,000 years ago in Europe and Asia (Vignes 2011).

Today, in many urban and suburban communities, the role of animals in human subsistence has shifted significantly from assistant to commodity, as the concept of animal products has become completely divorced in name and appearance from the animal itself. In this context there is little need to resort to hunting animals for food – they are available neatly packaged in stores, labelled as drumsticks, wings, steak, hamburger, chops, cutlets, breasts, thighs, mince, and other euphemisms for their various constituent parts. The images of, and the bodies of, animals function as the “absent referent” (Adams 1990: 66) in a meat meal; the invisible source disconnected from the final sliced, cooked, plated product even linguistically (beef vs cow/bull; pork vs pig) (Adams 1990). Emotional detachment from the object of consumption (animals) proffers plausible deniability, thus blunting – if not entirely eliminating – any guilt, regret, or compassion which could arise from participation in such consumption. After all, it’s just meat. The usefulness of disengagement and objectification has not been lost on the corporate world. In his pursuit of efficiency, Henry Ford was inspired by the disassembly line of cattle slaughterhouses when he designed his automotive assembly line, perpetuating fragmentation, alienation, and detachment amongst workers between themselves and in relation to the subject matter of their work (Adams 1990).

This convenience of packaged animal-based food products has been made possible by modern intensive animal farming, or factory farming, which has the aim of mass-producing livestock products at the fastest speed and lowest cost (Culvert 2019). The human agents participating in these practices strip non-human animals of agency, emotion, and sentience in order to justify, and continue to justify, the commodification of living beings. To minimize overheads, factory farmers pack their animals in cramped facilities with little or no access to the outdoors, sustain them with cheap feed, and administer stimulants to the animals to induce quicker fattening or growth (Culvert 2019). A focus on high animal health and welfare is not conducive to production and profit. Amongst other forms of maltreatment, the animals are also mutilated or castrated, artificially inseminated, separated from their young, and handled callously prior to and during slaughter (Fiber-Ostrow and Lovell 2016).

I suggest that the inequity of modern factory farming systems facilitate the conclusion that, in present times, animal agriculture is interchangeable with animal oppression.

Human oppression of the environment

Humans have likewise implicated the environment as the quiet unseen provider in its own demise. In particular, white patriarchal men have literally and figuratively led the charge as they furthered the aims of capital and empire.

From approximately 8,000 B.C., after humans first began to farm as noted above (Omvedt 1987), agriculture became so prevalent that, as of 6,000 years ago, it covered more than 40% of Earth (Markwick et al 2019). In most areas, this change in land use marked the end of hunting and foraging, and its replacement with pastoralism and agriculture (Markwick et al 2019). Studies of sediment cores in the South China Sea show that humans began polluting the Earth with heavy metals as early as 4,000 years ago (Xu et al 2017), with pollution levels spiking 1,000 years later, upon the discovery of metallurgy (Cortizas et al 2016).

Today, humans continue to take from the Earth, transmute natural substances, and give back in the form of pollutants, waste, and emissions. The creation and disposal of pulp, paper, and cardboard products – made from trees – pollutes the air and water (Singh and Chandra 2019; Mandeep et al 2019). Unwanted plastic – made of fossil fuels, in turn formed from dead organisms extracted from the Earth – float and bob in the ocean, lakes, rivers, drains, and sewers in eternality, sometimes forming massive islands (Lebreton et al 2016). The burning of fossil fuels has caused – and continues to cause – global temperatures to rise and extreme weather events to become more frequent and intense, while animals struggle to survive and adapt to these dramatic shifts (Radchuck et al 2019; Berrang-Ford et al 2021).

The scientific community has reached a broad consensus that human-derived emissions of greenhouse gases is the key driver of the extraordinary rate of climate change observed in the recent decades (Lynas et al 2021). The human activities which produce those emissions – primarily the generation of energy by burning fossil fuels (C2ES) – literally fuel economic growth on one hand and environmental death on the other.

The industrial sector on its own constitutes almost a quarter of the world’s energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide emissions (IEA 2022). The extraction and processing of natural resources is responsible for more than half of global emissions of greenhouse gases, and 90% of loss of biodiversity and stress on water security (UNEP 2019). Aside from the hoarding of wealth and resources by billionaires eager to have their turn in the space race, rocket launches emit pollution into the atmosphere directly and generate soot, an element highly effective in warming the globe (Ryan et al 2022). In 2021, more than a third of the world’s energy- and process-related CO2 emissions originated from the buildings and construction sector (UNEP 2022).

