ABSTRACT
Everyone cares about something. However, the ways that care is expressed as well as its impacts on others and self vary greatly. In this chapter, we explore the conceptual and practical applications of care, noting that traditional presumptions about care are gendered. Research suggests that close, caring and stable relationships support favourable emotional and physiological outcomes for men in particular. But feminist analyses have long demonstrated that masculine care is proximal and conditional. Men are socialised to express care in myopic ways that are often self-serving. Further, care is traditionally associated with women and femininities. This has not only stereotyped women’s labour (and its associated sociopolitical devaluing) but has also backgrounded men’s access to broader, deeper and wider expressions of care, rendering these elements of masculinities mute. Here, we reinvigorate the notion that all humans (regardless of gender/identity) care about, take care of, give and receive care for Earth, others and self, indicating that the levels of meaning we attach to our various relationships reflect the degrees of care they imbue. Care is extended by women and men towards human others and self, as well as our relational exchanges with other-than-human others as well. In this sense, care is an indicator of sentience, helping us to enrich our presence in and engagement with the world. Similarly, the other-than-human world offers us care in return. Aligned with feminist care theorists, redirecting masculine care is a central fixture of ecological masculinities
