There’s nothing I can add to the self-parody that is this paper. I will get the obligatory citations out of the way and then just paste extensive quotes from the open access paper. Let the hilarity ensue. For masochists who wish to read the paper in its entirety use this link.
ORIGINAL ARTICLE | Open Access 
Misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change
First published: 18 May 2023 | https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12347
Abstract
Globally, democratic politics are under attack from Electorally Legitimated Misogynist Authoritarian (ELMA) leaders who successfully use misogyny as a political strategy and present environmental concern in feminine and inferior terms. The ascendancy of such projects raise questions involving socioeconomic structures, political communication, and the psychological underpinnings of people’s attitudes. We offer misogyny, conceptualized in a specific way – not simply as hatred or disgust for women, but as a way of accessing a gendered hierarchy whereby that which is labeled “feminine” is perceived as inferior, devalued, and amenable to be attacked – as a relevant transmission mechanism in how ELMAs like Trump may connect with public opinion by systematically investigating the interplay between misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change in the context of the United States. Using a survey methodology (N = 314) and up-to-date questionnaires, we provide a concrete empirical underpinning for recent analytical and theoretical work on the complexity of misogyny. We analyze how misogynist and authoritarian attitudes correlate with climate change, adding to the literature on opposition to climate change policy. An additional exploratory aspect of our study concerning US voter preferences clearly indicates that Trump supporters are more misogynist, more authoritarian, and less concerned with the environment.
And so, it is 100% clear that there is this toxic package or bundle of right-wing ideology, nationalism, exceptionalism, racism, sexism, anti-immigrantism, and anti-climate-change that goes with it. That is what drives many of them.
[Katharine Hayhoe, interviewed by Bjork-James & Barla, 2021, p. 389]
Gender is a game-changer, like the Archimedean fulcrum, with the potential to shift economic logics from profit-exploiting systems of injustice to functional praxes of life-affirming care for ecosystems, human others, and planetary co-habitants.
[Glazebrook, 2015, p. 126]
Sustainability is considered to be a ‘feminine’ project.
[in Cavaliere & Ingram, 2021, p. 13]
Climate change is a man-made problem and must have a feminist solution.
[Mary Robinson, in Allen et al., 2019]
INTRODUCTION
Many contemporary democracies are under severe strain from right-wing majoritarian political projects, and these are headed by electorally legitimated misogynist authoritarians (henceforth, ELMAs) who continue to command significant public support in spite of their many contradictions and policy failures. As Kaul (2021) argued, ELMAs come to power claiming a monopoly on nationalism denouncing their critics as anti-national, and claim to challenge neoliberalism, while benefitting from crony capitalism. Their exclusivist majoritarian nationalisms are both neoliberal and nationalist, and result in perverse outcomes for human security. Even so, these projects continue to draw upon support from the public in multiple democracies; the ELMA project examples are many and range the gamut from Bolsonarismo in Brazil, Modification in India, Dutertismo in Philippines, Erdoganism in Turkey, and Trumpism in the United States. Especially, Trump exemplifies such leadership and hence here we focus on the United States, but we expect that the main arguments that we lay out here may also be salient in several other countries that are the focus of our continuing work.
For social scientists, the ascendancy of such projects raises confounding questions involving socioeconomic structures, political communication, and the psychological underpinnings of people’s attitudes. The purpose of this article is to offer misogyny, conceptualized in a specific way, as a relevant transmission mechanism in how ELMAs like Trump may connect with public opinion by systematically investigating the interplay between misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change. As a prelude to presenting our own survey findings, we bring together the conceptual and empirical research on the subject so far, bridging literatures across disciplines, particularly psychology and politics. The extant psychology research informs us of the extent and existence of beliefs, the conceptual political work offers clues as to why such beliefs might be held. Bridging these subsets of work that have generally proceeded in parallel with little interconnect is important for developing a more comprehensive account of the contemporary political transformations in democracies, and their implications for policy. The particular policy area that we target relates to climate change, an urgent domain of collective human security.
Conceptualizations of masculinity, nationalism, climate change
Gender is deeply imbricated in any discussions of climate change. As Allen et al. (2019, p. 1) point out, gender roles are socially constructed and shape climate change vulnerabilities and how society responds to climate change. The most upfront manifestation of this is the ways in which outspoken female advocates of addressing climate change in substantive ways are targeted. Gelin (2019) referred to the “gender reactionaries to climate-denialism” with reference to the attack on figures such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Greta Thunberg. Cavaliere and Ingram (2021) raise wider questions of knowledge infrastructures and policy directions, pointing out how the patriarchy of late modernity and the role of the industrial movement in it requires a human versus nature binary, and attempts by women to challenge this as individual activists or as part of male dominated environmental organizations means confronting entrenched gender biases. They quote research on a gender gap in media reporting on climate change (Guo, 2015) for the United States according to which in 2014 less than15% of the individuals quoted in print or broadcast or cable media were women, the percentage being even worse for low-income areas, and male sources or anonymous sources are preferred over female sources (in Cavaliere & Ingram, 2021, p. 7). While women tend to be seen as more pro-environment, the same emotions are perceived differently for women and men; anger by women is stereotyped as negative and anger against outspoken women including those who speak on climate change is validated (in Cavaliere & Ingram, 2021, p. 8).
