Camilla Nelson and Meg Vertigan comment on the stereotypical labels deployed against the young climate activist.
Greta Thunberg after speaking at the youth climate strike in Battery Park, New York. (Peter Foley/EPA)
By Camilla Nelson and Meg Vertigan
The Conversation
Detractors have dismissed Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg – a Nobel Prize nominee – as mentally ill, hysterical and a millennial weirdo after she pleaded with world officials last week to address the climate crisis.
Here, the authors explain the stereotypical labels deployed by critics to undermine Thunberg’s call to action, which the activist herself has described as “too loud for people to handle.”
Camilla Nelson, Associate Professor in Media, University of Notre Dame
Greta Thunberg obviously scares some men silly. The bullying of the teenager by conservative middle-aged men has taken on a grim, almost hysterical edge. And some of them are reaching deep into the misogynist’s playbook to divert focus from her message.
It is not a rhetorical accident that critics of Thunberg, nearly 17, almost always call her a “child”. This infantilisation is invariably accompanied by accusations of emotionality, hysteria, mental disturbance, and an inability to think for herself – stereotypically feminine labels which are traditionally used to silence women’s public speech, and undermine their authority.
In Australia, Herald Sun columnist Andrew Bolt has called Thunberg “freakishly influential … with many mental disorders.” Sky News commentator Chris Kenny described her as a “hysterical teenager” who needs to be cared for.
Overseas, male commentators have used similar pejorative terms – describing her as a “mentally-ill Swedish child,” unstable and a “millenarian weirdo.” One claimed Thunberg needed a “spanking;” another likened her activism to “medieval witchcraft.”
Obviously these men find Thunberg triggering. But why?
(Shawn Thew/EPA)
Read more:
View from The Hill: What might Lily and Abbey say to Scott Morrison about Greta Thunberg?
At a deep level, the language of climate denialism is tied up with a form of masculine identity predicated on modern industrial capitalism – specifically, the Promethean idea of the conquest of nature by man, in a world especially made for men.
By attacking industrial capitalism, and its ethos of politics as usual, Thunberg is not only attacking the core beliefs and world view of certain sorts of men, but also their sense of masculine self-worth. Male rage is their knee-jerk response.
Thunberg did not try to be “nice” when she confronted world leaders at the United Nations. She did not defer or smile. She did not attempt to make anybody feel comfortable.
U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted: “She seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future. So nice to see!” Happiness here aligns itself with conformity, and an unspoken idea that women and children are expected to be docile and complacent.
But in reality, Thunberg is cutting through – rather than displaying – emotionalism. What certain kinds of men do not wish to acknowledge is that asking for action on climate change is entirely rational.
Read more:
‘We will never forgive you’: youth is not wasted on the young who fight for climate justice
Meg Vertigan, Lecturer in English & Writing at the University of Newcastle
As Greta Thunberg’s speech to the UN climate summit reverberates across the world, claims by critics over her mental state are alarming. Thunberg has described herself as having “Asperger’s,” an autism spectrum disorder, and describes it as her “superpower.”
But politicians and broadcasters appear to have confused the disorder with mental illness — a term used throughout history to label and potentially stigmatize “difficult” women who are told they need bed rest, medication or incarceration. Even today, doctors are more likely to diagnose women than men with depression, even when they present with identical symptoms.
Advocates for people with autism have pointed out the disorder is not linked to mental illness.
Yet commentator Andrew Bolt wrote of Thunberg, “I have never seen a girl so young and with so many mental disorders treated by so many adults as a guru.”
“She seems chronically attracted to apocalyptic visions, to fear,” he wrote, describing her as “chronically anxious and disturbed.”
Not-for-profit organization Beyond Blue defines anxiety as stress or worry which occurs “without any particular reason or cause.” Therefore by diagnosing Thunberg with anxiety, men are pathologizing Thunberg’s concern about the environment and dismissing her fears as baseless and the result of mental illness.
History is littered with examples of this. Former Coalition minister George Brandis in 2015 famously called Labor frontbencher Penny Wong “shrill” and “hysterical” after she interjected during his Senate address – implying her comments were due to feminine mental instability.
