It was an audacious moment. During a recent government hearing, allies of former President Jair Bolsonaro berated Brazil’s environment and climate minister, telling Marina Silva she was “hindering our country’s development,” didn’t deserve respect and should “know your place.”
“You just want me to be a submissive woman,” Silva replied. “But I am not.”
A lifelong Amazonian environmentalist credited with helping slash Brazil’s deforestation rates, Silva walked out after further verbal attacks from members of the powerful ruralista caucus—a pro-agribusiness bloc known for pushing policies that drive deforestation and land conflict with the people living in the rainforest.
For a growing women’s climate movement, the exchange was more than political theater. It revealed a connection between aggressive resource extraction and attacks on women.
Lake and other women in the movement describe climate change not as a glitch in the system, but the system’s logical outcome, the result of centuries of extractive economies built on disconnection from the natural world. For these women, the path forward isn’t just cleaner energy—it’s a deeper transformation that heals the relationship between people and the Earth.
Ayshka Najib, a climate activist based in the United Arab Emirates, put it this way: “Capitalism is only 500 years old—we created these systems, and we can create newer ones rooted in equality, justice and respect for everyone’s rights.”
To do that, the movement increasingly is looking to women in the Global South—the Indigenous, Quilombola and local communities that have resisted extractive industries while cultivating their own sustainable economies.
For this, the Kichwa women of Sarayaku, Ecuador, are providing a master class. For decades, multinational corporations have sought to extract oil and minerals from their ancestral lands in the Amazon. With the arrival of industry to the region came workers. And with workers came prostitution, alcohol and violence, said Patricia Gualinga, co-founder of the Amazonian Women Defenders of the Rainforest (Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva).
Driven by escalating threats, Gualinga and others formed Mujeres Amazónicas Defensoras de la Selva, a coalition of women from multiple Indigenous nationalities, around 2012. They organized protests, partnered with groups like Amnesty International and defended their territories by physically monitoring the forest and turning to the courts. Gualinga’s testimony, for instance, helped Sarayaku win a landmark victory based on the Indigenous right to free, prior and informed consent at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in 2012.
Their activism has come at a cost: They’ve faced threats, harassment and arson attacks. Still, the women have persisted.