Men Resist Green Behavior as Un-Manly
The &quot;green&quot; behaviors in this study are oddly specific. At least four of the six experiments appear to be heavily biased towards grocery shopping, and one involves contributing to a nonprofit (WTF).<p>You have to feel a little sorry for the four male authors. They spent countless hours scouring twenty-plus-year-old research to cite sources and claim these articles say that men don&#x27;t care about the environment. One seventeen-year-old paper is cited as saying that men &quot;leave a smaller carbon footprint,&quot; but all it actually suggests is that out of four specific European countries, single-man households in Greece and Sweden use more energy (in statistically significant amounts) than single-women households in those two countries.<p>In Study 4, I don&#x27;t see how anyone could draw a &quot;green&quot; association with a lamp, battery, or backpack. All of these products have tradeoffs.<p>In Study 5, note that the female cohort in declined in &quot;green&quot;-ness for the manly packaging. This suggests to me that the control was probably somewhat feminine, and people are more likely to prefer products that correspond to their gender norms -- whether or not those products have an underlying pro-environmental utility.<p>&gt; Although only mem [sic] had been recruited to participate in [Study 4], 14 participants reported their gender as female and were therefore excluded.<p>WTF kind of methodology is that?<p>Finally, I note that the archetype of a manly conservationist is strong in the USA. Teddy Roosevelt. John Muir. Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ansel Adams. These people did more than carrying a disposable shopping bag to Whole Foods, and selecting the &quot;green&quot; backpack.