Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A study published in Journal of Consumer Research suggests men are shying away from “green” behaviours because men think they are “unmanly”.
Is Eco-Friendly Unmanly? The Green-Feminine Stereotype and Its Effect on Sustainable Consumption
Why are men less likely than women to embrace environmentally friendly products and behaviors? Whereas prior research attributes this gender gap in sustainable consumption to personality differences between the sexes, we propose that it may also partially stem from a prevalent association between green behavior and femininity, and a corresponding stereotype (held by both men and women) that green consumers are more feminine. Building on prior findings that men tend to be more concerned than women with gender identity maintenance, we argue that this green-feminine stereotype may motivate men to avoid green behaviors in order to preserve a macho image. A series of seven studies provides evidence that the concepts of greenness and femininity are cognitively linked and shows that, accordingly, consumers who engage in green behaviors are stereotyped by others as more feminine and even perceive themselves as more feminine. Further, men’s willingness to engage in green behaviors can be influenced by threatening or affirming their masculinity, as well as by using masculine rather than conventional green branding. Together, these findings bridge literatures on identity and environmental sustainability and introduce the notion that due to the green-feminine stereotype, gender identity maintenance can influence men’s likelihood of adopting green behaviours.
Read more: http://jcr.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2016/08/02/jcr.ucw044
One can only imagine the ghastly new propaganda pieces to come, as greens attempt to engage with our “manly” side.
Would there be a magazine that caters for men’s interests which carries a horoscope?
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=women%27s+magazines+%2B+horoscopes&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b&gfe_rd=cr&ei=BW3OV_u9I8nN8gfUlYKgCQ
Being green poses no threat to male identity. On the other hand, eating loads of foods stuffed with oestrogen-like compounds is hardly going to make men more masculine, is it??
Or being overtly gullible is not considered masculine enough.
Remember in the days of video tape when you would send a woman out on a Friday night to pick up pizza and a video? No matter what you specified and how many times you specified, she’d come back with a pizza that had chicken on it and a video starring someone like Tilda Swinton or Meryl Streep.
That’s when I learned that blokes have to run the big stuff in this world.
The gender thing is a misuse of statistical information in that it is actually a numerical skills thing that happens to roughly match gender. The women I know with a feel for numbers are typically unconvinced by the whole green argument. If they have engineering skills as well the feel that recycling often is resulting in inconsistent quality so many products have a premature demise from trivial faults as my camera did. A small plastic tag that held the battery compartment shut failed as it had an inclusion of a different plastic and a resulting fault line. An otherwise sound camera had to be dumped as uneconomic to repair.
The most “green” men I know (and some women) are the trappers in Northern Ontario, Canada.
Living off the grid, their carbon footprint is barely a hangnail on the earth compared to that of the latte sipping, Prius driving urbanites who think that sending money to the WWF and clicking “like” on a post by Leonard di Caprio makes them “green”.
Progressivism and Greenie-ism are basically one and the same, and an assault on masculinity is part of it. It’s just a riff on the standard, go-to talking points – climate change skepticism is attributed to sexism, racism, capitalism, etc.
These are typical smears designed to distract from the question of whether the position of skeptics might actually be valid, by quantifying that opinion as an inherent by-product of one of the social classes targeted for prosecution.
Whoops. Typo: that should be ‘targeted for PERSECUTION’.
Not that this is much of a separation anymore.
Primal cause: some people are able to think for themselves. These people are NOT easily programmed for being green. When present in a male, this self-reliance and independence is (inaccurately) associated by the ‘genderless’ with ‘male gender identity’. In females it is considered ‘strength’ – as long as it is used to support PC objectives such as the ‘de-masculinization’ of independent thinkers.
It could be due to the same reason why unmarried women are more likely to vote Democrat than are married women.
Like being more susceptible to ‘bleeding heart’ messaging?
Being Green can be a threat to gender alright-
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-31601122
Just that lots of blokes don’t want to be associated with it and remain skeptical it’s the right way to go girls.
Heck, the assault on manliness comes from dozens of other angles and started about 50 yrs ago. Thinking you are manly in western society if you were born less than 60yrs ago is very relative indeed! Going green is a Johnny – come – lately assault. Men have been showing their “feminine side” too long to ever go back. Psychiatrists today treat manliness as a serious geriatric syndrome that has to be stamped out. I hope Trump is wearing military – grade armour. He may be the last chance for Western civilization to avoid being overrun by the decidedly manly rest of the world.
So being green interferes with a male’s ability to self-identify?