The socially acceptable hatred towards Greta Thunberg et al

[TeacakesFTW]

I’m not a fan of Greta per se (different generation and so on), but I hate the way that’s she treated.

It seems perfectly okay, applauded even, to mock her appearance, autism, advocacy, and anything else really. Why? Because she’s a young woman fighting for climate change?

Can anyone whack out their psychology/ sociology armchair and explain why so many people dislike her and why it’s socially acceptable to do so? I’d really like to hear some wise feminist thoughts on this.

I am a psychologist. In short, stereotypes are usually formed along two dimensions: competence and warmth.

Women tend to be popped into the high warmth and low competence category. When they step out of that and dare to appear competent then they get backlash for lacking warmth (cold hearted, ambitious, pointy elbowed etc.)

As a young woman, people expect her to be low competence and high warmth (smiley and compliant). But she tries to be high competence, expressing opinions (shock!) and claiming expertise so she gets backlash for that and she also presents as low warmth (presumably because her autism means she is slightly socially awkward).

So she is getting a double whammy of transgressing both warmth and competence expectations.

But the problem is that all the reducing carbon that normal people do will never come close to the levels required, whilst industry still pumps out greenhouse gases and makes no effort at all to stop.

It's making some people's lives harder with no actual effect on the climate. The only way you change this is to change capitalism altogether, which seems unlikely.

I mentioned the USA because Greta sailed there. The point is middle and low income people do fly on holiday to Spain - it's cheaper than holidaying in Devon for a start. A lot of the environmental initiatives would see middle income / poorer people have even more miserable lives whilst the rich carry on having a lovely time.

The growing inequality in wealth in the world is part of the problem. If you don't fix that you can't fix climate threats IMO.

It seems perfectly okay, applauded even, to mock her appearance, autism, advocacy, and anything else really.

I find the double standards of criticising people’s appearance odd. Why is it ok to mock the appearance of Queen Camilla - indeed any member of the royal family - or Donald Trump, Milania and so on but not ok to mock the appearance of Greta Thunberg or Diane Abbott for example.
Personally I think it’s a pretty weak way of insulting people - they can’t help what their faces look like and how they dress is up to them and doesn’t affect anyone else.

And there was me thinking it was Greta herself who hated us.

If a prominent activist moves away from campaigning for something they have told you is THE MOST important thing, to something else then you wonder why it is no longer so important, or if it never actually was.

Except that I think that what some people on this thread have a problem with is that, while she is articulate she is not competent - she continues to say that finding a solution to climate change (and by which I don’t mean, saying over and over again that fossil fuels are bad - we know this, but the stumbling block is how to unharness our planet from them without putting us back in the pre-industrial age, and causing untold suffering for the poorest) is for someone else to do.

Her role seems to be to be a somewhat empty figurehead. No, she doesn’t deserve to have criticism aimed at her looks or her autism. But educated people who are trying their best to save the planet don’t tend to like to be lectured by someone who appears to not know - and not want to know - the fine details of how to do that.

It's making some people's lives harder with no actual effect on the climate. The only way you change this is to change capitalism altogether, which seems unlikely.

Because communist countries are soo environmentally friendly…

The was to reduce emissions is to move to nuclear power.

But afaik she hasn’t moved away from it? She is just now also campaigning for something else alongside it. She was arrested last year at a climate protest. She was campaigning last month at an oil refinery

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/climate/article/2025/08/18/greta-thunberg-and-climate-activists-block-norway-oil-refinery_6744476_96.html

I agree.

I don’t like it when children have precocity forced on them, either. When their parents project adult ideals and motivations onto them. It hasn’t ended well for Greta, as someone pointed out she hasn’t matured into looking for solutions, she’s still just like a child waiting for others to sort things out.

People love gifted, precocious children and they get a lot of attention, but it never ends well, does it?

Is it socially acceptable, though? I don't think it is.

I find that a lot of this kind of stuff posted on social media is posted by people I would not associate with, who couldn't hold a conversation and are quite honestly not very bright.

But it still weakens the message. And with Gaza she starts to look like an omnicause activist; someone who picks causes because they are popular (or is picked by causes because she is popular) rather than because of an underlying understanding of the issues she is campaigning for.

Well quite. Stereotypes aren't about what you actually are or do, they're the perception. So she is trying to appear competent and people don't like it.

No, I think that’s people stereotyping her because she’s a young woman.

It is totally possible to care about more than one issue at a time. For example, I care deeply about Gaza and the inequalities in this country. Caring about one of those doesn’t detract from caring about the other.

Ah, in that case, I completely agree.

I don’t think it’s because she’s female though - by which I mean, I don’t think that her (possible?) deviation from the female stereotype of kind and stupid (to paraphrase) is the problem. I think the fact that she is presenting herself as something she is not, is the problem. I personally would feel the same if she was a 22 year old boy who had done the same thing.

Agree, it's absolutely dreadful. She's so young as well

For most people it doesn’t but it does if you are the figurehead of a specific cause. Especially if those causes aren’t complementary.

I do actually agree about nuclear power - and in general think that technological solutions are the only feasible effective response with humanity as it is. Slightly off topic though.

No, I think you’re just being ridiculous. You’re saying that because she campaigned on climate change when she was younger, she cannot care about anything else.

She has been vocal about how important it is to take climate action. She is also being vocal about how disgusting the current situation in Palestine is and that action must be taken. She hasn’t once said she no longer cares about the other.

But the Paris agreement, although not solving the entire problem, would at least keep world heating below the catastrophic 2 degrees.

We do know how to implement the Paris agreement. Countries have already laid out how to do this.

The solution is that world governments implement what is already been agreed.

I find it strange that people are calling Greta “plain”. In the first instance her looks are not the most important of her many attributes. Secondly, to me she looks absolutely beautiful - but of course beauty is in the eye of the beholder and I like natural faces. However, the most notable thing about Greta at the moment is her courage. She is exposing herself to immense risk by taking part in the flotilla. There have already been two drone strikes on it. Ten people were killed on a previous flotilla. To a certain extent the fact that she and Mandla Manela (Nelson Mandela’s grandson) have significant public recognition provides some, I hope, protection to those on the flotilla, in that the potential risk of adverse publicity will reduce the incentive to harm them. However, the drone strikes don’t augur well.

Of course she can choose to campaign for anything she wants to. But if you take an oversimplistic approach to one cause, then move to another to do the same it does undermine your credibility.

Drone strikes or flares launched from the boat itself?

Amazing woman, thank you. I had not realised she had died, a very sad loss to conservation and the women's movement.

I actually think a lot of the criticism of her is more to do with her age than the fact she's a woman. I think a lot of people get really tetchy and irritated by the idea of a teenager telling them what's what. I know she's not longer a teenager by the way.

The problem is though that as soon as you start talking about another issue then half the population are going to hate you. That's not going to help the environmentalist cause.

There are left wing people who know that they will be ignored for their left wing views. Environmentalism is very convenient for them because it gets them attention. They don't really care about the environment though.

A while ago there was a local election and I thought I would try to find out what my local Green Party was saying. I found a Facebook page that didn't seem to be about the environment but saying we shouldn't try to stop small boat crossings. I didn't vote for them.