ABSTRACT
17Masculinities are structural, personal and unavoidably plural. They are also politicised. The conundrums confronting white men in particular are becoming increasingly acute; their anger and hurt now visible like never before. Dressed up as champions of ‘freedom of speech’ alt-right and cultural libertarian commentators (the most vocal of whom are white males) have levelled their sights on political correctness, feminists, LGBTIQA+ people, climate justice activists and regulatory approaches to environmental exploitation as if these groups and initiatives represent some conspiratorial collective hell-bent on making their lives and the tradition of maintaining their primacy miserable. This ‘white male effect’ is enmeshed with masculine hegemonisation and with it the industrial means of production that accompany corporate capitalism and the alarming rationales of climate change denialism. But contra-views have been building for many years. In this chapter, we introduce four streams of influence that each, in their respective ways, offer us alternatives to the constraints of masculine hegemonisation. They are: critical studies on men’s lived experiences and the masculine socialisations that shape them through men’s politics; deep ecological understandings of the wisdoms and psychospiritual awakenings we gain when we embrace intimate encounters with Earth; ecological feminism that unpacks the ways that women and Earth are similarly impacted by male domination; and feminist care theory that helps us understand the conceptual and practical implications of care through a gendered lens. Throughout this book, our arguments are influenced by these four streams of thought and their associated practices, given they share in common broader, deeper and wider considerations for Earth, each other and self.
