In 1989 law professor and civil rights activist Kimberle Williams Crenshaw introduced the term intersectionality to help explain the oppression African American women faced. She argued that race and sex govern African American women’s experiences.[1] Later, scholars expanded her theory of intersectionality to include socioeconomic class, language skills, education level, and gender presentation as aspects that can have an impact on how individuals are perceived and how society views and deals with them.
Now female scientists studying climate change and activists advocating a green revolution are facing a different kind of intersectional experience. It is not only what they are saying which garners an adverse reaction, but it is their gender, which is the basis for the attacks. Climate science itself has become feminized and as being “oppositional to assumed entitlements of masculine primacy.”[2] One writer noted that “critics rely on stereotypes painting women, especially young women, as infantile and idiotic. Without this kind of misogyny, they’d have nothing.”[3]
A study that analyzed the language used by climate skeptics found that climate skepticism was intertwined with ideas of masculinity and industrial society.[4] Men view environmentally conscious behavior as inherently feminine and avoid recycling and reusable shopping bags as a way to preserve their masculinity and macho image.[5] Climate skeptics feel that their group identity is under threat due to groups pursuing gender equality and climate activism. These climate skeptics are, in fact, “male reactionaries motivated by right-wing nationalism, anti-feminism, and climate denialism … the three reactions feeding off of one another.”[6] Let us quickly examine some of the well-publicized attacks women have endured in the name of climate skepticism.
In 2017 Catherine McKenna, then Canadian Minister of Environment and Climate Change was labeled “Climate Barbie” by The Rebel Media, a right-wing political blog.[7] Gerry Ritz, a conservative MP, then used the term on Twitter when discussing her. Ritz quickly removed the tweet and apologized, but by then, #ClimateBarbie was being used on Twitter to call McKenna a hypocrite and drunk. This hatred moved into the real world when McKenna and her children were leaving a theater, and a man slowed his car, rolled down his windows, and shouted, “F*** you Climate Barbie.” Because of the threats of violence and rape made on Twitter McKenna has now been assigned a security detail for public events; security protection at this level is usually only offered to cabinet ministers.[8]
After making a clear and thoughtful explanation of the science behind climate change atmospheric scientist Kate Parker, who works for the Weather Channel, was attacked by Breitbart News, who called her “a pretty girl.” The New Republic writer Emily Atkin, who writes about climate change, was called an “infobabe” by Rush Limbaugh, and a writer from Breitbart said she has “kitty claws.”[9] Women who are more vocal about the importance of climate research garner even more negative attention from climate deniers.
The United States Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has garnered obsessive coverage and attention from right-wing news sources and climate deniers in part due to her proposal of a Green New Deal, which would encourage the development of greener technology. The Fox News Channel mentioned Ocasio-Cortez an average of 76 times a day through her first month in Congress.[10] The attacks on her ranged from a Twitter user putting music behind a video she did on decarbonization and renaming it “Shallow Thoughts” to mocking her for recreating a scene from the movie The Breakfast Club for a Boston College promotional video. I had a friend tell me that Ocasio-Cortez is a pretty actress and a mouthpiece for environmentalists and that she can’t be thinking up all these speeches and videos herself. The idea is that because Ocasio-Cortez is pretty and worked as a bartender for a few years after college, there is no way she is smart enough to make these points.
Sixteen-year-old Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has faced even more criticism as a young woman and as someone who has autism and thus is too mentally ill to be taken seriously. A writer for the conservative Washington Examiner wrote that Greta’s mother, a former opera singer, is “pimping her kid out, not to Penthouse, but to the cause of climate apocalypse.”[11] Greta is not a young woman who is passionate about climate change and urging world leaders to take seriously what 97% of the world’s scientists are saying. No, instead, she is just another whore, like all young women. Too stupid to have independent ideas and existing only to be used by adults.
There are many more sexist attacks against Thunberg, Ocasio-Cortez, and female scientists that I could mention. But all these attacks have the same basic formula. The woman is pretty, stupid, crazy, shrill, should shut up, and if she doesn’t, she is asking for physical or sexual violence or death. The attacks against scientists and activists aren’t new; however, they are becoming more and more sexist as there is less debate about actual science. Director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University Katharine Hayhoe links the increase in sexist attacks against scientists with the rise of white nationalism and the Make America Great Again slogan of Pres. Donald Trump. She said, “When was America great? Back when women were in the kitchen, and others knew their place…that’s what underlies all this, and that’s why there is such a mix between gender and climate denial because it’s all coming from the same perceived threat to identity, and position and power and rights.”[12]
So, does climate denial, and sexism go hand in hand? According to one article, social scientists advise against drawing that conclusion. These scientists believe that it is not just a matter of sexism that drive climate denial and harassment of women who speak out. Instead, these men are ones who hold a hierarchical worldview that is threatened by the climate change movement. These men view increased regulation as upsetting a system that benefits them. The researchers believe that while climate denial and sexism do often occur together, they are part of a culture war and are tools to maintain a status quo of white male supremacy and individualism as opposed to egalitarianism and respect for the people of the world as a single race.[13] This culture war has created a dichotomy in this climate denial is masculine, and eco-friendly is feminine.
