Look, being a guy can be tough. You have to act macho everywhere you go, from the office, the gym, even at the grocery store, or you may be ridiculed by...someone, right?
Not to mention everything we are already responsible for. I mean, we have to pay for factory-farmed dinners, pay for gas and diesel, and if taking out the trash wasn't enough, now we have to sort through recycling too?
Maybe this is why men are much less likely to be eco-friendly as compared to their female counterparts. As it turns out, the old wives tale of the husband unable to pick up after themselves is having serious ramifications for the earth.
Over 2000 individuals were interviewed in a study about their habits and decisions that they would make in terms of "buying green," and one clear result was uncovering men's reluctance to making these choices.
Perhaps even more surprisingly, this phenomenon was not even mysterious to the subjects in the study. Men knew exactly why they were acting this way.
Instead of blaming this one on the dog, men fessed up and explained that making "green" choices made them feel less masculine in their identity.
The study found that there were feminine biases in all sorts of decision-making processes.
"In one experiment, participants of both sexes described an individual who brought a reusable canvas bag to the grocery store as more feminine than someone who used a plastic bag"”regardless of whether the shopper was a male or female."
Not only that, but most men actually reported that any time they did something good for the environment, they felt less manly.
Clearly we have a lot to work on as a gender, but maybe admitting we have a problem is the first step? It's a long road to recovery.
