We’ve tried to be explicit in the past couple years about how climate denial is often accompanied by misogyny, with deniers sometimes playing footsie with overt misogynists, or even embracing it themselves along with other hate, while acknowledging that the alarmist side has some work to do.
And others are starting to pick up on this unfortunate thread as well. While the BBC’s Joshua Nevett covered how young climate activists are on the receiving end of a hate machine, Martin Gelin used men’s reactions to Greta Thunberg’s US visit to get more specific on “the misogyny of climate deniers” for The New Republic.
And Greta is absolutely getting not only plenty of abuse, as we’ve discussed, but is also facing specifically misogynistic attacks. The most offensive comes from James Delingpole (naturally), who wrote in response to Thunberg’s GQ cover that “Sure, girls have a place in this universe: as decoration and objects of lust.” He then continued by saying that “spooky Greta with her pigtails and thousand-yard stare of disapproval is not only far too young to qualify for that status, but far too earnest and grim.”
So according to Delingpole, the 16 year old is too young to be an object of lust, but he assessed her potential as such anyway, and declared her “too earnest and grim” for it.
Lovely.
And of course Thunberg isn’t the only one to get this sort of treatment, though few tend to be quite as explicit in their creepiness as Delingpole.
While the Daily Caller toned down its obsessive coverage of Alexandira Ocasio-Cortez in the wake of its fake nude fake news, they remain steadfast in their attempts to portray her as a ditz, a common misogynistic trope.
Yesterday the Caller reported on some comments AOC made on Instagram Live about melting glaciers setting diseases loose, as did Fox News. But neither outlet managed to mention that this is actually an absolutely valid concern, well-supported by science and by actual examples of it happening.
CFACT has also been trying to get in on this action. While there certainly have been examples of beauty queens looking foolish, the organization’s latest video fails to recreate such an event. Apparently, CFACT went “undercover” at the UN’s Civil Society Conference in Utah, and interviewed “Miss New York Earth USA” Nicolette Templier. (Miss Earth USA is an environmentally-focused beauty pageant that aims to raise awareness of environmental issues.)
Though their video claims she “couldn’t be more wrong about climate,” the reality is that she pretty much nailed it. But to CFACT, her (accurate) “regurgitation of UN climate change alarmist talking points” is apparently a sign that she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.
So even when women are well-informed, it’s not because they’re smart, but because they’re parroting the UN, or per Steve Milloy, a puppet.
Which gets to another significant aspect of the issue. Having spent his career as a puppet for polluters, Milloy is clearly resentful of someone getting attention who hasn’t sold their soul for it. And struggling to get anyone except old white men to join the denier camp, CFACT is surely frustrated by a young Black woman like Templier speaking intelligently on climate and the environment.
Add on to those feelings of jealousy a layer of cultural conditioning that tells these old white guys that young women are for “decoration and objects of lust,” and it’s not exactly surprising that they’re attacking the young women who are actively dismantling the status quo systems that have given those men an undue degree of respectability and power, creating a world where the power they have been granted by their manhood alone is rendered irrelevant, and, well, impotent.
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