Reproductive Resistance: Gendered Power Dynamics and Climate Change in the (M)Anthropocene

Climate change is increasingly factored into reproductive decision making. However, little work has employed a critical examination of gendered structures of power to understand reproductive decision making as a site of resistance to the (m)Anthropocene.

There is an established body of literature devoted to reproductive decision making and the increase in voluntary childlessness in recent decades. Among this has been research on the relationship between environmental concern and fertility intentions, demonstrating a correlation between perceived ecological decline and anti-reproductive attitudes. Across many cultural and ethnic groups, women are more likely to express concern for environmental decline than their male counterparts and bear a larger proportion of household sustainability and reproductive labour. Women are also much more vulnerable to the climate crisis but remain excluded from the male-dominated systems of power that have created this planetary crisis to being with. These systems depend upon the ongoing reproductive labor of women to sustain the robust workforce and tax base necessary for their ongoing hegemony. While this reproductive labour has long been undervalued in patriarchal systems, as more women are making the choice not to have children at all, the importance of this labour is increasingly felt. The message from many women, made by collective movements such as Birthstrike, is clear: we will not have children who are doomed to suffer due to climate inaction.

Reproduction is an extremely personal choice, yet the threats reduced birth rates pose to existing structures of power make climate-induced reproductive anxiety a contentious site of resistance to the (M)Anthropocene. This paper seeks to explore these gendered relations of power, examining the tensions between personal agency, climate emotions, and the external forces that seek to limit or control reproductive freedoms.