So too, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison suggested climate change fears were a type of pathology. Following Thunberg’s UN speech he declared that the climate debate subjected children to “needless anxiety” and suggested they needed more “context and perspective” on the issue. “We’ve got to let kids be kids,” he said.
Here, Morrison is implying that Thunberg’s anxiety is somehow contagious. This is offensive to people with anxiety disorders — and offensive to passionate and vocal women.
Camilla Nelson is associate professor in media at the University of Notre Dame Australia and Meg Vertigan is a lecturer in English and writing and an academic adviser at the University of Newcastle.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
My older brother (lives in California) say Climate Change is a hoax. I said ti him, “You believe in God without a shred of evidence, but you think 11.000 scientists are being fooled about this? But more important, do you want to take a chance that it is not real?”
He is pissed off at PG&E blackouts so I told him I don’t know of a single fire caused by a solar panel falling off the roof of a house.
I have always said that if Jesus appeared today in the United States we would crucify him over again in a couple of months. The control over the media and the government by the wealthy would surely cause another crisis for justice just like before. The sheer corruption of our global capitalism with the media towing the line to ignore the coming climate apocalypse combined with the propagandists, media hit men and government destruction of science and its role to inform us pales in comparison to the corruption of the word of God to turn it into a profit center in ancient Israel. Back then it was a battle over local control over a local religion in order to enrich local groups occupying a tiny fraction of the earths surface namely the very tiny nation of Israel. Imagine that the entire Bible was written about events on such a small plot of land that when compared to the urban landmass of the planet today Israel is only 0.1% of that tiny fraction of urbanized areas on the whole planet. All of the Bible was based on what went on in this teeny tiny little place when the effect of the human race on the planet was insignificant.
So try to imagine what this young woman is facing as she speaks truth to power that is on the order of billions of times more massive, funded, fueled by modern technology fine tuned by corporations and government agencies that cross trillions of dollars across their lanes and extremely capable, due to technological advances, in refining its propaganda techniques in a new age of electronic global telecommunication that has evolved to become the most pervasive and effective omnipresent and omnipotent force for defeating protesters the planet has ever seen since humans first scratched a symbol on a rock.
Even now as we blame grumpy old white men that have a quarrel with upstarts who speak truth to power this is rapidly becoming just a side show as AI takes over. If you need to ask will the robots be friendly the answer is NO! Bots are already pervasive threats on blog sites as their automated responses obfuscate, obscure, threaten, attack, demean, insult, belittle, humiliate, blame, discredit, deny, lie, lie, lie, their electronic asses off. The bots are winning hearts and minds of gullible humans as they attack posters with canned responses like old fashioned human trolls but they are actually robot trolls that harass those who express an interest in saving the planet with a host of prepared responses worthy of the best climate change denier and then some.
There is a new war that is not publicized but is very real. This new war is not a “War on Christmas” or a fake news story about this or that BS something that we are bombarded with on every news channel. This war is a war on people waged by a mixture of humans and also the robots humans create that troll the internet in order to minimize the effect and maximize their control over any person who has access to the global population at large. The bots, trolls and right wing funded bloggers can now effectively search out every web post and engage protesters in every possible method of communication fighting Greta Thunberg’s passionate appeals to do something or anything about the coming global crisis of climate change.
It is simply astonishing that the micro-regional crisis over the control of Israel by the money men controllers of the status quo in ancient Israel that led to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ has grown recently into the control over everyone in the current climate crisis where we are all seen as heretics including a young woman who is bearing the brunt of the weight of giant corporations who are attacking her in order to preserve and continue their march toward extinction of all of us based on their outdated and uninformed business models.
We need a new Bible to guide us through this era.
Please let us reverse this self destructive trend and all agree we do not want to die because we were deceived by a computer. Please let us recognize that the voice of a young human is making more sense for the future of our planet than all of the giant global fossil fuel industries and corporations put together including their huge technological advantage to deceive us.
The misogynists energized by Ms. Thunberg and virtually all woman with an expressed opinion are the unpalatable humans we must tolerate in our lives. And the journalists attacking her are chained to the gates of the industrialists whose actions have born us leaders like Greta (out of our true necessity). But these rabid attack dogs and henchmen of the military-industrialists are the ones who make her and her message strong.
