As we know, the state of our environment has significant health effects and disruptions to climate are especially likely to harm the most vulnerable among us. This would seem to make it important for people to get behind conservation efforts. It’s worthwhile to look at why this kind of thinking doesn’t have the appeal it might seem that it ought to have.
Scientific American recently gave Aaron Brough and James Wilke a space to discuss their research on masculinity and “green” behaviors.
…men may shun eco-friendly behavior because of what it conveys about their masculinity. It’s not that men don’t care about the environment. But they also tend to want to feel macho, and they worry that eco-friendly behaviors might brand them as feminine.
The research, conducted with three other colleagues, consisted of seven experiments involving more than 2,000 American and Chinese participants. We showed that there is a psychological link between eco-friendliness and perceptions of femininity. Due to this “green-feminine stereotype,” both men and women judged eco-friendly products, behaviors, and consumers as more feminine than their non-green counterparts. In one experiment, participants of both sexes described an individual who brought a reusable canvas bag to the grocery store as more feminine than someone who used a plastic bag—regardless of whether the shopper was a male or female. In another experiment, participants perceived themselves to be more feminine after recalling a time when they did something good versus bad for the environment.
How much of this is due to marketing and advertising, which sell gas guzzling supercharged vehicles to men as avatars of their masculinity as in this Dodge Charger ad–“Man’s Last Stand”– which aired during the super bowl some years ago?
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And how much of it is due to the way that modern hegemonic masculinity is structured: individualistic, not giving into peer pressure, not “PC” (politically correct), aggressive, uncompromising, commanding and, well, dominant? After all, it is humanity’s unrelenting dominance over nature that is questioned by green thinking.
Perhaps we need an alternative conception, one which appeals to the provider/caretaker aspects of modern masculinity, in which we are stewards of the environment. Could this work? What conceptions of masculinity would be consonant with environmental conservation? Is hegemonic masculinity necessarily against environmental preservation? What do you think?
