Wow, okay: As Adrian Grenier will tell you, the Earth is dying at an alarming rate, and James Wilkie, a business professor at the University of Notre Dame wanted to find out why. While there are already several studies that show women tend to be more environmentally conscious than men, one reason why is extremely wild: In a new study, Wilkie found that men are less likely to buy environmentally-friendly products because they perceive them as too feminine.
Oh my god.
The study was published in The Journal of Consumer Research this month and Wilkie and his colleagues found that “greenness” is equated in both men’s and women’s minds with femininity. Here’s how they came to that conclusion, via the Washington Post:
The researchers next gave a group of men phony gift cards and told them to pick from a selection of batteries, which included a green option. In both a faux Walmart and an online shopping scenario, the men avoided the green choice. “Self-perceptions of femininity suggest that threats may also influence private behavior,” the authors wrote.
Men also donated more often to nonprofits with “masculine” logos than organizations with more frivolous and lighter colored writing, the Post reports. So now we know whom to blame when we all sink into the ocean.
