Gendered Dimensions of Environmental Security: Insights into the Role of Women in Risk, Resilience, and Governance

This article offers an original synthesis of 23 peer-reviewed articles published between January 2010 and June 2025, identified through a broader search covering 2000 to 2025, following PRISMA and scoping review guidelines to explore the interdisciplinary aspects of how gender shapes the experience and governance of environmental security. Employing a novel triadic lens—risk, resilience, and governance—the article investigates the gendered dynamics of environmental security across global contexts. Grounded in feminist international relations theory, political ecology, and critical environmental governance, it identifies three interconnected themes: (a) women’s disproportionate exposure to climate-induced hazards due to gendered roles and socio-cultural constraints; (b) women’s active role in resilience-building through local ecological knowledge, caregiving networks, and community-based adaptation; (c) structural barriers that hinder women’s meaningful participation in environmental governance, including tokenistic representation and institutional inertia. The findings indicate that gender is often sidelined in global and national strategies, resulting in gaps between policy and practice for legal, financial, and political barriers. Knowledge of production is uneven, with significant regional disparities. This article advocates for gender-transformative environmental governance that redistributes power, legitimizes diverse knowledge systems, and institutionalizes intersectional justice. It provides strategic recommendations to realign governance at different levels toward equitable, sustainable, and feminist-informed environmental security.