Comic: Real Men Fight for the Environment

My intention with this cartoon is to neither deprecate the “feminine” nor celebrate hyper-masculinity. I’ve been wanting to write a comic for a while about how virtually everything is gendered, especially when it comes to political rhetoric. Trump’s statements about climate change (and, well, lots of other things too) are loaded with manly-man dog whistles. Which is ironic, considering that Trump is hardly a chiseled specimen of manhood — the low-energy duffer had to ride in a golf cart behind European leaders as they walked a short distance.

The thing is, a large swath of the American electorate is, unfortunately, swayed by tough talk — however stupid — and a fear of being perceived as weak or female. And I’m afraid that to reach those people, you may need to “speak their language” to some extent, by appealing to ideas of toughness. But toughness should not be understood as necessarily male. Caring for the planet we inhabit is a form of strength, virtue, and personal responsibility, qualities that can apply to men and women equally. I wouldn’t go so far as to call Republicans “climate cucks” in real life, as that particular term has problematic alt-right origins, and I use it satirically here. But climate weaklings? Hell yeah.