Zero Waste and Gender: Is the ‘Zero Waste’ Action Equally Distributed in the Society?

I would like to mention this topic as a report since:

·         I was so happy to see a variety of people are interested in environmental issues and wanted to be part of this community.

·         I am sure you are going to understand this point of view although it is not often mentioned as a climate change related issue.

·         I am currently doing an internship program about Gender Studies and my research topic is based on Gender and Environment.

Now, to enter the topic, as we come across ‘zero waste’ movements and the proactive action taken towards waste management topic, we tend to normalize some parts which are significantly related to ‘stereotyping’ of gender roles and gender role distribution.

To talk much clearly about this distribution, first, let’s remember what Zero Waste Action means.

Zero Waste Action means designing and manufacturing products which are created with the aim of systemically avoiding and eliminating toxicity and waste volume or production of malign substances in the first place.

So, in the definition, there isn’t an ‘eco-gender’ associated gap or a reference to gender roles. However, as we put this action into practice, an uncontrollable eco-gender gap seems to occur gradually.

Eco-gender gap is identified as women having more responsibility and consciousness towards environmental issues than men. This term is not to create a barrier between gender mechanisms yet it is an unfortunate indication of how in a binary gendered system (unfortunately, related studies often do not include genderqueer people), women and men react and take action differently.

According to a research carried out by Mintel, men are significantly less conscientious than their female spouses (in a heterosexual household or in a dynamic) when it comes to acquiring and maintaining environmental habits. While overall recycling habit reaches 72%, this number consists of 67% men versus 77% women. Although men are not exceedingly low in maintaining a habit of recycling, it is still lower than women. Regarding this research, woman also have considerably high tendency to encourage their social environment.

                         

To witness this with my own eyes and create my own perspective on the issue, I dared myself to try something I have seen on internet.

“Try to write #zerowaste on Instagram and you’ll see mason jars filled with chocolate smoothies and rows of rose-gold straws.”

It was not completely mason jars and rows of rose-gold straws, but a huge amount of DIY materials which are mostly made by woman under the zero-waste movement have welcomed me. In addition to this, when we consider the reusable products which are frequently commercialized or publicized, they are mostly belong to a class of products that is normatively called as ‘feminine’ products.

For instance, according to Plastic Freedom and Package Free Shop, these are both popular zero-waste online businesses and they claim that they are careful to use of gender –neutral marketing, their customer lists are 90% formed by people who identify themselves as women.

By the way, I did not insert the footages of writing #zerowaste into the search engine of Instagram, since it might cause violation of privacy. Therefore, I would like to dare you the try and see for yourself. I also would like to add that there are definitely some individuals and groups that are sharing/contributing this zero waste movement as from a ‘masculine’ side.

Here, I point out that there is no evidence that men intentionally desire negative outcomes from environmental actions. And, in fact, usually in the politics side of actions taken towards climate change, men are remarkably high in participating. Public environmental actions are easier for men to conduct than fulfilling private pro-environmental actions such as recycling. 

Hence, I wonder, what pushes this section of the community of men (because not every person who identify themselves as men are going to act according to the research that has been conducted) to take less practical action in daily life?

With respect to several newsletter articles, public survey questionnaires and the article of Chenyang Xiao and Aaron M.Mcright (which uses the 2010 General Social Survey Data) , I can deliver some of the common reasons as:

•          Some men admit that caring for environment undermine their masculinity, and usually they consider actions like recycling in the same way as taking care of chores.

•          Eco-friendly campaigns are usually targets feminine products because the waste amount from fashion and beauty merchandise are likely higher than some other business fields. However, as a result of this they state that they are not able to associate recycling actions with themselves.

And when they are asked why they think as above, they usually state:

•          They are exposed to public humiliation by their peers or masculinity figures they care.

•          These public humiliation acts are statements such as being ‘too feminine’ or being ‘too flowery’.

•          Some men state that they are told this is their wife’s job (recycling, reusing etc.).

This scale of being under peer or general societal pressure might differ society to society depending on how masculinity is perceived in that specific society.

From a perspective of why women are less into the public environmental actions usually the reason stated as:

•          Being employed,
•          Being married,
•          Having children at home

As personal constraints.

I also would like to insert the percentage table from the article as giving credit the research and the article owners

Furthermore, although the difference is not extremely major, there is still an existence of segregation. An action which supposed to be gender-neutral becomes gender focused when we take a closer look.

After these we might think,

First of all the data set was from 2010 and article was published in 2014, and now we are in 2021. Has the situation changed?

Well, I can conclude for myself that women are now much able to participate in public environmental actions and even perhaps becoming a leader of these actions. Although there are still not enough spokeswomen in the conventions, the progression is visible.  On the other hand, can we say also men are now able to fulfill private environmentalist actions willingly and freely in their daily life?

 As a person who has an environmental engineering degree and studied in a class that mostly consisted of  women, participated in zero-waste volunteer work in my campus as part of a women dominated group; I might say I think the prejudice against men who cares about simple actions such as recycling exists.

However, this is not something unconquerably impossible. By simply eliminating the prejudice against gender roles, we can reach a full efficiency in these movements and also in other sides of environmental issues.

Actions, movements and conventions, they are carried out for all of us, because we are and we should be striving for a green future together. On the other hand, the lessened practical action leads to slow results. If we only estimate what can happen when (for a binary gendered system) whole zero waste action percentage reaches 90%-95%, I think we would understand the uprising effect in overall waste management.