Generally, the most extractive and pollutive industries are also the most profitable to shareholders. Trillions of dollars are spent and generated each year on the extraction of natural resources, space exploration, and construction of skyscrapers and other luxury complexes. In 2021, the global market size of the oil and gas infrastructure sector hit USD621.8 billion (GMI 2022), the value of space exploration industry peaked at USD469 billion (The Space Foundation 2022), and the global construction market was valued at USD10.7 trillion (Marsh McLennan 2021).

Given the impacts of modern industry and pollutive practices in the quest for financial gain, I propose that human exploitation of nature is essentially equivalent to environmental oppression.

Male-human oppression of the climate in pursuit of sexual power

“Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.”

Henry Kissinger

The spread of industrialization, while wreaking havoc on Earth systems by pollution and extraction, correlated to reduced poverty and greater access to healthcare, education, and political enfranchisement (Daggett 2018). After oil prices in the 1970s quickly plummeted owing to OPEC nations’ over-production of petroleum and increased production outside of OPEC (Huber 2011), more countries were prompted to protect national energy security by becoming self-sufficient explorers and producers of oil within their own territories. The global North also embarked on campaigns to create artificial oil scarcity, including the incitement and support of illiberal governments in the Middle East and Northern Africa (Daggett 2018). Oil became both the theatre in which power and violence was performed, and the prize for which power and violence was performed. Daggett (2018) describes the genesis of petromasculinity in the United States: “extracting and burning fuel was a practice of white masculinity, and of American sovereignty, such that the explosive power of combustion could be crudely equated with virility” (Daggett 2018:32).

In the pursuit of yet deeper wellbores, larger space exploration vessels, and higher towers, the climate system becomes the absent referent in the male quest of aspirational sexual power. The most lucrative and destructive business sectors, while accounting for a large proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, are also hotbeds of rampant discrimination, harassment, and violence against women (CNN 2022, UCB 2019, Bhatt and Aggarwal 2022, Lovell 2021). Human, that is to say male, dominion, is enacted pervasively on all axes and platforms – higher, further, deeper, across the land, and over all species.

If one is to accept Manne’s interpretation of misogyny, as adopted by Daggett (2018), as the “policing activities that punish deviants and reinforce patriarchal rule” (Daggett 2018: 29), then the current climate crisis can be viewed as a manifestation of misogynistic treatments of women and of the Earth. Right-wing authoritarianism, misogyny, and climate change denial intersect where political and cultural superstructures of power jointly exert dominion over both women and the environment (Kaul and Buchanan 2023). If the feminine is to be derogated, then “policies that involve “care” – for example, care for the environment through taking climate change seriously – are constructed and perceived as feminine” in a stratified system of power underpinned by gender dynamics (Kaul and Buchanan 2023:8). By considering women to be in greater proximity to nature than men, patriarchal systems justify the denigration of both (Adams and Gruen 2014).

The dominant system of fossil fuel extraction and consumption, and the superstructures and processes which prop up this system, encourage the silencing of environmental activists. In particular, those who support fossil capital have threatened, attacked, and even murdered numerous Indigenous activists and organizers for their outspoken stances on environmentally destructive corporate and political actions (DW 2022). Proponents of fossil rule have also ridiculed and harassed female environmental activists and organizers, including teenagers and children (NBC 2019). From 2012 to 2022, 1,733 environmentalists, more than a third of whom were Indigenous, were killed while seeking to defend their lands and resources (Global Witness 2022). 200 environmentalists were killed in 2021 alone, of which 1 in 10 were women, and nearly two-thirds were Indigenous (Global Witness 2022). This slaughter is committed under the banners of development and progress, being euphemisms for further extraction from and destruction of the Earth.

Impacts on women from minority groups and underprivileged backgrounds

As with most crises, the brunt of capitalism and environmental destruction are felt disproportionately by women from minority groups and less-privileged backgrounds.

