In 2016, Brough et al. published the results of several studies examining a particular interaction between environmentally friendly behaviors and self-perception of one’s masculinity or femininity. Previous findings consistently reported that men are less likely than women to make eco-friendly choices such as purchasing “green” products, recycling, and refraining from littering, indicating the influence of a green-feminine stereotype which associates environmental consciousness with femininity and “unmanliness”. In the presence of this stereotype, men avoid engaging in environmentally friendly behaviors because they regard this as a threat to their self-concept as masculine men, and because they fear that others will view them as more feminine and less masculine. The authors tested the effects of this threat by asking a group of men to imagine receiving a “gender-threat” gift card with “a floral design on a pink background with the words ‘Happy Birthday’ in a frilly font”, and then asked them to choose between purchasing a series of green or non-green products. Those men who had been exposed to the gender threat were significantly less likely to choose green products than those who were not exposed to the gender threat. Conversely, a followup study found that when men’s masculinity was first affirmed rather than threatened, they were more likely to choose green products.
Recently, this subtext of threatened masculinity and aversion to environmentalism became just plain text – all-caps, Alex-Jones-rant text. Some men, faced with a plant-based meat substitute, have come to believe that this food will quite literally turn them into women. Continue reading
