What is really behind the US Department of Energy’s weird pronouncement on social media?
H
ave you ever tossed and turned at night wondering what the correct pronouns are for a lump of coal? No, me neither. However, it seems someone at the US Department of Energy has devoted a few spare brain cells to this matter and decided that coal is a she/her.
Co-opting a phrase adopted by the LGBTQ+ community, the official energy department X account tweeted on 31 July: “She’s an icon. She’s a legend. And she is the moment,” alongside a sparkling picture of coal. This comes as the Trump administration devotes considerable energy to making fossil fuels great again. The president has signed numerous executive orders aimed at “Reinvigorating America’s Beautiful Clean Coal Industry” and reversed Biden-era pollution regulations on coal-fired power plants. These plants, according to a 2023 report, killed at least 460,000 Americans over the past two decades. Deaths declined when the environmental regulations that Donald Trump is so scornful of were put in place.
Why is the Trump administration, which seems to think women are objects, so keen on personifying coal? Is it for poetic effect? Or are they trying to sanitise the deadly impact of coal pollution and associate it with mother nature? I suspect the second motive. Ships, for example, have traditionally been referred to as “she”, possibly because sailors saw them as a maternal protector. Countries can also be classified as female – particularly when a man thinks their violent actions need to be defended. In 2023, shortly after the 7 October attacks, at a time when Gaza was being bombed and blockaded by Israel, Keir Starmer said Israel had “the right to defend herself”.