Injustices are exacerbated through “gendered differences in increased unpaid care work, differential risks and exposures, disparate access to information and safety measures, increased gender-based violence, and exacerbations of insecurity of livelihoods and financial precarity” (Sultana 2021:448). Money and power are the best assets in escaping, overcoming, and transcending climate impacts. Conversely, it stands to reason that those who have the least money and power are therefore riddled with the gravest effects of these impacts; historically, this burden has fallen on women of ethnic, religious, and sexual minorities, Indigenous women, and economically underprivileged women, by reason of centuries of systematic deprivation of access to education, food, healthcare, information, economic opportunities, and representation. As such groups also tend to be more reliant on natural resources for survival (UN Women 2022), adverse climate impacts tend to result in more direct detriments to day-to-day lives and livelihoods.

Intersecting oppression of non-human animals, of women, and of the environment

By now, the urgency and necessity to halt climate change and to adapt to extreme climate variations is abundantly clear to climate scientists, policymakers, and the general public. Researchers continue to break through with new innovations in science, technology, and infrastructure to assist mitigation and adaptation efforts. Activists persist in advocacy and capacity-building to cease further destruction and to improve environmental and social resilience across communities and regions.

All these endeavours are played out as a David pits himself against Goliath; humanity seeks to reconstruct and reinvent its relationship with the planet within the constraints of the very system that destroys it.

Transformative results come from transformative change.

To stop the abuse of the environment, there is a dire need to consider and dismantle the economic and social frameworks which enables and rewards such abuse in the first place. To put an end to the objectification and persecution of non-human animals, we must envision and create a new paradigm in which they are just as worthy of health, happiness, and habitat as we humans are. To ensure parity and representation across not only gender but ethnicity, class, age, income, there is a need to re-examine and remake how power is distributed and sustained.

For humanity to truly grapple with the climate crisis and divest from fossil fuels, we must first dethrone the patriarchal authoritarian structures and processes which buttress the fossil capital regime and which perpetuate gender-, species-, and environment-related abuses.

References:

ADAMS, C. J. (1990). ‘The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-vegetarian Critical Theory’. New York, Continuum, 1990

ADAMS, C.J. and L. Gruen ed. (2014). ‘Ecofeminism : Feminist Intersections with Other Animals & The Earth’. 2nd edition. Bloomsbury Academic.

BERRANG-FORD, L., A.R. Siders, A. Lesnikowski, et al. (2021). ‘A systematic global stocktake of evidence on human adaptation to climate change’. Nat. Clim. Chang. 11, 989–1000 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-021-01170-y

BHATT, K., and M. Aggarwal. (2022). ‘Gender-Based Violence & Harassment in the Construction Sector: Addressing Gaps between Policy and Implementation’. IJPIEL. 23 June 2022. https://ijpiel.com/index.php/2022/06/23/gender-based-violence-harassment-in-the-construction-sector-addressing-gaps-between-policy-and-implementation/

BONNET, F., F. Carré, and J. Vanek. (2022). ‘Domestic Workers in the World: A Statistical Profile’. Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) Statistical Brief No. 32. April 2022. https://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/publications/file/WIEGO_Statistical_Brief_N32_DWs%20in%20the%20World.pdf

C2ES. ‘Global Emissions’. https://www.c2es.org/content/international-emissions/. Accessed 28 November 2022.

CNN. (2022). ‘Abhorrent and systemic’ culture of sexual abuse in Australian mining, inquiry finds’. Hannah Ritchie. 23 June 2022. https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/23/business/western-australia-mining-sexual-abuse-intl-hnk/index.html

CORTIZAS, A.M., L. López-Merino, R. Bindler, T. Mighall, and M.E. Kylander. (2016). ‘Early atmospheric metal pollution provides evidence for Chalcolithic/Bronze Age mining and metallurgy in Southwestern Europe’. Science of The Total Environment, Volumes 545–546, 2016, Pages 398-406, ISSN 0048-9697, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.12.078.

CULVERT, L.L. (2019). ‘Factory Farming/Industrial Agriculture’. The Gale Encyclopedia of Environmental Health (Vol. 1. 2nd ed.) pp 325-331.

DAGGETT, C. (2018). ‘Petro-masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire. Millennium: Journal of International Studies’. 2018, Vol. 47(1) 25–44. DOI: 10.1177/0305829818775817

DORIUS, S.F. and G. Firebaugh (2010). ‘Trends in Global Gender Inequality’. Social Forces, July 2010, Vol. 88, No. 5 (July 2010), pp. 1941-1968.