The link between far-right nationalism and “industrial breadwinner masculinities” has been under scrutiny in different countries (see Hultman & Pulé, 2018; Pulé & Hultman, 2021). In much empirical work, the focus has been on the production and circulation of digital media or online campaigns. Studies such as Vowles and Hultman (2021) detail how previously silent Swedish digital media attacked Greta Thunberg. The far-right digital ecosystem was constructing hostility toward a female environmental campaigner using historical tropes of “irrational femininity.” Likewise, Pettersson et al. (2022) refer to the ways in which Finnish far-right political campaigns used humorous misogynist messaging in a campaign film that drew upon polarized political communication on climate change – pitting the “rational males” who opposed stronger measures to tackle climate change against “irrational females” who propose such measures. It is important to note the reach of such media; 6%–12% of the online population in Sweden was reached by just four websites in 2020 (in Vowles & Hultman, p. 415). The polarization of online climate change communication and the overlap of climate change denialism with antifeminism and anti-immigrantism has been seen as a kind of “alliance of antagonisms” (Kaiser & Puschmann, 2017).
Climate change denialism has received focus in connexion with masculinity, for example through the probing of climate denial amongst right-wing white males in the United States (see Daggett, 2018; Nelson, 2020), or work on reactionary and eco-modern masculinities, or in relation to anti-immigration in multiple countries (see Agius et al., 2020; Keskinen, 2013; MacGregor & Seymour, 2017; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Vowles & Hultman, 2021). Hateful reactions to women and to care for the environment that are visible in right-wing views are sometimes simply accepted as beleaguered and victimized reactions of a racialized idea of an impoverished working class in late capitalism. Yet, there is significant theoretical and empirical evidence that identity factors, political rhetoric, and the complex interlinkages between neoliberalism and nationalism are much more relevant than arguments about economic deprivation of the white working class in making sense of why ELMA leaders receive support (see Schaffner et al., 2018). Vengeful masculinity-reclaiming reactions to climate care can actually include deliberately polluting as a form of “petro-masculine rebellion and revenge” (see Daggett, 2018; Nelson, 2020). The act of “coal-rolling” requires alterations to vehicle engines to attract attention so that it can produce blacker smoke more loudly, a form of “pollution porn” (Kulze & Eyges, 2014, in Nelson, 2020, p. 287); “It’s just a testosterone thing. It’s manhood. It’s who can blow the most smoke, whose is blacker” (Weigel, 2014). This aspect of climate change denial and destructiveness is linked to an idea of “petro-vitality” for subsets of white conservative American males where the macho coal-rolling is about testosterone, an idea of masculinity which feeds into how these rugged individualist outdoor men see themselves.
Sexist, authoritarian, and climate change beliefs and correlations
In relation to the present topic, the well-established research on prejudice in psychology has typically sought to uncover the cross-sectional correlations, usually between a pair from among the following – social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, climate change denial, and hostile or benevolent sexism.
The explanation for various kinds of prejudice in individuals is often found either in social dominance orientation (SDO), or in right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) (see, for instance, Altemeyer, 1998; McFarland, 2010). SDO connects with the need to maintain dominance over subordinate others, such as preserving socioeconomic privilege, and RWA connects with the need to protect oneself from those who might pose threats to order (Altemeyer, 1981, 1998; Pratto et al., 1994; Stanley & Wilson, 2019). Making sense of human domination of the environment and of non-humans in terms of SDO was the focus of some studies (Dhont et al., 2014; Milfont et al., 2013), and a sub-literature grew to look at the links between SDO and climate change denial specifically. In earlier work, the link between SDO and climate change denial was found to be strong in cross-sectional studies (Häkkinen & Akrami, 2014), but later longitudinal studies find a stronger link between RWA and climate change denial (Stanley et al., 2019; Stanley et al., 2017).
Centers (1963) found a correlation between authoritarianism and misogynistic attitudes, and argued that this reflected authoritarians’ desire to maintain a status quo in which women were restricted to traditionally “feminine” roles. This hypothesized anti-feminist agenda was also reflected in the finding of Sarup (1976) that more authoritarian people had more anti-feminist attitudes. Duncan et al. (1997) also reported that authoritarianism was associated with anti-feminist attitudes, and a belief that both men and women should adhere to “traditional” gender roles. While right-wing populism and climate change denial tend to be linked (Lockwood, 2018), the investigation of this has often focused on anti-establishment attitudes. However, studies such as by Jylhä and Hellmer (2020) reported that RWA is indirectly predictive of climate change denial and the endorsement of traditional values explained some unique part of climate change denial. They find the strongest link between exclusionism and anti-egalitarianism on the one hand and climate change denial on the other.
