Designing feminist energy systems: climate politics beyond 'jobs' and 'babies' === > [!tldr] Tags > #cat/litterature #type/blogPost > [!info] Meta Data >**FirstAuthor**:: [[Daggett, Cara New]] **Author**:: [[Labuski, Christine]] **Author**:: [[Bell, Shannon Elizabeth]] ~ > **Title**:: Designing feminist energy systems: climate politics beyond 'jobs' and 'babies' > **Year**:: 2022 > **Citekey**:: [[2022_daggett.labuski.ea]] > **itemType**:: blogPost > **ISSN**:: > > [!Cite] > Daggett, C. N., Labuski, C., & Bell, S. E. (2022, September 28). Designing feminist energy systems: Climate politics beyond ‘jobs’ and ‘babies’. _Autonomy_. [https://autonomy.work/portfolio/feminist-energy-systems/](https://autonomy.work/portfolio/feminist-energy-systems/) > > %%[@2022_daggett.labuski.ea]%% > **URL**:: https://autonomy.work/portfolio/feminist-energy-systems/ . > > **Related**:: %%[@2023_aberg.ekberg.ea]%% ([[2023_aberg.ekberg.ea_Pervasive petrocultures]]) , %%[@2023_furuseth]%% ([[2023_furuseth_Petrocultures in the making]]) , %%[@2022_daggett]%% ([[2022_daggett_Green-ing masculinity]]) , %%[@2019_daggett]%% ([[2019_daggett_The birth of energy]]) , %%[@2023_champion]%% ([[2023_champion_Pervasive extractivism]]) . > > **Attachment**::. --- > [!important] Synthesis > **Contribution**:: > > [!Abstract] > > The Mayapple Energy Transition Collective outline how feminist energy systems can help address concerning climate narrative around jobs and overpopulation. >> --- # Note what might an alternative _feminist_ energy system look like – one that draws upon the wisdom and practice of feminist scholars and[ activists](https://www.accionecologica.org/)[ worldwide](https://dawnnet.org/)? [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#47a97394-4886-421e-8ea3-7af084cfe921)  ^47a97394 > Adopting a feminist lens allows us to draw on its specific expertise in how ‘power’ works: from the injustice generated by naturalised, binary oppositions, such as male-female or nature-culture, to an intersectional understanding of categories of oppression, like disability, race, class, and sexuality, as multiple and interlacing. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#b36e8fd2-2ff4-453f-8b38-84862d54bce6)  ^b36e8fd2 > while, in the first instance, energy is an important material resource (fuel); it is also _a_ [_way of talking about work_](https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/24047) and the ways in which work is organised as a site where certain efforts are valued over others. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#db4672d1-cc5a-4ecd-9ca5-c70d95da844b)  ^db4672d1 > Critically approaching energy systems requires acknowledging this multifaceted nature of power: [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#616e9b91-648b-49b0-be26-4c79a712930a)  ^616e9b91 > A feminist approach to energy systems, in contrast, would put care and dependency relations at the center of energy redistribution schemes, aiming to provide sufficient energy for well-being rather than according to the dictates of profit or productivity. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#c96a8a7e-a206-4608-9ce6-61ec02d5bd28)  ^c96a8a7e > Energy is more than fuel and transmission lines. As Cara’s previous blogs have shown, it involves cultural values, consumption habits, religious practices, housing and food systems, and more. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#487ab38b-5d4c-4baf-ad86-20c78e632d78)  ^487ab38b > [we have suggested approaching energy](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2020.101557) through four main dimensions – political, economic, socio-ecological, and technological – offering feminist insights for each [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#16967913-6e1d-4efd-8f13-a1acd3510050)  ^16967913 > many ‘job-centric’ approaches to energy futures also take the modern system of waged labour for granted, as the necessary path to being a good citizen, deserving of food, shelter, and health care. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#73e07f14-9c46-4067-b35e-ba216710f3ca)  ^73e07f14 > the energy-jobs narrative neglects that energy work, particularly in the fossil fuel economy, can be disabling. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#ecf27c6d-6b9c-4ebf-b8f7-35121a7b0134)  ^ecf27c6d > crip theorists think about disability as [a collective experience of both world-building and dismantling](https://catalystjournal.org/index.php/catalyst/article/view/29607) [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#6719e465-de16-4029-8ca7-aa2978f047d6)  ^6719e465 > This would mean not only ‘including’ disabled people in local energy economies but, more crucially, learning from these lives and bodies, and restructuring economic and social systems in response. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#9dd60063-5df1-440c-8971-e667de04a751)  ^9dd60063 > Cymene Howe, who has studied a derailed mega-wind project in Mexico, [calls this](https://www.dukeupress.edu/ecologics) “an ethos of rehabilitation.” [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#0f691225-2ec0-4157-8c5b-e7c3f5492d9f)  ^0f691225 > The focus on population numbers shifts attention away from capitalist production and accumulation, and intensifies long-standing misogynist and racist efforts to control sexuality and pregnancy. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#0bce35dc-41d9-4cbe-b02a-a23eb45e3e8e)  ^0bce35dc > controlling reproduction has been a crucial plank in sustaining extractive regimes of all types. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#03403b3c-c77e-4a7b-8cb3-cb2ade6cc955)  ^03403b3c > The cost of energy is not a neutral fact that emerges out of a “free” market of supply and demand. Energy can be [made cheaper by undervaluing the labor and materials](https://www.versobooks.com/books/1924-capitalism-in-the-web-of-life) that produce it, and by displacing the costs of the damage to public and ecological health, whether in its extraction, consumption, or pollution. That is why “renewable” energy does not necessarily mean sustainable energy, as has been made clear by [the looming international solar e-waste crisis](https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520288171/solar-power). [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#79dff7d7-cd6d-4e41-a902-49baa7a78b1b)  ^79dff7d7 > The quest for cheaper energy also reinforces the notion that individual consumers are the ones who will, and should, pay for those burdens. Instead, feminist energy systems would seek to provide sufficient energy as a public good, while naming the injustices inherent in the lifecycles of all types of energy production. [⤴️](https://omnivore.app/me/designing-feminist-energy-systems-climate-politics-beyond-jobs-a-189701b9dd3#93c7ea36-f118-40d9-ab6e-50f791ae628c)  ^93c7ea36. --- # Annotations%% begin annotations %% %% end annotations %% %% Import Date: 2024-02-07T22:41:13.363+01:00 %%