The environmental justice movement emerged in response to the disproportionate burden of environmental harm experienced by marginalized communities, specifically emphasizing the role of race and class inequalities as a driving force. However, critical environmental justice expands on this to incorporate and center all overlooked communities. More specifically, critical environmental justice recognizes that environmental inequalities are deeply intertwined with multiple systems of oppression, demonstrating that this intersectionality is required to fully understand and address environmental injustices. One aspect that is often overlooked is the intersectional role of gender. Women of color have been at the forefront of environmental justice movements since the very beginning. They are situated at the crossroad of racial, class, gender, and environmental injustices. Mobilizations by women leaders in Warren County, North Carolina, by the Mothers of East Los Angeles, and at the Standing Rock Sioux reservation are all examples of how women of color use this unique perspective at the intersection to combat environmental injustices. This thesis draws on scholarship from across multiple disciplines and uses the feminist frameworks of anger, care, and anti-sexual violence to analyze and understand the driving forces of this activism. It asks: What is it about women of color’s experiences that allow them to critique and analyze the system that creates disproportionate environmental burdens on marginalized communities in the United States? In what ways do concerns about gender inequality and gender politics shape the environmental justice movement, and how is feminism used as a framework within this context? By incorporating feminist frameworks, critical environmental justice helps scholars and activists better understand the lived experiences of women of color and their leadership in environmental justice movements.