ABSTRACT
Paul Kivel’s (2007) ‘“Act like a man” box’ illuminated the ways that masculine hegemonisation constrains men’s lives. The behaviourisms that condition boys and men to dominate have come at a terrible price for Earth’s living systems, otherised humans and males as well. These behaviourisms have been institutionalised and normalised. They condition males to be emotionally supressed while prioritising competition, stoicism and violence towards Earth, others and self. In this chapter, we define industrial/breadwinner, ecomodern and ecological masculinities. Industrial/breadwinner masculinities represent the most overt examples of socially and environmentally destructive expressions of masculine hegemonisation. They have been created and maintained through colonisation, engineering and technology, neoclassical economics and the intentional concealment of social practices such as sexual misconduct in the workplace. Their more sanitised cousins are the ecomodernists, representing that suite of masculinities that valorise light green sustainability through neo-liberal notions of reform. They are distinct from industrial/breadwinner masculinities in their willingness to find points of compromise between concurrent care for planet and people weighed against industrial and corporate capitalism. However, they have failed to deliver policies and practices that would assure a deep green future for all of life. We offer a third way; one that provides a framework for an emergent metanarrative under which previous and perennial works on ‘ecomasculinity(ies)’ have emerged and facilitates a shift in our understanding of men and masculinities away from hegemonisation towards ecologisation that we call ecological masculinities.
