Chair Deatrick Speaks on Women and the Climate Crisis at AAUW-Ann Arbor

As the keynote speaker at the American Association of University Women-Ann Arbor's Spring Banquet, Chair Deatrick made the case that the climate crisis is also a gender justice crisis — and that women's leadership is essential to solving it.

She opened with a stark reality: climate change is not gender-neutral. Women and girls are dramatically more likely than men to die in natural disasters, make up an estimated 80% of those displaced by climate change, and shoulder the bulk of the caregiving load when storms, heat waves, and floods upend daily life.

Closer to home, she described how Michigan's shifting seasons — wetter winters, hotter and drier summers, more intense storms — are straining farms, overwhelming aging stormwater systems, and threatening the drinking water of the 2.6 million Michiganders who rely on private wells.

But Chair Deatrick was clear that women are not just bearing the brunt of this crisis — they are leading the way out of it, from Detroit's heavily polluted 48217 to the halls of the state legislature. Citing research that ranks educating girls as the sixth most powerful climate solution in the world, and pointing to legendary leaders like Wangari Maathai and her own mother as inspirations, she closed with a call for a climate movement that is feminist, inclusive, democratic, and just.