I fear the dangerous ones.
There are those (e.g. the elite and Hollywood stars) who will weight Ms Thunberg and her message down with fame and fortune. Testing her ethics and pressuring her “handlers” (parents, trusted advisors, etc) with money and bling. And there are those who, in the name of the mission and message, will radicalize it, and discredit if not misdirect it. Their two agendas are base and sectarian, and flow from the shadows to devour the spirit and fatten themselves as they feed at the tables of the sincere.
Apologize previous post wrong version:
Its 11,000 scientists not 1,100.
Alliance of 11,000 World Scientists.
Further comment re Australian PM statement that he wishes to make protest ‘of lack of climate change action’, illegal and punishable. The diabolical confluence of corporate marketing, the pentecostal movement and the power of being a conservative PM.
So we dance with the directors of Exxon and make laws based on belief, after all said and done ‘short term power and money is all worth it even though we become extinct in the process’?
Where is the name calling of the corporate media toward this horror of horrors wanting to lead us towards human extinction? Using science as our criteria, mad zealot is an accurate description.
No we save the name calling for those trying to prevent human extinction, like Greta. Perverse and inaccurate name calling, at that.
The perverse corruption by power and money of the now fraud corporate media.
Also a comment on the 1% for their intractable refusal to join the 99% in their fight to combat climate change.
Got this from a physicist’s article on ‘Counterpunch’: Call it addiction or just plain evil or perhaps a mixture of evil and playing dice with planetary forces:
The 1% use climate change to kill off most of the 99% and leave the 1% with complete control of the remaining livable areas of ‘their’ planet. Hoping beyond present probabilities that carbon removal and technology will finally save them?
Climate Scientist James Hansen states that carbon removal even at its optimal realisation will still require leaving fossil fuels in the ground, check it out on his website.
Anybody with a more credible reason for the 1% intransigence?
Good article and I agree. It’s stunning to see the level of vitriol and contempt people have for her. And in my experience it can come from across the political spectrum.
One peculiar one, whether tied or not to misogyny, is the ageism. This criticism usually takes the form of “adults must be coaching her, there’s no way these are her own ideas”. It’s infantalizing as you note, but I think some part is a bit of jealousy.
An “I was stupid and ignorant at her age and it took me well into adulthood for me to realize the truth about things”, so “obviously” she can’t have figured out as much as she has at her age. And this can take place even without jealousy, more myopeia and solipsism–a refusal to believe that someone else can have vastly different experiences and outlooks as they did. Or grow quicker or slower.
It’s all disgusting to watch. A lot of these people literally hate her, for incredibly petty reasons. I can’t deal with such people anymore.
“You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words.” Thus spake the children of Libya, Iraq, Iran, Syria, Iran, Veneyueala et al.
Afraid of their own impotence??? Envious? Recognizing how narrow minded they are? Afraid of being left by the wayside…where they actually should be left? Male chauvinism? Worried about their stock market investments?
her detractors, like the honey-mouthed corporate shill othebomber, know what side their bread is buttered on….
I am 87 years of age and wholeheartedly agree with Greta. She and her generation are a light in the wilderness we have been lead into by a succession of incompetent and pompous politicians like Bolt and his ilk. Bravo Greta, carry on with your crusade and let us hope you succeed where our politicians repeatedly fail to even understand the crisis
Good on you, Colin!!! It is this “elite” that is so afraid of their well-being going up in smoke. Our well-being isn’t their concern.
Maybe it’s a moot point but there are plenty of right-wing women saying the exact same shit towards Greta. Maybe the focus shouldn’t be (constantly) on how horrible men are and “toxic masculinity” and “mansplaining” (just stick “woman” or “fem/femme” in front of every word with a negative connotation, it would be called out as sexist in a heartbeat). I think this article is being slightly disingenuous or slightly misfocused on the real issue being the divisive politics and the “truth is what I think it is VS what I am learning, and getting educated about” type of mindset out there. Good article, as a man I just think we need to watch going too heavy on the “manspreading!” “mansplaining!” type of shit. Just because I have a dick doesn’t mean I’m a bad person, just because I’m trying to explain something doesn’t mean I’m “mansplaining.” etc.