We focus on the RWA since it is strongly correlated with anti-feminist dispositions and because RWA predicts an increase in climate change denial in longitudinal work, and was found to be a stronger predictor when directly compared to SDO (Stanley et al., 2017). Clarke et al. (2019) find that the aspect of RWA concerned with adherence to tradition and social norms is most important (conventionalism, RWA-C) in predicting all forms of climate denial. In meta-surveys that do not consider established scales, Hornsey et al. (2016) found the link of political affiliation and political ideology to be the strongest with environment beliefs. In a meta-analytic overview of 25 polls and 171 academic studies across 56 nations, examining 27 variables (table on p. 625), they found that the largest demographic correlate of climate change belief is political affiliation with an effect roughly double the size of any other demographic variable (p. 622). They found that the traditional societal faultlines of gender, age, sex, race, and income, while intuitively appealing, were far less relevant to climate change beliefs than values, ideologies, and political affiliation. Thus, “findings showed the benefit of moving beyond the question of ‘who’ disbelieves that climate change is real… to the psychological factors that explain ‘why’ people hold their views about climate change… climate change beliefs are influenced by distal psychological and political beliefs that shape people’s assimilation of ‘the facts’” (p. 624–625).
Research aims and hypotheses
Here, we investigate whether the associations seen in analyses of political rhetoric are reflected in the attitudes of the wider population, focusing on links between misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change denial. There is evidence that these three attitudes are closely interlinked. Yet, little research has considered the three simultaneously, in order to understand the overlap between them. In particular, we will examine the relative contributions of misogyny and authoritarianism to climate change denial and to more general concern for protecting the natural environment.
We will also ask participants a number of additional questions about their political, gender, and environmental attitudes, and combinations thereof (for example, do these US participants support Donald Trump, indicating support for an ELMA leader; do they see care for the environment as a gendered issue; do they perceive environmental concern as related to other social justice issues). We advance no hypotheses about answers to these questions. They are exploratory in nature, and are intended to help interpret or contextualize the findings of our main analyses.
This goes on and on and eventually presents “data” from “surveys” reaching this conclusion section.
CONCLUSION
Connecting the political rhetoric of ELMA leaders with the opinions of the general public, this article joins the theoretical and analytical literature with an empirical methodology to provide support for a preliminary understanding of the specific ways in which public understanding on social issues (such as views on climate change, in relation to the environment) is the key to the transmission between misogyny in action and authoritarians in power in contemporary democracies.
Misogyny allows a coherent thread of support on policy issues across demographics for right-wing authoritarian leaders in democracies. The gender hierarchy of values allows a mapping of other concerns on it. The links between misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate change denial are not straightforward and are generally only partially illuminated, but need to be seen as salient and more comprehensively understood. Our investigation is the first to bring misogyny, authoritarianism, and climate beliefs together. We draw upon existing arguments that misogyny is not just about a hatred of women, but about the functioning of gender as power. This is crucial because it allows for the understanding that women can also support misogyny and play important roles in the political projects of ELMA strongmen even as these projects negatively impact women (for example through effects such as prolonged recession or environmental disasters, which disproportionately disadvantage women). The environmental policies of leaders like Trump, including on climate change, create present and intergenerational insecurity including for their supporters, and yet they manufacture consent for such policies from these very people, women and men both. Misogyny in the sense of feminization as devaluation is part of the dynamic through which they obtain and sustain support for anti-environmental (and other militarized masculinist anti-indigenous and anti-human rights) policies.
In our conclusion, we would like to briefly highlight specific implications of this work, as they relate to security and policy. First, there are growing concerns about the future of democracy in the United States, and the threats to it from violent right-wing extremists who support Trump and abide by his political rhetoric. These people are not just partisan political actors in a functioning democracy but prepared to mount direct insurrections against democratic institutions. Quite importantly, these men and women subscribe to a coherent set of beliefs on a range of issues that map well onto support for authoritarianism and anti-feminism; they support electoral legitimation for misogynist authoritarians like Trump, and a conceptualization of misogyny as political strategy that includes feminization as devaluation works for them. We expect that other concerns that are linked to care, and therefore available to be feminized in the same way as concern for the environment, will elicit similar responses from them. This adds up to a systematic effect at the very macro level whereby democratic principles are threatened and a range of security concerns are synergistically aggravated; the increasing insecurities relates to direct violence but also increased insecurity in human terms through support for policies leading to removal of protections for women, marginalized and minority Americans, and environmental protections.
Tackling climate change is thus part of a portfolio that includes seriously attending to the working of misogyny and gender hierarchies on the one hand and the authoritarian challenge to democracy on the other. We might emphasize this with a simple question – Why should misogynists not care for the environment? The environment, for instance through the impact of climate change, affects everyone and yet we can see that climate change denialists are also misogynists. Misogyny is not merely about a hatred for women; it functions usefully for authoritarians through feminization as devaluation to undermine opposition. Environmental messaging and climate change thus also requires subverting of structures of misogyny. It is paradoxical how the ELMA leaders promise security yet make for ever greater multidimensional insecurity. Urgent political and planetary concerns are at stake in how we confront the threats to democracy and to the environment. Our research reveals that there are interlocking insecurity generating mechanisms that are embedded in the analytical links between misogyny and authoritarianism that deserve greater recognition and action.
