Masculinity and Environment

doi:10.1017/9781108554558.008

6 - Masculinity and Environment

from Part II - Embodied Environmental Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2020

Kathryn Gregory Anderson

Edited by

Michael Carolan and

Katharine Legun: Affiliation:
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Julie C. Keller: Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island
Michael Carolan: Affiliation:
Colorado State University
Michael M. Bell: Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison

Book contents

Get access

Summary

This chapter explores how, in cultures where male power is hegemonic, claiming and mobilizing a masculine identity and avoiding the feminine can become problematic for environmental sustainability. I begin with basic tenets of critical gender theory and masculinities studies that help explain the relationship between masculinity and environment. I then examine recent research suggesting that anti-environmental attitudes and behavior as well as indifference or skepticism about environmental science and risk can be explained in part as performances enacted to signal a masculine identity. After discussing these direct anti-environmental masculine performances, I explore how enacting core masculine-coded performances not directly related to the environment can also obstruct environmental protection. Privileging the rational, technical, and competitive, and avoiding feminine-coded emotion and cooperation can result in excluding social justice arguments for environmental action and favoring technological and business-friendly solutions that may be untested and dangerous – such as climate geoengineering – over vital regulations and multi-lateral cooperation.

Keywords

masculinity gender identity maintenance environmental sustainability environmental attitudes and concerns white male effect

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology , pp. 103 - 116

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108554558.008 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anshelm, J., & Hultman, M. (2014). A green fatwā? Climate change as a threat to the masculinity of industrial modernity. NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, 9(2), 84–96.Google Scholar

Arnocky, S., & Stroink, M. (2011). Gender differences in environmentalism: The mediating role of emotional empathy. Current Research in Social Psychology, 16, 1–14.Google Scholar

Bell, S., & Braun, Y. (2010). Coal, identity, and the gendering of environmental justice activism in central Appalachia. Gender and Society, 24(6), 794–813. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243210387277 Google Scholar

Bell, S., & York, R. (2010). Community economic identity: The coal industry and ideology construction in West Virginia. Rural Sociology, 75(1), 111–143.Google Scholar

Bennett, G., & Williams, F. (2011). Mainstream Green: Moving Sustainability from Niche to Normal. Retrieved from www.goodlifer.com/2011/04/mainstream-green-moving-sustainability-from-niche-to-normal/Google Scholar

Bosson, J. K., & Michniewicz, K. S. (2013). Gender dichotomization at the level of ingroup identity: What it is, and why men use it more than women. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 105(3), 425–442. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0033126 Google Scholar

Bosson, J. K., Vandello, J. A., Burnaford, R. M., Weaver, J. R., & Wasti, S. A. (2009). Precarious manhood and displays of physical aggression. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 35(5), 623–634. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208331161 Google Scholar

Brandth, B., & Haugen, M. (2006). Changing Masculinity in a Changing Rural Industry: Representations in the Forestry Press. In Campbell, H, Bell, M. M., & Finney, M (eds.), Country Boys: Masculinity and Rural LIfe (pp. 217–234). University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar

Bridges, T., & Pascoe, C. (2018). On the elasticity of gender hegemony: Why hybrid masculinities fail to undermine gender and sexual inequality. In Messerschmidt, J. W., Messner, M. A., Connell, R and Yancey, P Martin, (eds.), Gender Reckonings (pp. 254–274). New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar

Brough, A. R., Wilkie, J. E. B., Ma, J., Isaac, M. S., & Gal, D. (2016). Is eco-friendly unmanly? The green-feminine stereotype and its effect on sustainable consumption. Journal of Consumer Research, 43(4), 567–582. https://doi.org/10.1093/jcr/ucw044 Google Scholar

Brueckner, M. (2007). The Western Australian Regional Forest Agreement: Economic rationalism and the normalisation of political closure. Australian Journal of Public Administration, 66(2), 148–158. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467–8500.2007.00513.x Google Scholar

Butler, J. (1993). Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar

Campbell, H., & Bell, M. (2000). The question of rural masculinities. Rural Sociology, 65(4), 532–546.Google Scholar

Caniglia, B. S., Brulle, R. J., & Szasz, A. (2015). Civil society, social movements, and climate change. In Dunlap, R. E. and Brulle, R. J. (eds.), Climate Change and Society: Sociological Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 235–268.Google Scholar

Cohn, C. (1987). Sex and death in the rational world of defense intellectuals. Signs, 12(4), 687–718.Google Scholar

Collins, P. (2005). Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Connell, R. (2005). Masculinities. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar

Connell, R. (2016). Afterword. In Enarson, E & Pease, B (eds.), Men, Masculinities and Disaster (p. 234). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Connell, R., & Messerschmidt, J. (2005). Hegemonic masculinity: Rethinking the concept. Gender and Society, 19(6), 829–859. https://doi.org/10.1177/0891243205278639 Google Scholar