PS: Go Greta! She’s a badass.
I’m one of those men who has seen GT for the sum total of 20 seconds. To me, and I dare say to many other people, the “how dare you” snippet from the UN appeared slightly deranged.
I’d bet that this one snippet was selected by some agency and packaged for the MSM.
So who is to blame:
– the propaganda victims? (according to this artice, men as a distinct species); or
– the MSM? or
– the agency behind it all?
Greta’s appeal is that she does not hedge her views and speaks with complete conviction. Because she is young, she has the audacity of youth. An elderly environmentalist, James Lovelock, who brought us the Gaia “hypothesis”, has this same youthful tendency to deliver shocking pronouncements, such as the likelihood that 3 billion people will die as a result of our failure to develop sustainable accommodations with the natural world. What Greta asks the world to do is impossible as a practical matter which makes Lovelock’s prediction all the more probable.
We all know we are in dire straights. We do not have a shared vision of our collective future, either nationally or globally. We have climate denial such as Trump’s brainless assessment of reality and we are all tied to the paradigm of unlimited economic “growth” in a “free market” because this is the source of our creature comforts at present. It is just not possible that we can declare Jimmy Carter’s “moral equivalent of war” in our situation and overnight switch to sustainable energy sources and a renewable/recyclable industrial model. We should never admit defeat, of course, but that is no guarantee of victory ahead. This is a very big ship and it’s difficult to even slow it down, let alone reverse its direction. The hidden iceberg awaits.
Greta makes us uncomfortable for her laser-like focus on the environmental crisis because the problem is overwhelming to think about. So she knows what happens to messengers bearing bad news. She is attacked from every angle the denier’s propaganda machine can imagine. She is remarkably resilient for one so young. Tough. She’s not whining about misogyny or name-calling. Crusaders never are deterred. They take strength from the abuse.
Having worked with kids all my life, including 25 years in elementary education (Masters in Reading/Education), and been active in the environmental movement et. al. for over half a century), I am 100% confident in saying these old white goons are exposing themselves as ignorant, scared shitless, undeveloped twits who should start over, with a good Kindergarten teacher and psychotherapist.
I regret giving them as much attention as I am here AND would gladly put any number of my former, brighter 6th graders in place of Trump or most politicians, with Greta in charge of the EPA.
Good points. The denial is more than Trump. We are captives of a system of our own making which cannot turn away. Our separateness, our superiority has gotten the best of us. Science seems to have the answers, but science has brought us to this point with devastating technologies of mass slaughter, as has our imperial civilization which has attempted to dominate a breathing, living planet. But we’re now up against a wall (not a border wall) but one that is inescapable. We can’t go to war with nature, or have we already and so here we are. Trapped like rats on a raff in the middle of an ocean.
Greta is simply one of us, screaming at all of us, but we know that there is as you note not collective way out, no exit as Sartre would say. We must forgo what got us here, we must let go and join our natural existence on this small planet.
Hold on there. James Lovelock has disavowed his previous contentions about rapid climate change. He still believes the earth is warming but at a much slower rate. The earth has been warming since the little ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Carbon dioxide makes up 0.04% of the earth’s atmosphere which is a figure that is strangely lacking in these discussions. It is a figure, in fact, that has been disingenuously ignored.
CO2 will continue to rise. China and India will see to that. There is nothing we in the West can do about that. Oh, we can give up our power plants; we can freeze in the dark.
Greta’s arrival on the world scene has bought me new closeness to my peers and family.
For this I am deeply grateful.
We must stop ignoring the younger folks – it is their future that is at stake, it is their future we are messing up. Too many don’t like to hear what she has to say…but said it must.
Seems like everything in life conspires to trample the idealism of youth. The next ten years are going to challenge everything she now thinks and believes. There was a great day in my early 30’s when I was finally able to clearly evaluate the ideals I held at 18 and decide that they were healthy and correct and that the best course of action as I continued in life was th embrace and live them. T will disappear from the news cycle soon, I hope her ideals survive the collision with adulthood.
No, not her ideals colliding with adulthood. Her ideals colliding with a vicious capitalism that only knows “me first”.
