Rethinking Masculinity for Sustainability

1. A Declaration of Caring: Towards an ecological masculinism Paul M. Pulé The Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy Murdoch University Perth, Western Australia 2009

2. Sustainability going mainstream?

3. Planet in Crisis? • Climate Change • Poverty • Recession

4. Western Societies are Malestreams Contemorary Western societies are ‘dualised’, and ‘hyper-masculinised’ … caught in a struggle between good versus evil, right versus wrong, masculine versus feminine … Western malestream are constructed on a Logic of Domination guided by ethics of daring Maleness ≠ social justice or environmental care i.e. to be a caring male in the modern West is an oxymoron ... an affront to traditional masculinities Resulting in shallow reformist ethics of weak sustainability

5. Looking Back Since the dawn of time, humanity has been physically and meta-physically embedded in the more-than-human world. We are Homo sapien sapiens: The rational being; wise and philosophical, sensible, well-advised, discreet and judicious … we have long had an intimate relationship with our surroundings as women and men … creating societies that have been on-the-whole egalitarian and sustainable

6. Of Men and Nature Men have shown much care throughout human evolution: - Care for the ill and infirm - Care for juveniles - Burial rites for the dead - Sharing food

7. Greeks, Romans, Countrymen! • “Always be the best, my boy, the bravest, and hold your head above the others.” • Glaucus advising Diomedes in Homer’s Iliad, quoted by Anthony Everitt (2001) in Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome’s Greatest Politician, p. 46. • “… great Rome/Shall rule to the ends of the earth, shall aspire to the highest/achievements,/Shall ring the seven hills with a wall to make one city, /Blessed in her breed of men …Heaven dwellers all, all tenants of the realm above …” • Virgil in C. Day Lewis’s (1986) translation of The Aeneid, p. 183.

8. Hero Worship • “For the evolution of the Western mind has been driven by a heroic impulse to forge an autonomous rational human self by separating it from the primordial unity with nature. The fundamental religious, scientific, and philosophical perspectives of Western culture have all been affected by this decisive masculinity … repression of the feminine … undifferentiated unitary consciousness … of the participation mystique with nature: a progressive denial of the anima mundi, of the soul of the world, of the community of being, of the all-pervading, of the mystery and ambiguity, of all that which the [Western] masculine has projectively identified as ‘other’.” • Richard Tarnas (1991) Passion of the Western Mind, pp. 441 – 442.

9. A Protestant Work Ethic • Man is dominated by the making of money, by acquisition as the ultimate purpose of his life. Economic acquisition is no longer subordinated to man as the means for satisfaction of his material needs. This reversal of what we should call the natural relationship, so irrational from a naïve point of view, is evidently as definitely a leading principal of capitalism as it is foreign to all peoples not under capitalistic influence. At the same time it expresses a type of feeling which is closely connected with certain religious ideas. • Max Weber (1930) The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, p.53

10. A Sustainable Future? • With both cruel and compassionate sides, we stand in the world like a Janus head, our two faces looking in opposite directions. • Frans de Waal (2005) Our Inner Ape: The Best and the Worst of Human Nature, p. 5.

11. Is it possible?… • … Men & Masculinities have a key role to play in the mainstreaming of sustainability • … and this raises the question … how are we to (re)awaken the wider care and justice that exists within men and masculinities? • … men and masculinities need to be ‘ecologised’ • … men and masculinities need to increasingly operate from an Ethics of Caring

12. ExistingMasculinities Theories

13. Ecomasculinity-?

14. Ecological Feminism The mutual oppression of women and nature by a male dominated world (malestreams) … Associated with ecofeminism are a cluster of controversial questions: Are women biologically better nurturers than men? Is the Earth our Mother? Do we want to sex-type the planet? Furthermore, are the twin dominations of women and nature necessarily intertwined? In other words, have there been societies that have lived in harmony with nature but dominated by women? Have there been matrifocal societies that have dominated nature? And what is an ecofeminist reading of human population? Finally, can we actually live ecofeminism? Patsy Hallen (1994) Reawakening the Erotic, p.20. 3 - Broad Categories of Ecological Feminism: Radical Ecofeminists Liberal Ecofeminists Essentialist Ecofeminists

15. Nine Key Environmental Philosophies • Ecological Feminism • Deep Ecology • Social Ecology • Bioregionalism • Ecopsychology • Gaia Theory • Inclusionality Theory • Feminist Sociobiology • Systems Thinking

16. An Ecological Masculinism?

17. Ecological masculinism ‘Ecologising’ Western maleness requires: - a political and theoretical ecological masculinism - a personal and practical Ecomasculinity-? Reawaken societal justice and environmental care Connection to self in-relationship-with human and other-than-human Others.

18. Ethical premises of ecological masculinism: • Compliment existing ecophilosophies • Encourage a deconstructive critical analysis of hegemonic masculinities • Reconstruct masculine norms as fundamentally caring

19. Maleness, Social Justice and Environmental Care A Declaration of Caring: All men and all masculine identities are fundamentally good and have an infinite capacity to care!

20. Ecological Masculinism

21. The 12 Point Platform of ecological masculinism • Deconstruct Hegemonic Masculinities • Construct Deep Green Eco-ethics of Strong Sustainability through Ethics of Caring • Support Global Fecundity (Both Human and Other-Than-Human) • Take Responsibility for and Work Towards the Elimination of Ethics of Daring • All Men are Good … and have an infinite capacity to care • Care for Self, Society, and Environment concurrently • Acknowledge the Intrinsic Value of All Living Things • Make Amends for Past Hurts Perpetrated on Others • Cease Making Choices that Cause Harm to Others • Commit to Ecologization   • Mainstream Social and Environmental Justice • Normalize ecological masculinism

22. Towards an ecomasculinity-?

23. What Does ecomasculinity-? actually look like…? I don’t know exactly what it looks like for you … but I can tell you what it looks like for me … I used to think …

24. Ecological masculinism: Dispelling the male/care oxymoron in theory and praxis … … and locating modern Western maleness at the heart of sustainability