If being eco-minded is seen as unmanly and feminine, then we will not be able to affect real change on the industrial, political, or human level. To combat this perception, some researchers have suggested that eco-friendly actions be marketed to men in a way that upholds men’s masculinity, such as using masculine fonts, colors, images, and labeling. One experiment found that men were more likely to use an eco-friendly cleaning product if they received feedback that emphasized their masculinity. Making eco-friendly actions more masculine would convince men that they would not be feminine. With their manhood secure, these men would feel more comfortable going green.[14] The authors of the article wrote, “the green-feminine stereotype inhibits men from taking eco-friendly actions … Make the man feel manly, and he’s more likely to go green.”[15] These efforts include giving groups titles like “Rangers” and using wolves and other predator animals as symbols.
The question we are asked for this anthology is Why? Why are we committed to Goddess Feminism, Activism, and Spirituality? The answer is simple yet very sophisticated. We live in a time where ecological awareness is linked to the feminine, and where sexist and violent rhetoric is the first weapon of choice against those who work for a greener world. In this same world, ecologists speak about our Mother Earth who gives us life and sustenance. And Goddess followers speak of the Great Earth Mother, from whose womb we sprung.
I believe that the solution to sexist and violent rhetoric against climate activists is not making the climate justice movement more masculine. This does not solve the overall problem of gender-based violence against women or the denigration of non-white peoples. It just hides the problem, and it will have a resurgence. Consider this before the election of Pres. Barack Obama, many Americans thought we had worked through our overt racism. There were still small pockets of Klansmen and Fox News would occasionally dog whistle to their audience, but these were part of a last gasp of bigotry. Then with Pres. Obama’s election we work up to people hanging effigies of him in their yards, of N***** being put on signs and shouted in public. The election of Pres. Donald Trump has drawn us even farther back with a rise in anti-Semitic attacks and Nazis marching openly in the streets.
Americans thought the issue of racism had gone away even though there had been no significant civil rights legislation since the Civil Rights act of 1991, and this legislation primarily protected workers from being fired based on their sex, religion, or disability. Racism had not disappeared. Instead, it was lying dormant because the status quo was still in place; there was no over challenge or threat to white supremacy in the politics of the country. And when this change in the hierarchy happened, it caused an explosion of racism and hatred which is getting worse each day.
If we were to take the advice of social scientists and make being eco-friendly a masculine exercise, then yes, we would see an increase in eco-friendly behavior on the part of men. However, the sexist attacks against women in the climate change movement would continue. Women would still be too stupid to talk about the effects of climate change and the global steps needed to reduce and alleviate the impact. All this would do is return us to heterosexual males as the norm thinking. We would be waiting for the next sexist shoe to drop and be afraid the violence would be directed at us.
The call to climate change activism is a call to end sexism and the violent rhetoric that accompanies it. It is a call to combat economic inequality in countries whose population is brown and poor. It is a call to invest in new ideas that would help alleviate global suffering and inspire new industries while leaving the masculine world of coal mining and oil drilling behind us. We are called to activism because it is about protecting all the children of the Mother, even those who seem to hate her. We are called because she is our mother and because we are her children.
(Meet Mago Contributor) Francesca Tronetti, Ph.D.
[1] Crenshaw, Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex, 139.
[2] Pule, “Industrial/breadwinner Masculinities and Climate Change.”
[3] Marcotte, “Misogyny, meet hypocrisy.”
[4] Anshelm and Hultman, “A Green Fatwa,” 84
[5] Brough et.al. “Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly?”
[6] Glen, “The Misogyny of Climate Deniers.”
[7] Deaton, “Why Climate Deniers Target Women.”.
[8] McKeon, “Why climate denial and misogyny go hand in hand.”.
[9] Deaton, “Why Climate Deniers Target Women.”
[10] Glen, “The Misogyny of Climate Deniers.”
[11] Lowe, “This Greta Thunberg Thing is Child Abuse.”
[12] Waldman and Heikkinen, “As Climate Scientists Speak Out, Sexist Attacks Are on the Rise.”
[13] Deaton, “Why Climate Deniers Target Women.”
[14] Brough and Wilkie, “Men Resist Green Behavior as Unmanly.”
[15] Brough and Wilkie, “Men Resist Green Behavior as Unmanly.”