Much of the negative commentary about Greta that I have seen or read consists of ads hominem attacks, criticise the person not the message. As such it says more about the writers than about GT. as I write 80 bushfires are burning in NSW and Southern Queensland with descritiins bordering on the apocalyptic. If our leaders can’t see the truth in Thunberg’s words about climate change we need to get rid of them.
There are many “leaders” we should have gotten rid of…long before GT came on the world stage.
“We need to focus every inch of our being on climate change because if we fail to do so then all our achievements and progress have been for nothing. And all that will remain of our political leaders legacy will be the greatest failure of human history and they will be remembered as the greatest villains of all time.”
Greta Thunberg
No matter how viciously she is attacked her critics will be remembered as the greatest villains.
I totally agree with every word of this article. Every. WORD.
I’m 74-years-old, I have lived a life of antiwar activism, as I was an Army medic in Viet Nam. The short speech that Greta Thunberg gave at the UN Climate Summit on September 23, 2019, was THE most powerful speech I have ever heard in my life. She “is” the canary in the mine shaft, she “is” Earth’s whistleblower ! Greta Thunberg is a profound gift to the world! Blessed are the peacemakers…
Mike Hastie
Portland, Oregon
November 8, 2019
Australian Andrew Bolt:
Mr. Bolt is truly uninformed—and a real life DOLT from the blue. Another uninformed man whose pay apparently depends on denial of the growing Climate Crisis which can be plainly seen by the who have eyes to see and ears to hear—–but apparently a working brain is also necessary.
Greta is an amazing teenager who sees more clearly than those adults whose focus appears to be on money and power. Aspergers makes her extremely focused, and she fortunately has a family who truly recognizes how unique she is and who do support her 100%. The world is fortunate that Greta has awoken so many in the world to the nightmare of the Climate Crisis. And so, to support Greta in what she says, I say to you Mr. Andrew Bolt, “HOW DARE YOU!” Sometimes righteous anger truly is both righteous and necessary!
Ms. Thunberg is truly a gift to the planet. Unfortunately much of the planet criticizes, demeans, or disregards this prophet.
Especially those who see their fortunes threatened if we really get serious about toning down climate change. Bigger, faster, more of anything has proven detrimental to Earth’s fortunes.
Excellent
I highly recommend a reading of the short story, “The Yellow Wall-Paper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who lived from 1860-1935. It is a chilling story about the issue of one woman’s infantilization and veritable imprisonment by her physician husband and her subsequent nervous breakdown. The narrator of the story is the woman herself of whom we never learn her name, which is telling. For anyone who adores literature from this time period when many women were seen as inept, silly, overly emotional and “hysterical” beings instead of competent, intelligent people in their own right, this is a must-read. Thank you CN, for publishing this piece here about the brave and bright Greta.
We’re ALL anxious because white male psychopaths like Bolt are in charge of the world and have us on the brink of planetary destruction with their greed and lust for power. Denial is not a river in Egypt. Mr. Bolt is a nut.
Regarding Greta, the women on Fox, CNN and MSNBC & others writing in the “papers of record” aren’t arguing with the men on Fox, CNN or MSNBC, et al. Why is that? The women in the ranks of the misogynists should take an extra degree of heat for their silence. The men’s idiocy needs to be challenged on the spot but, the women seem to be there to reinforce it.
Much of the climate denial rhetoric aimed at Thunberg is disgustingly misogynistic. But the main motive is still overall delusions of superiority based on amount of economic power not just that based on gender. I am sure there are many women executives in corporate America who hate what Thunberg is trying to achieve because it interferes with their desire to own and run the world but express it in other terms.
Concur, a similar kerfuffle was raised when news about Lockheed CEO & VP , Northrup Grumman CEO , and General Dynamics CEO were all women. All 3 Corporations profit of War &/Death.
Yes, it’s about economic power, but they would not be saying these things to a 16-year old boy. She is easier to attack because she is female, which is pure misogyny.
We’re it a 16 year old boy, Hillary Clinton would have said “ Can’t we just drone this guy?”
If you only reference men, the real, life threatening problem ( climate change) is cleverly obfuscated.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi
Thankyou CN and authors for a much needed reality check on the criticism of GretaT.
