Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton defended child environmental activist Greta Thunberg from what she called sexist attacks from people who disagree with her.
“I was so appalled to read about a sticker that had been made, depicting Greta Thunberg, the young woman who’s been trying to sound the alarm about climate change, being literally subjected to a sexual assault,” Clinton said Sunday on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS.
“I understand that we’re still fighting over climate change,” she continued, “but to fight by objectifying and having a picture that demonstrated a level of violence toward this young 16-year-old girl, who has every right in the world to stand up and say, you know, world, you’re not doing what needs to be done, that’s misogynistic.”
Clinton was referencing a cartoon sticker that was reportedly circulated among workers on oil fields belonging to a Canadian gas company X-Site Energy Services. The sticker depicted a man grabbing a girl with the name “Greta” on her back by the pigtails from behind.
“They are starting to get more and more desperate,” Thunberg responded in a tweet last week. “This shows that we’re winning.”
They are starting to get more and more desperate…
This shows that we’re winning. https://t.co/NLOZL331X9— Greta Thunberg (@GretaThunberg) February 29, 2020
Clinton pointed to attacks waged against Thunberg, 17, who made international headlines for a passionate speech she delivered before a group of world leaders gathered at the United Nations in September, as an example of a “double standard” present in American society relating to how women are treated by their detractors in public life.
“I think that the unconscious biases that exist in our society, in any society … that still is at work and the double standard, particularly in public life and not only in political public life but business life, the life of the media, and the arts, and so much else,” Clinton said. “Yes, there is some absolute misogyny that certainly lives online.”
The former first lady, who lost the 2016 election to President Trump, said she would “love” to see one of the leading Democratic candidates, both white men over the age of 70, choose a woman as a running mate.
“I’m going to let whoever ends up being the nominee make that decision,” Clinton said. “There are so many factors that go into it.”
