Ecological Masculinities: A Response to the Manthropocene Question?

Citation:

Hultman, Martin, and Paul Pulé. 2019. "Ecological Masculinities: A Response to the Manthropocene Question?" In Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity, edited by Lucas Gottzén, Ulf Mellström, and Tamara Shefer. New York: Routledge. 

Authors: Martin Hultman, Paul Pulé

Annotation:

Summary:
Environmental, natural resource and climate considerations have been marginal issues in the long tradition of masculinities research. With environmental scholars (ecofeminists in particular) highlighting that men are the main perpetrators of the slow violence of social inequities, climate crises, biodiversity losses and mounting human wastes, this chapter scrutinises the masculinities and environmental nexus more closely. Raewyn Connell (1990) provided one of the earliest sociological studies on the relationship between hegemonic masculinities and men in the environmental movement. Building on that study, we provide critical analyses of two configurations of masculinities we refer to as ‘industrial/breadwinner’ and ‘ecomodern’ masculinities that dominate politics around the world, recognising that both are acutely but distinctly in conflict with the wellbeing of the planet. We proceed to propose a third form we call ‘ecological masculinities’, which considers the insights and limitations of masculinities studies, deep ecology, ecological feminism (especially contemporary developments of queer ecology) and feminist care theory, encouraging scholarly masculinities inquiries and practices towards broader, deeper and wider care for the ‘glocal’ commons.

Topics: Environment, Climate Change, Feminisms, Ecofeminism, Gender, Masculinity/ies, Livelihoods

Year: 2019