The Weight of Warming Seas: A Feminist Analysis of Eco-Anxiety Among Indonesian Women

Climate anxiety has attracted scholarly attention, yet research remains situated within Western, Global North populations, sidelining women in the Global South. This study examines eco-anxiety as a gendered phenomenon among Indonesian women ( N = 300) across urban, rural, coastal, and inland communities. Drawing on ecofeminist theory, intersectionality, and standpoint epistemology, we investigate how gender, class, geography, and religious meaning-making shape climate distress through a mixed-methods design combining a cross-sectional survey with semi-structured interviews ( n = 30). Findings show that rural, coastal women report the highest levels of eco-anxiety and that climate exposure is linked to distress through care labour and livelihood dependence on natural resources. Religious meaning-making functions as a complex moderator, buffering cognitive anxiety whilst leaving affective and somatic dimensions unmitigated. Interviews illuminate culturally situated idioms of ecological grief, including pasrah (resigned acceptance) and ikhlas (spiritual surrender), challenging Western-developed instruments. Findings demonstrate that Indonesian women's climate distress is structurally produced, intersectionally differentiated, and culturally articulated, contesting eco-anxiety's framing as a predominantly White, middle-class concern. This study contributes to feminist psychology by foregrounding Global South women's knowledge and reclaiming eco-anxiety as a site of gendered epistemic injustice.