DW. (2022). ‘Defending the environment can be a death sentence’. 12 January 2022. https://www.dw.com/en/defending-the-environment-can-be-a-death-sentence/a-63837132

EVANS, A. (2022). ‘Ten Thousand Years of Patriarchy, Updated!’ 3 June 2022. Updated 7 November 2022. https://www.draliceevans.com/post/ten-thousand-years-of-patriarchy-1.

FAO. (2011). ‘The role of women in agriculture’. https://www.fao.org/3/am307e/am307e00.pdf Agricultural Development Economics Division. ESA Working Paper No. 11-02. March 2011.

FIBER-OSTROW, P., and J.S. Lovell. (2016). ‘Behind a veil of secrecy: animal abuse, factory farms, and Ag-Gag legislation’. Contemporary Justice Review, 2016. Vol. 19, No. 2, 230-249. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10282580.2016.1168257

GLOBAL WITNESS (2022). ‘Decade of defiance: Ten years of reporting land and environmental activism worldwide’. September 2022. https://www.globalwitness.org/documents/20425/Decade_of_defiance_EN_-_September_2022.pdf

GMI. (May 2022). ‘Oil & Gas Infrastructure Market Size By Category (Surface and Lease Equipment, Gathering & Processing, Oil, Gas & NGL Pipelines, Oil & Gas Storage, Refining & Oil Products Transport, Export Terminals), COVID-19 Impact Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2022 – 2030’. Report ID GMI5274. Published May 2022. https://www.gminsights.com/industry-analysis/oil-and-gas-infrastructure-market

HANSEN, C.W., Jensen, P.S., and Skovsgaard, C.V. (2015). ‘Modern gender roles and agricultural history: the Neolithic inheritance’. Journal of Economic Growth, December 2015, Vol 20., No. 4 (December 2015), pp 365-404

HUBER, M.T. (2011). ‘Enforcing Scarcity: Oil, Violence, and the Making of the Market’. Annals of the Association of American Geographers , July 2011, Vol. 101, No. 4, Geographies of Energy (July 2011), pp. 816-826

ILO. (2016). ‘Women at Work - Trends 2016’. https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/---publ/documents/publication/wcms_457317.pdf

KAUL, N. and Buchanan, T. (2023). ‘Misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change’. Anal Soc Issues Public Policy 2023;1–26. DOI: 10.1111/asap.12347

KETZ, V. (2014). ‘In Between the Painting and the Mirror: Framing the Female Subject’. Letras Femeninas, Verano 2014, Vol. 40, No. 1, Mirada de Mujer: Narrativas Visuales Femeninas Y Narraciones Femeninas De Lo Visual En El Mundo Luso-Hispánico / Women’s Gaze: Female Visual Narratives and Narrations of the Visual in the Luso-Hispanic World. (Verano 2014), pp. 163-176

LEBRETON, L., B. Slat, F. Ferrari, B. Sainte-Rose, J. Aitken, R. Marthouse, S. Hajbane, S. Cunsolo, A. Schwarz, A. Levivier, K. Noble, P. Debeljak, H. Maral, R. Schoeneich-Argent, R. Brambini, and J. Reisser. (2018). ‘Evidence that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is rapidly accumulating plastic’. Sci Rep 8, 4666. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22939-w

LOVELL, Bronwyn D. (2021). ‘Sex and the Stars: The Enduring Structure of Gender Discrimination in the Space Industry’. Journal of Feminist Scholarship 18 (Spring): 61-77. 10.23860/jfs.2021.18.04. https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1181&context=jfs

LYNAS, M., B.Z. Houlton, S. Perry. (2021). ‘Greater than 99% consensus on human caused climate change in the peer-reviewed scientific literature’. Environ. Res. Lett. 16 114005. DOI 10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966

MASCLANS, A., Hamon, C., Jeunesse, C., and Bickle, P. (2021) ‘A sexual division of labour at the start of agriculture? A multi-proxy comparison through grave good stone tool technological and use-wear analysis’. PLoS ONE 16(4): e0249130. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0249130

MANDEEP, G.K. Gupta, H. Liu, and P. Shukla. (2019). ‘Pulp and paper industry–based pollutants, their health hazards and environmental risks’. Current Opinion in Environmental Science & Health, Volume 12, 2019, Pages 48-56, ISSN 2468-5844, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.coesh.2019.09.010.