Connell, R., & Pearse, R. (2015). Gender in World Perspective. Malden, MA: Polity Press.Google Scholar

Dietz, T., Kalof, L., & Stern, P. (2002). Gender, values, and environmentalism. Social Science Quarterly, 83(1), 353–364.Google Scholar

Dubbert, J. (1979). A Man’s Place: Masculinity in Transition. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar

Fenstermaker, S., & West, C. (2002). Introduction. In Doing Gender, Doing Difference: Inequality, Power and Institutional Change. New York: Routledge, pp. xiii–xviii.Google Scholar

Ferree, M. (2018). Theories don’t grow on trees: Contextualizing gender knowledge. In Messerschmidt, J, Martin, P, Messner, M, & Connell, R (eds.), Gender Reckonings. New York: New York University Press, pp. 13–34.Google Scholar

Filteau, M. (2016). “If you talk badly about drilling, you’re a pariah”: Challenging a capitalist patriarchy in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region. Rural Sociology, 81(4), 519–544. https://doi.org/10.1111/ruso.12107 Google Scholar

Finucane, M., Slovic, P., Mertz, C., Flynn, J., & Satterfield, T. (2000). Gender, race, and perceived risk: The “white male” effect. Health, Risk, and Society, 2(2). https://doi.org/10.1080/713670162 Google Scholar

Fleming, J. (2017). Excuse us, while we fix the sky: WEIRD supermen and climate engineering. In MacGregor, Sherilyn & Seymour, N (eds.), Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change (Vol. 4, pp. 23–28). RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.5282/rcc/7979 Google Scholar

Flynn, J., Slovic, P., & Mertz, C. (1994). Gender, race, and perception of environmental health risks. Risk Analysis, 14(6), 1101–1108.Google Scholar

Gardiner, J. K. (2000). Masculinity, the teening of America, and empathic targeting. Signs, 25(4), 1257–1261.Google Scholar

Hultman, M. (2013). The making of an environmental hero: A history of ecomodern masculinity, fuel cells and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Environmental Humanities, 2, 79–99.Google Scholar

Hultman, M. (2017). Exploring industrial, ecomodern, and ecological masculinities. In MacGregor, Sherilyn (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment (pp. 261–274). London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315886572–28 Google Scholar

Johnson, A. (2017). Every day like today: Learning how to be a man in love. In MacGregor, Sherilyn & Seymour, N (eds.), Men and Nature: Hegemonic Masculinities and Environmental Change (pp. 45–50). RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society.Google Scholar

Kahan, D., Braman, D., Gastil, J., Slovic, P., & Mertz, C. (2007). Culture and identity-protective cognition: Explaining the white male effect in risk perception. Journal of Empirical Law Studies, 4(3), 465–505. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1740–1461.2007.00097.x Google Scholar

Kahan, D., Jenkins-Smith, H., Tarantola, T., Silva, C., & Braman, D. (2015). Geoengineering and climate change polarization: Testing a two-channel model of science communication. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 192–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716214559002 Google Scholar

Kahan, D., Peters, E., Wittlin, M. et al. (2012). The polarizing impact of science literacy and numeracy on perceived climate change risks. Nature Climate Change, 2(10), 732–735. https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate1547 Google Scholar

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Google Scholar

Kennedy, E. H., & Dzialo, L. (2015). Locating gender in environmental sociology. Sociology Compass, 9(10), 920–929.Google Scholar

Kennedy, E. H., & Kmec, J. (2018). Reinterpreting the gender gap in household pro-environmental behaviour. Environmental Sociology, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2018.1436891 Google Scholar

Kimmel, M. (1987). The contemporary “crisis” of masculinity in historical perspective. In Brod, H (ed.), The Making of Masculinities: The New Men’s Studies. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar

Kosakowska-berezecka, N., Besta, T., & Vandello, J. (2016). If my masculinity is threatened I won’t support gender equality? The role of agentic self-stereotyping in restoration of manhood and perception of gender relations. Psychology of Men & Masculinity, 17(3), 274–284.Google Scholar

Kronsell, A. (2013). Gender and transition in climate governance. Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions, 7, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eist.2012.12.003 Google Scholar

Maass, A., Cadinu, M., Guarnieri, G., & Grasselli, A. (2003). Sexual harassment under social identity threat: The computer harassment paradigm. Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, 85(5), 853–870. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022–3514.85.5.853 Google Scholar

MacGregor, S. (2017). Gender and environment: an introduction. In MacGregor, S (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Gender and Environment (pp. 1–24). New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Maniates, M. F. (2001). Individualization: Plant a tree, buy a bike, save the world? Global Environmental Politics, 1(3), 31–52.Google Scholar

McCright, A. M. (2010). The effects of gender on climate change knowledge and concern in the American public. Population and Environment, 32(1), 66–87. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111-010–0113-1 Google Scholar

