Over the summer, we wrote a few posts about racism, sexism, and intersectionality. Somehow, that doesn’t appear to have solved the problem. But today we’re focusing on science and sexism--in case you haven’t had enough of the patriarchy over the past week.
We’ll start with a story in E&E about Canadian environment minister Catherine McKenna, who deniers have given the exquisitely creative moniker “Climate Barbie.” The nickname, coined by Canada’s far-right Rebel Media, is now routinely used by McKenna’s denier critics both online and in real life. We’ve noticed the tweets are particularly prevalent on this front (and it looks like bot activity, though that’s just a hunch) but it’s become a recurring element of any denier’s discussion of Canadian climate action. E&E quotes, for example, bloggers Anthony Watts and Tony Heller in having used the obviously sexist trope.
But it’s not just climate struggling with the issue of treating women like normal human beings, or even better-than-normal ones worthy of winning the Nobel Prize for Physics. At a CERN conference on physics and gender last week, a high-ranking physicist gave a speech about how physics is sexist against men because two women were hired instead of him to a prestigious position (among other less personal reasons). But the Twitter reaction was swift and well-warranted, and now he’s been suspended pending an investigation. (For those wondering, the content of his speech mirrored that of Google-Bro James Damore, who became something of a conservative hero for speaking out about the discrimination he imagined takes place at Google.)
Despite the mention in E&E’s story of deniers skewing towards the pale, male, stale and conservative demographic, liberal men are hardly immune to sexism. As former reporter Meredith Shiner wrote in ThinkProgress Monday, progressive men can be just as guilty of the casual misogyny and sexism as anyone else. Shiner penned her piece on the harassment she faced from otherwise woke bros to try and spur “men to question whether they use their publicly progressive views supporting women as cover to demean women when no one is looking.”
This condemnation extends to the climate community, which certainly also has plenty of work to do. For example, on Saturday, Jamie Margolin, the 16-year-old climate activist, tweeted about her experience on a climate justice panel: “I spent a lot of time pushing back against entitled white men who thought FEMINISM is getting in the way of SOLVING CLIMATE CHANGE & don’t think ‘RIGHTS HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH IT.’”, aptly followed by the facepalm emoji.
If you think entitled white men are right that the equitable treatment of women is not relevant to the climate crisis, please consider all those who, in the words of Dr. Kate Marvel, “could have done science” had systemic gender issues not pushed them out. The examples are all too understandable and relatable.
And, as Dr. Marvel concludes, those who weren’t pushed out, who defied their mistreatment and stuck with science despite the additional layer of difficulties, bear the scars of their inumane mistreatment.
Just like how the warmer temperatures brought by climate change influence all weather events, gender relations shapes all our human interactions. Sometimes it’s in a big, obvious way that we can make a conclusive statement about. Other times, it’s a subtle and pernicious effect that some of us--particularly those that consider ourselves to be unbiased already--find all too easy to explain away as something else.
And that complacency, that denial-among-the-woke-dudes, may prove the hardest part of the patriarchy to torch.
But that doesn’t mean it’s fireproof.
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