MARSH McLennan. (2021). ‘Global Construction Outlook’. 22 September 2021. https://www.marsh.com/tn/industries/construction/insights/global-construction-outlook.html

MARWICK, B., E.C. Ellis, L. Stephens, and N. Boivin. (2019). ‘When did humans start altering Earth?’ https://earthsky.org/human-world/when-humans-start-altering-planet-earth-anthropocene/ EarthSky. 3 September 2019.

NBC. (2019). ‘Young female climate activists face hateful abuse online. This is how they cope’. 10 November 2019. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/young-female-climate-activists-face-hateful-abuse-online-how-they-n1079376

OMVEDT, G. (1987). ‘The Origin of Patriarchy’. Economic and Political Weekly , Oct. 31, 1987, Vol. 22, No. 44 (Oct. 31, 1987), pp. WS70-WS72.

RADCHUK, V., T. Reed, C. Teplitsky, et al. (2019). ‘Adaptive responses of animals to climate change are most likely insufficient’. Nat Commun 10, 3109 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-10924-4

RYAN, R.G., E.A. Marais, C.J. Balhatchet, S.D. Eastham. (2022). ‘Impact of Rocket Launch and Space Debris Air Pollutant Emissions on Stratospheric Ozone and Global Climate’. AGU - Earth's Future. Volume 10 Issue 6. June 2022. e2021ER002612. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021EF002612

SINGH, A.K., and Chandra R. (2019). ‘Pollutants released from the pulp paper industry: Aquatic toxicity and their health hazards’. Aquat Toxicol. 2019 Jun;211:202-216. doi: 10.1016/j.aquatox.2019.04.007. Epub 2019 Apr 10. PMID: 31029991.

SPACE Foundation. (2022). ‘Space Foundation Releases The Space Report 2022 Q2 Showing Growth of Global Space Economy’. 27 July 2022. https://www.spacefoundation.org/2022/07/27/the-space-report-2022-q2/

SULTANA, F. (2021) ‘Climate change, COVID-19, and the co-production of injustices: a feminist reading of overlapping crises’. Social & Cultural Geography, 22:4, 447-460, DOI: 10.1080/14649365.2021.1910994

UCB. (2010). ‘New Report Finds Increase of Violence Coincides with Oil Boom’. 14 March 2019. https://www.colorado.edu/program/fpw/2019/03/14/new-report-finds-increase-violence-coincides-oil-boom

UN. (2021). ‘Women and girls at high risk of being pushed into modern slavery’. 1 December 2021. https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1106872

UN. (2022). ‘The Sustainable Development Goals Report 2022’. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2022/The-Sustainable-Development-Goals-Report-2022.pdf

UNEP. (2022). ‘Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction (Buildings-GSR)’. Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction (GlobalABC). https://globalabc.org/our-work/tracking-progress-global-status-report.

UNEP. (2019). ‘Global Resources Outlook 2019: Natural Resources for the Future We Want - Summary for Policymakers’. https://wedocs.unep.org/20.500.11822/27518.

UN Women. (2022). ‘Explainer: How gender inequality and climate change are interconnected’. 28 February 2022 https://www.unwomen.org/en/news-stories/explainer/2022/02/explainer-how-gender-inequality-and-climate-change-are-interconnected

VIGNES, J.D. (2011). ‘The origins of animal domestication and husbandry: A major change in the history of humanity and the biosphere’. C.R. Biologies 334 (2011) 171-181.

WANI, K.A. (2016). ‘Commodification of Women in Advertising: The Social Cost’. J Entrepren Organiz Manag 2016, Volume 5, Issue 1, 1000167 DOI: 10.4172/2169-026X.1000167

WEF. (2022). ‘Global Gender Gap Report’. 13 July 2022.

WHO. (2019). ‘Delivered by women, led by men: A gender and equity analysis of the global health and social workforce’. https://cdn.who.int/media/docs/default-source/health-workforce/delivered-by-women-led-by-men.pdf?sfvrsn=94be9959_2 Human Resources for Health Observer Series No. 24. Licence: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 IGO.

XU, F., B. Hu, Y. Dou, Z. Song, X. Liu, S. Yuan, Z. Sun, A., Li, and X. Yin. (2017). ‘Prehistoric heavy metal pollution on the continental shelf off Hainan Island, South China Sea: From natural to anthropogenic impacts around 4.0 kyr BP’. The Holocene, 28(3), 455–463. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683617729445