The New Form of Toxic Masculinity: Petro-Masculinity! By James Reed

Academics, having plenty of time on their hands are stitching together a new woke narrative, that sees fossil fuels as, well, fuelling the white male patriarchal racist, misogynist, sexist blah, blah, system. The image I have is of a red neck cruising in a gas guzzler, shotgun in a rack, arm out the window, making a nuisance himself.

Yet, the problem these woke academics have, is that the vast majority of Africans, Chinese, other East Asians, and in fact, most of South East Asian and South America, support fossil fuel use. Non-whites support fossil fuels. In fact, these societies embrace, with no shame, petro-masculinity. So, there is a problem here for the while liberal woke academics, since, the Left-blessed races, those who are non-white, fit the same depiction, made of the dreaded white males. So, what is an academic to do? Probably ignore it. Or say, no, it is the white racist West which has turned these golden people from the true path. Yes, that might be it.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/03/academias_latest_invention_petromasculinity.html

“For a member of the academic class, there's a burden to bring something intellectually worthwhile to the table.  When you have nothing to offer (like the vast majority of college professors), you simply invent new scholarly-ish terms.

Instead of "pedophile" or "child predator," academia offers us the softer "minor-attracted person."

Instead of "sexual mutilation" or "medical malpractice," we get "gender-affirming care."

And now, drum roll, please...Cara Daggett, a professor at Virginia Tech and a "climate sociologist," unveils her latest literary horror: "petro-masculinity."

(Apparently, all it takes to signal academic genius as a leftist is to smash a couple of buzzwords together separated by a hyphen.)

Earlier this week, Canada's National Observer ran an essay titled "White men are the super spreaders of climate denialism" under the "news" tab...yes, seriously.  The author, Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, attempted to unravel the newest offshoot of "toxic" masculinity and writes:

Researchers have found a tight relationship between harmful forms of masculinity, right-wing extremism and the refusal to deal with the climate crisis. Fostered by the fossil fuel industry, this confluence has been dubbed 'petro-masculinity' by Cara Daggett, a Virginia Tech professor and climate sociologist, to describe a form of masculinity where using fossil fuels is a way to express an individualistic and patriarchal type of masculinity.

(In an ironic turn of events, "researchers" in this context is a euphemism for idle leftist societal freeloaders.)

Here's another gem of a passage:

Fossil fuels provide petrol and plastic. But for some people — particularly white, conservative, North American men — they underpin culture, she [Daggett] explained. Measures to phase them out in the face of climate catastrophe can easily be perceived as a threat to these people's sense of culture and self-worth, imposed by a vague group of elites. These perceptions serve to make climate action a political hot potato.

Daggett emphasizes her identity as a "researcher."  Her personal website and the school website both confirm that her only professional contribution (if you can even call her work contributory) is "research" from a "feminist" approach to "planetary disruption."  I'm not a researcher, and I don't receive grant cash to live off those who actually do produce, but I don't need money, or some deep-dive study, to tell me that threats against affordable energy have nothing to do with self-worth; they have everything to do with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  Severing access to move about as free agents isn't about skin color, biological sex, or political beliefs.  How, in the face of mountains of in-your-face evidence to the contrary of Daggett's postulation, can she honestly say that?

Nine days ago, Monica Showalter penned "China flicks John Kerry's greenie pleadings away, barrels ahead on coal plant construction."  China is run by communists, as far left as possible from a political conservative, and almost entirely homogeneously not White.

Or what about Africa, which is almost entirely Black, and its rejection of "demands" to end "fossil fuel" use?

Here are some quick and rough calculations for perspective: the population of China and all of Africa amounts to around 2.6 billion people, which is just over 30% of the world's total population (8 billion).  That means somewhere around 30% of people don't want to (and aren't) "phas[ing]" out current energy systems — and this ~30% aren't White, and aren't North American.

How does Daggett explain those things?  Ten bucks says she can't...

Some of us, like the manly men of the oil fields, have to actually work so insulated idiots like Daggett, or an L.A. Times "journalist," can sit around, producing nothing, and denounce "patro-masculinity" and White people.

This actually kind of feels like a bait-and-switch, to be honest: we've been sold a bill of goods that these academics will actually provide the public with valuable advancements and discoveries in the way of science and technology, or uncover long lost histories...but we get this?  An ever-expanding lexicon to describe the sexual preferences of people suffering from a host of identity disorders, and "petro-masculinity"?  What an absolute scam.

Make Academia Great Again!

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0305829818775817

“As the planet warms, new authoritarian movements in the West are embracing a toxic combination of climate denial, racism and misogyny. Rather than consider these resentments separately, this article interrogates their relationship through the concept of petro-masculinity, which appreciates the historic role of fossil fuel systems in buttressing white patriarchal rule. Petro-masculinity is helpful to understanding how the anxieties aroused by the Anthropocene can augment desires for authoritarianism. The concept of petro-masculinity suggests that fossil fuels mean more than profit; fossil fuels also contribute to making identities, which poses risks for post-carbon energy politics. Moreover, through a psycho-political reading of authoritarianism, I show how fossil fuel use can function as a violent compensatory practice in reaction to gender and climate trouble.”