Gender and Power in China’s Environmental Turn: A Case Study of Three Women-Led Initiatives

Abstract

The Chinese authorities have formulated a vision for the global future that it terms ‘ecological civilization’ (shengtai wenming 生态文明). It was introduced into Communist Party ideology in 2007 and endorsed by Xi Jinping in 2013 as a major framework for the country’s environmental policies. During the 2000s, the government set in motion many stricter environmental regulations and targets in line with this vision, including opening up some new room for bottom-up, volunteer-driven initiatives mostly on waste collection, recycling, education, and sustainable agriculture. At the same time, it calls for more participation of women in environmental governance at grassroots levels. Surveys in different parts of the world, including China, have suggested that women tend to be more concerned with environmental issues than men, but we have few qualitative studies in China of this topic. This article details three case studies in which women have initiated environmental projects in their local communities. They have mobilized other women (and some men) to engage in collective action, and they have generated financial and symbolic resources for their projects. We analyse these cases and argue that by raising the status of environmental issues such as waste collection and recycling, previously often downplayed as “women’s affairs”, China’s environmental turn has helped expand the space available for female subjectivities and participation in public activities. However, this expanding role has not translated into better representation or participation of women at higher levels of political authority beyond the village level, and the emerging female environmental subjectivities remain firmly based in existing political hierarchies and male-dominated structures.