Exploring Why Women Lead the Sustainability Movement—and the Urgent Need to Close the Eco Gender Gap
Jon is Co-founder of BrandCulture and a pioneer in wedding the disciplines of strategic branding, culture development and interdisciplinary design united in Shared Purpose. Jon is also Co-founder of Synthetic Acumen and ResearchGOAT, a Gen-AI platform that automates the process of qualitative research. And most recently, Jon is Co-founder of Super South | Summit for Sustainable Innovation and Impact.
After recently attending an event at the Duke Campus Farm, we were astonished that a group of over 50+ students had only about 5 men in the group. Why this gender imbalance and who is leading the future of farming and sustainability?
The two may not seem intimately tied together at first glance, but gender not only plays a significant role in green decision-making on an individual level, but also in climate activism on the global stage.
The phrase “the Eco Gender Gap” was coined to reflect that women are statistically more likely to make green decisions in their day-to-day lives. Women make up the vast majority of the clientele of the leading zero-waste retailers (roughly 90% for the top two brands), are more likely to recycle and to choose not to litter. Women are also more likely to carry reusable bags at higher rates; some men are more likely to avoid them for fear of appearing effeminate. Of vegetarians, 59% are women. This number increases to 80% among vegans.
Statistics are clear that, as of yet, saving the earth is a woman’s game, but why? What exactly is the relationship between masculinity, femininity and taking on climate change?
Meat and Masculinity
Gendered relationships with climate activism extend all the way to the food chain.
In an ad for the fast food company Carl’s Junior, with a marketing tie-in to the X-Men franchise, X-Men character Mystique prepares to eat a burger only to transform into a massive, heavily-muscled man. “Man up,” notes the ad, implying that only a real man could handle the substantial burger’s heft. And in a now-infamous commercial from Burger King, promoting the Texas Double Whopper, the actor bursts into song with a “manthem” after being offered what was described as non-meat “chick food.”
Society has long reinforced stereotypes about men, meat and masculinity, while in parallel, there has been a feminization of vegetarianism and healthy diets. When In-n-Out received a petition to add a veggie burger to its menu, there was a major backlash, with large numbers of men writing in with comments like “fanatics that need to be nursefed since they are all little delicate snowflakes hiding from one microagression to the next, seeking a gender free, multi-culture diverse safespace to cuddle in.”
Eco-purchasing Decisions
This gender difference has a major impact for companies – sustainable household products are both primarily bought by and marketed to women – especially given the role many women continue to lead overseeing the household and its accompanying purchases.
The market research firm Mintel notes that “women are not only more powerful consumers, but also disproportionately responsible, still, for the domestic sphere.” Plastic Freedom and Package Free Shop, two popular zero-waste online retailers, say they are careful to use gender-neutral marketing – but both note about 90% of their customers are still women.
Gender and Climate Activism
There is an argument that the fundamental understanding of the discussion around climate change is in itself gendered. Although there are of course exceptions, “Men dominate the fossil fuel industry at all levels, they control the military, they consume more meat, they drive larger vehicles, and their recreational activities are more carbon-intensive,” notes an article that correlates an intimate connection between manhood and the consumption of fossil fuels.
Across the board, traits coded as masculine, including bravery, patriotism and physical strength tend to be associated with more extractive practices: military activity, resource depletion, construction or the development of vehicles that are unnecessarily large or potent. Meanwhile, many of the traits traditionally associated with femininity — empathy, altruism, ability to negotiate effectively — have proven central to collaboration for climate action.
Many of the leading climate activists are women, yet their voices are largely absent in the rooms where decisions are actually made. Men tend to dominate climate change political conversations in spaces such as the United Nations and other areas where substantial change could be effected.
Incorporating women into the discussion of climate change has led to larger steps toward eco-friendly practices across sectors. Research has shown that having women lead and actively participate in climate change dialogues often results in better resource and conservation management. Women are also more “effective in pioneering community resilience, leading local management groups, protecting their communities against natural disasters, and in ministerial roles.”
It is not enough to simply include women in climate activism: we must center practices that are coded as feminine in our efforts to mitigate climate change to help create a sustainable planet for all genders.
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