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Claim: Criticism of Climate Messiah Greta Thunberg is Toxic Masculinity

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/13/claim-criticism-of-climate-messiah-greta-thunberg-is-toxic-masculinity/

According to The Conversation, the reason people get angry at the high tax job destroying policies advocated by female green leaders is because we are expressing our toxic masculinity.

Green with rage: Women climate change leaders face online attacks

September 13, 2019 6.44am AEST
Tracey Raney Associate Professor of Politics and Public Administration, Ryerson University
Mackenzie Gregory Master’s Student, Ryerson University

Catherine McKenna, Canada’s environment and climate change minister, recently announced that she’s had to hire security to protect herself and her family while in public. With an election now on, it’s likely she’ll face further abuse in the weeks to come.

McKenna hired security after she was out with her children and a driver rolled down his window and shouted: “F-k you, Climate Barbie.” This sexist taunt was popularized by Conservative MP Gerry Ritz, who once used the slur in reference to McKenna on Twitter.

Maxime Bernier, leader of the Peoples’ Party of Canada, recently tweeted at 16-year-old activist Greta Thunberg, calling her:

“…clearly mentally unstable. Not only autistic, but obsessive-compulsive, eating disorder, depression and lethargy, and she lives in a constant state of fear.”

Following the proposal of the New Green Deal by U.S. congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, critics attacked her intelligence and her personal and professional background. National Review writer Charles Cooke referred to her as an “unmarried, childless bartender” who “somehow has the temerity to fancy herself a congressional representative.” He claimed the New Green Deal she supports is:
“ …an untrammeled Dear Santa letter without form, purpose, borders, or basis in reality.”

Misogyny at work

Climate denialism has also been linked to traditional assumptions of masculinity. Research shows that climate deniers are more likely to adhere to older forms of industrial modern masculinity that helped to push society towards “industrialization, mechanism and capitalism.”

Accordingly, some climate deniers prefer this older form of masculinity over a newer “eco-modern masculinity” of care and compassion for the environment.

A 2019 study found that some men will avoid certain environmental actions, such as recycling or using reusable shopping bags, in order to maintain “an outward-facing heterosexual identity.”

These versions of heterosexual masculinity appear to be predicated upon the domination and exploitation, rather than the preservation, of the environment.

Read more: https://theconversation.com/green-with-rage-women-climate-change-leaders-face-online-attacks-123155

I’m personally disgusted at efforts by climate activists to shut down criticism by accusing their critics of being racists or misogynists.

I do not support whoever allegedly yelled “f-k you climate barbie” at Catherine McKenna in the middle of the street, making someone feel personally unsafe should never be an acceptable part of democratic political discourse.

But the fact is climate activists legitimately deserve criticism. They want us to spend billions, maybe trillions of dollars on their wild ideas, and they want to seize control of untold trillions of dollars worth of assets which don’t belong to them, based on the flimsiest of evidence.

Climate activists suggesting their opponents have bad motives is a transparent and shameless attempt to silence legitimate criticism of their outrageously awful policy ideas.

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