Apparently I’m promulgating “misogynist nastiness” in my articles. As someone who was probably most well-known for #MeToo activism until about a year ago, this is news to me.
Over at Salon, Amanda Marcotte lambasted me as a member of “climate deniers” using “sexist attacks” against Greta Thunberg. There’s just a few problems here. First, I’m a feminist. Second, the article linked specifically calls for conservatives to worry for Thunberg, whom I consider a victim of exploitative activists. And third, I’m a pretty vocal believer in anthropogenic climate change, as well as the tangible harm it poses to humanity.
But unlike Marcotte in her unfounded mischaracterization of my writing, I’ll let her speak for herself. She writes:
Unfortunately, Thunberg was also greeted by a wave of misogynist nastiness, largely coming from allegedly grown men in both Europe and the United States. The attacks on Thunberg were in the same vein as those on Ocasio-Cortez, accusing her of being too stupid to know what she’s talking about and denying that her voice is one worth honoring. A writer for the conservative Washington Examiner claimed that Thunberg is a victim of “child abuse” and that her mother “pimps their kid out,” explicitly drawing a line between forced sex work and climate activism.
These kinds attacks have no basis in fact. Thunberg’s views on climate change align with those of better than 97% of climate scientists. Thunberg is no helpless puppet, but a sharp and remarkably passionate young person who has sparked an international youth movement of climate activism with millions of participants. In order to give weight to these attacks, these critics rely on stereotypes painting women, especially young women, as infantile and idiotic. Without this kind of misogyny, they’d have nothing.
How convenient that I am just a genderless “writer” implicitly lumped in with “allegedly grown men,” rather than a woman many years younger than Ocasio-Cortez. At best, Marcotte didn’t actually read my piece, which would just make her lazy. At worst, she read it and willfully withheld my gender, suggesting she is dishonest.
Given Thunberg’s multiple mental health struggles, she’s especially vulnerable to political exploitation at her age, but she’s certainly not unique. As I’ve previously written, in a piece linked in my article on Thunberg no less, platforming children as authorities on topics as complex as climate change and gun violence is rarely ethical.
Sure, the Parkland kids deserved our time and attention as they explained how they reported the shooter multiple times to authorities and still, the system failed them. But why should policy makers or the public give one iota of credence to David Hogg’s fact-free opining on gun control laws.
Buying an AR-15 shouldn’t be easier than voting.
— David Hogg (@davidhogg111) September 2, 2019
Furthermore adults propping up kids know exactly what they’re doing: using sympathetic but vulnerable children to espouse the preferred opinions of said adults, opening them up to big-boy criticism but then crying foul when other adults rightfully comment on or oppose their policy positions.
It wasn’t fair for liberals to do that to David Hogg. It wasn’t fair for conservatives to do that to Kyle Kashuv. And it’s certainly not fair for climate activists and the media to do it to Greta Thunberg, who isn’t a Harvard-bound 17 year-old, but a 16 year-old dealing with a myriad of mental health issues that have a documented history of obstructing her daily life.
No, Greta Thunberg’s mom isn’t making her prepubescent daughter pose naked in men’s magazines. No serious reader could even come close to concluding that I’m saying propping up the girl as a political tool is remotely as bad as doing so for sexual purposes. But is it irresponsible, and for similar reasons, to shove a particularly vulnerable child into the spotlight while knowing the risks of fame? Yes, it is, and it’s sad that Marcotte refuses to evaluate that concern for what it’s really worth.
