WOMEN WILL SAVE EARTH IN SPITE OF MASCULINITY
Vitriolic climate-change deniers tend to be older white men, Nina Munteanu writes.
I was recently accused of fearmongering and missing the facts by a person on Facebook when I revealed the environmental dangers of using (and abusing) single-use plastics (specifically Styrofoam). Earlier that day, a gentleman called me an anarchist after I promoted individual responsibility over government and corporate responsibility on the issue of bottled water in Canada.
These accusations upset me — I’m a scientist, after all, and truth is No. 1 — then I realized that they were part of my journey toward activism to save this planet, and humanity along with it. I did have the facts, and they were scary. And, in revealing them, I had succeeded in breaking people’s inertia and had challenged them to think outside their comfort zone. I had created fear in them and I had created anarchy in their ordered world. This prompted a strong defensive response. The more intense their defence, the more I’d upset their comfortable inertia.
That is what happens when you break through a hegemony or dogma and challenge people to re-evaluate and change their actions or habits.
So, perhaps I am inciting fear. Fear in those who have become or choose to remain too complacent in this planetary and existential crisis. And perhaps I am rather an anarchist, disrupting an ineffective system and entrenched self-belief.
But that comes at a price.
I’m thinking of young climate activist Greta Thunberg, who recently captured the attention of the world in her brave sail across the Atlantic to attend the UN’S Youth Climate Summit and other meetings in the U.S. and Canada. Earlier, at the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, Thunberg delivered her now-famous speech:
“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people, to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”
In a recent poll, one out of three Germans said that Thunberg has changed their views on climate change. But that, too, has come at a price.
A tsunami of rage and vitriol was unleashed by conservative men at this young and brave girl during her 15-day trip across the Atlantic. Their attacks grew increasingly more personal and vulgar as she gained world attention. A multimillionaire Brexit activist tweeted on the likelihood of a freak accident destroying her boat. Others like Australian columnist Andrew Bolt personally attacked Thunberg with reprehensible and boorish remarks about her age and mental health.
Andrew Mitrovica’s opinion piece entitled Who is Afraid of Greta Thunberg? provides eloquent summary: “Of course, the marauding swarm of vitriolic right-wing climate-change deniers see Thunberg — not how the prophetic Zinn envisioned her — but as a tiny, pretentious zealot who threatens the existing order. Their order. Their comforts. Their traditional ‘way of life.’”
Greta responded in a brave and wonderful tweet.
In his August 2019 article, “The misogyny of climate deniers,” Martin Gelin tells us that the prominently older white men leading these attacks on Thunberg — and by association, other prominent female climate activists such as Alexandria Ocasio-cortez — “is consistent with a growing body of research linking gender reactionaries to climate-denialism.”
Scientists Jonas Anshelm and Martin Hultman in the journal NORMA reported a major theme: “For climate skeptics … it was not the environment that was threatened, it was a certain kind of modern industrial society built and dominated by their form of masculinity.”
Climate activism — largely led by strong females — appears to threaten gender identity of conservative males. Right-wing nationalism, anti-feminism, and climate denialism appear inextricably linked. I would add that their lack of respect for Indigenous peoples is by default part of the package, given that Indigenous peoples are so tied to the land and the ecosystem (being destroyed). One need only look to what is happening in Brazil for an appalling example of this kind of male bullying.
Climate science for skeptics becomes feminized and viewed as “oppositional to assumed entitlements of masculine primacy,” Hultman and Paul Pule write in the 2019 book Climate Hazards, Disasters, and Gender Ramifications.” Hultman identifies a set of values and behaviours connected to a form of masculinity identified with industrial patriarchy. These males “see the world as separated between humans and nature. They believe humans are obliged to use nature and its resources to make products out of them.
In the 2017 article in Scientific American entitled “Men resist green behavior as unmanly,” researchers Aaron Brough and James Wilkie argue that “women have long surpassed men in the arena of environmental action — across age groups and countries, females tend to live a more eco-friendly lifestyle. Compared to men, women litter less, recycle more, and leave a smaller carbon footprint.” The study showed that men linked eco-friendliness with femininity and a risk to their masculinity.
These findings, coupled with a natural inclination for anti-feminism by older white conservative males, places them at the centre of a major reactionary backlash against climate action. When fear powers motivation, we must counter with something stronger: hope through action, compassion, and community. Again, women are in great abundance of these.
“Keep inspiring and organizing,” says Ocasio-cortez to young Thunberg. “We’re going to save the planet. All of us, together.”
We are all, after all, “the mother.” So, while the old guard of conservative men obsesses in saving their egos and identities in this crisis, and put up walls of vitriol, it’s up to us, women, to really save the planet.
So, why will women save the planet? Because “Mother knows best.”
Time for a paradigm shift. We’re not in the 1950s anymore.
Climate activism ... appears to threaten gender identity of conservative males.