After her brilliant speech at UN I noted with alarm (and I read almost exclusively alternative media) the abusive criticisms of mostly her person and not the issues.
I live in NZ where the AU owned NZ media is mostly more shoddy than its overseas equivalents.
The language of description (UN speech and Greta) by so called respected journalists and presenters were that of a 12 year old child. Her speech put them completely to shame – it was a role reversal, Greta the adult telling the children of corporate money what their addiction ‘to power and money’ did not want to hear.
This alarming response of corporate media is evidence of how much the neoliberal financial system is very much part of the denial and lack of action towards stopping the extinction of a live-able planet – call it addiction or institutionalized destructive evil.
Delusional idiots who buy into our super power mythology, believing they KNOW everything and their supreme knowledge and power endows them with a magic shield of protection just can’t stand to have their world view challenged by the simple truth Thunberg shares with us.
Her distress and rage at how very stupid we are to be ignoring the looming catastrophic events are evidence of her sanity.
They expect people who don’t think like them to shut up and be quiet instead of speaking up.
Their triumphalism will get its day of reckoning and hopefully before the havoc washes over them they will have a moment to recognize their folly.
Meanwhile Greta’s trying to stand up and do something before all hell breaks loose, without getting much help from a world that is paralyzed by illusions.
Like to recognise what Alan Ross and others mention above: I would have liked above authors to emphasis more the destructive corporate neoliberal financial system behind that misogyny, because that is what shapes that overall criticism of Greta. Not denying the misogyny mixed up with the political/economic.
Greta is right ‘the world is on fire’.
Why not give her recognition of the approaching planet appocalypse.
Because the corporates would sooner hide behind blaming and abusing Greta.
Preventing climate disaster will mean changing the present ‘business model value system’ from ‘profit above all else’ to ‘sustainability and human wellbeing above all else’: from mostly a small group of rich corporate oligarchs controlling the world, to democratic recognition of the UN Charter of Human Rights, national soverignty, the UN and International Law.
A massive transition in a short time, bits and pieces are in place but the corporate oligarchs run the show and it is their investments that are causing ‘the threat of human extinction’.
Roughly The 1% v 99%.
And climate change is real, not just the warnings of scientists of IPCC and the Alliance of 1100 World Scientists, and the warnings of the US Pentagon but the whistleblower who revealed the document that coveredup Exxonn’s research that fossil fuels were toxic for the human condition.
Sail on harvest moon. If I may say so, lets make it more than hope, lets make it real.
Correction its 11,000 scientists not 1,100.
Alliance of 11,000 World Scientists.
Further comment re Australian PM statement that he wishes to make protest ‘of lack of climate change action’, illegal and punishable. The diabolical confluence of corporate marketing, the pentecostal movement and the power of being a conservative PM.
So we dance with the directors of Exxon and make laws based on belief, after all said and done ‘short term power and money is all worth it even though we become extinct in the process’?
Where is the name calling of the corporate media toward this horror of horrors wanting to lead us towards human extinction? Using science as our criteria, mad zealot is an accurate description.
No we save the name calling for those trying to prevent human extinction, like Greta. Perverse and inaccurate name calling, at that.
The perverse corruption by power and money of the now fraud corporate media.
Also a comment on the 1% for their intractable refusal to join the 99% in their fight to combat climate change. Got this from a physicist’s article on ‘Counterpunch’: Call it addiction or just plain evil or perhaps the 1% are playing dice with planetary forces and will use climate change to kill off most of the 99% and leave the 1% with complete control of the remaining livable areas of ‘their’ planet. Hoping beyond probabilities that carbon removal and technology will finally save them?
Climate Scientist James Hansen states that carbon removal even at its optimal realisation will still require leaving fossil fuels in the ground, check it out on his website.
Anybody with a more credible reason for the 1% intransience? a mixture of evil and playing dice with planetary forces: The 1% use climate change to kill off most of the 99% and leave the 1% with complete control of the remaining livable areas of ‘their’ planet. Hoping beyond present probabilities that carbon removal and technology will finally save them?
Climate Scientist James Hansen states that carbon removal even at its optimal realisation will still require leaving fossil fuels in the ground, check it out on his website.
Anybody with a more credible reason for the 1% intransigence?