McCright, A. M., & Xiao, C. (2014). Gender and environmental concern: Insights from recent work and for future research. Society and Natural Resources, 27(10), 1109–1113. https://doi.org/10.1080/08941920.2014.918235 Google Scholar

Messerschmidt, J., & Messner, M. (2018). Hegemonic, nonhegemonic, and “new” masculinities. In Messerschmidt, J, Martin, P, Messner, M, & Connell, R (eds.), Gender Reckonings. New York: New York University Press, pp. 35–56.Google Scholar

Milfont, T. L., & Sibley, C. G. (2016). Empathic and social dominance orientations help explain gender differences in environmentalism: A one-year Bayesian mediation analysis. Personality and Individual Differences, 90, 85–88. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2015.10.044 Google Scholar

NAACP. (2012). Coal Blooded Putting Profits Before People. Retrieved from www.naacp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/CoalBlooded.pdf Google Scholar

Nelson, J. A. (1995). Feminism and economics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 9(2), 131–148.Google Scholar

Nickleberry, L., & Coleman, M. (2012). Exploring African American masculinities: An integrative model. Sociology Compass, 6(11), 897–907.Google Scholar

Ostrom, E., Burger, J., Field, C. B., Norgaard, R. B., & Policansky, D. (1999). Revisiting the commons: Local lessons, global challenges. Science, 284(5412), 278–282. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.284.5412.278 CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Paap, K. (2006). Working Construction. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Peter, G., Bell, M., Jarnagin, S., & Bauer, D. (2000). Coming back across the fence: Masculinity and the transition to sustainable agriculture. Rural Sociology, 65, 215–233.Google Scholar

Pierrehumbert, R. T. (2015). Climate Hacking Is Barking Mad. Slate. Retrieved from www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2015/02/nrc_geoengineering_report_climate_hacking_is_dangerous_and_barking_mad.single.html Google Scholar

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar

Rome, A. (2003). Give Earth a chance: The environmental movement and the sixties. Journal of American History, 90(2), 525–554.Google Scholar

Rome, A. (2006). Political hermaphrodites: Gender and environmental reform in progressive America. Environmental History, 11, 440–463.Google Scholar

Salleh, A. (ed.). (2009). Eco-Sufficiency & Global Justice. Women Write Political Ecology. New York: Pluto.Google Scholar

Sandilands, C. (1993). On ‘green consumerism’: Environmental privatization and ‘family values.’ Canadian Women’s Studies/ Les Cahiers de La Femme, 13(3), 45–47.Google Scholar

Schrock, D., & Schwalbe, M. (2009). Men, masculinity, and manhood acts. Annual Review of Sociology, 35, 277–295. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-070308-l Google Scholar

Sinclair, A. (1995). Sex and the MBA. Organization, 2, 295–317.Google Scholar

Stafford, E. R., & Hartman, C. (2012). Making green more macho. The Solutions Journal (Rocky Mountain Institute), 3(4), 25–29.Google Scholar

Swim, J. K., Vescio, T. K., Dahl, J. L., & Zawadzki, S. J. (2018). Gendered discourse about climate change policies. Global Environmental Change, 48(January), 216–225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2017.12.005 Google Scholar

Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2009). Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar

Trauger, A. (2004). ‘Because they can do the work’: Women farmers in sustainable agriculture in Pennsylvania, USA. Gender, Place and Culture, 11(2), 289–307. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369042000218491 Google Scholar

Warren, K. J. (2000). Ecofeminist philosophy: A Western Perspective on What It Is and Why It Matters. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar

Weber, R., & Dawes, R. (2005). Behavioral Economics. In Smelser, N. J. & Swedberg, R (eds.), The Handbook of Economic Sociology (Second Edition). New York: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar

Willer, R., Rogalin, C. L., Conlon, B., & Wojnowicz, M. T. (2013). Overdoing Gender: A test of the masculine overcompensation thesis. American Journal of Sociology, 118(4), 980–1022. https://doi.org/10.1086/668417 Google Scholar

Wolfers, J. (2015, January 23). How economists came to dominate the conversation. New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/upshot/how-economists-came-to-dominate-the-conversation.html.Google Scholar

Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2014). A Test of the biographical availability argument for gender differences in environmental behaviors. Environment and Behavior, 46(2), 241–263. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916512453991 Google Scholar

Yates, A., Luo, Y., Mobley, C., & Shealy, E. (2015). Changes in public and private environmentally responsible behaviors by gender: Findings from the 1994 and 2010 general social survey. Sociological Inquiry, 85(4), 503–531. https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12089 Google Scholar

Zelezny, L. C., Chua, P.-P., & Aldrich, C. (2000). Elaborating on gender differences in environmentalism. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 443–457. https://doi.org/10.1111/0022–4537.00177 Google Scholar

Book contents

6 - Masculinity and Environment

Summary

Keywords

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive