As conservatives launch sexist attacks on activist Greta Thunberg, a new study shows disturbingly chauvinistic attitudes about protecting the environment.
September 1, 2019

Greta Thunberg is an amazing person, by any measure.

The Swedish sixteen year old sailed across the Atlantic Ocean to bring her eco-activism to the teens of the United States and Canada, leading protests in New York City, and taking quite a lot of sneering from men for doing it.

In response to the cruelness, Thunberg revealed that she has Asperger's and that her passion for saving the planet has been life-changing.

Just take a minute to imagine how small and mean your character must be to pick on a child with Asperger's because you don't like what she's saying.

It's not dissimilar to the same scorn heaped on freshman representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when she pushed her support for the Green New Deal. She became the lightning rod upon which the bulk of insults and contempt were focused, despite the fact that there were 15 congresspeople supporting it.

Turns out, there is quite a bit of misogyny fueling climate change denialism.

Researchers Jonas Anshelm and Martin Hultman of Chalmers found that sexists saw climate change activism as part of a larger group of social changes — including feminism — that threatens "a certain kind of modern industrial society built and dominated by their form of masculinity."

Other research shows that American men find environmentalism to be inherently feminine and therefore emasculating, and view being deliberately anti-environmental as a way to feel more masculine.

There's another reason that climate-change denialists so readily turn to sexism: They don't really have anything else to work with.

I guess it's hard to get these guys to care about protecting Mother Earth when they have such clear mother issues.

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