A “feminism and gender” writer on NBC’s News’ “Think” platform — an open-source publishing platform for “engaging” content — has declared Elon Musk’s mission to send a manned spaceflight to Mars in order to establish a presence on the “red planet” “Patriarchal,” and an example of “toxic masculinity” and male privilege.
Marcie Bianco who, apparently, is the “managing editor of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University,” took aim at Musk and other space enthusiasts in her essay titled (of course), “The Patriarchal Race To Colonize Mars Is Just Another Example Of Male Entitlement.”
It is, of course, a feminist masterwork, but without much in the way of new advancement in gender-oriented thinking. For starters, Bianco’s theory that men are simply exploring other avenues of colonization and oppression after having their toxic masculinity neutralized by feminist here on Earth — presumably after being bored to death by feminist social media posts because Bianco and her ilk are not likely to take any direct action — is based largely on the fact that rockets kind of look like penises.
These rocket penises, Bianco contends, are tools by which men will rape other planets.
[T]he impulse to colonize — to colonize lands, to colonize peoples, and, now that we may soon be technologically capable of doing so, colonizing space — has its origins in gendered power structures. Entitlement to power, control, domination and ownership. The presumed right to use and abuse something and then walk away to conquer and colonize something new.
Lest you remain unconvinced, Bianco goes on.
The desire to colonize — to have unquestioned, unchallenged and automatic access to something, to any type of body, and to use it at will — is a patriarchal one. Indeed, there is no ethical consideration among these billionaires about whether this should be done. … It is the same instinctual and cultural force that teaches men that everything — and everyone — in their line of vision is theirs for the taking.
All men, of course, are merely sexual predators just waiting for the right opportunity, at which point they shed their veneer of concern and support and, well . . .
You know, just like walking up to a woman and grabbing her by the pussy.
It’s there, so just grab it because you can.
Musk has been clear that he doesn’t simply want to colonize Mars — he wants to make the people of Earth a space-faring people. He sees private space travel, for both commercial and expansion purposes, as a means to that end. But, according to Bianco, that’s just an excuse, a way of rationalizing the male desire to overpower everything and leave it breathless and conquered in their wake.
But Musk has also suggested that, perhaps, global climate change could eventually impact the quality of human life on Earth, and he’d like to have a “plan b” that doesn’t involve a Kevin Costner-esque “Waterworld,” or dying, thirsty and homeless in a desert wasteland — the kind of post-apocalyptic predictions leftists like Bianco are typically wont to make. After all, they’re the “people of science,” right?
Well, that’s simply unacceptable to Bianco, because if men would just listen to women, they’d also solve global warming.
“Apparently, caring for the planet is perceived to be a ‘feminine’ quality and concern; the psychology of toxic masculinity spills over into the unethical disregard for the environment. This masculine insecurity is everywhere in American culture and, increasingly, American politics.”
If only women were in charge, the seas would fall, the Earth would cool, the flowers would sprout year round, and the ground would turn to cotton candy, on which only unicorns would suffer to trod.