Fragile Masculinity Is Literally Making the Earth Toxic

Are America’s straight guys… all… right? We’ve heard of straight guys afraid to wipe their own butts in case it will make them gay. They won’t even wear masks during a goddam pandemic. And there are even straight-identifying men who still like doing gay stuff so they give themselves all sorts of ridiculous names. And now it seems that their nonsense is actively harming all of us — and not just in the general sense. We need to make the saving the environment masculine apparently — studies are showing men think going green is “girly.”

Ugh. Really?

According to Scientific American, women have long taken the lead in caring for the environment. And that could be because men see caring about the environment as unmasculine. Or, rather — they may care about the environment, but their own fragile masculinity is more important. (Psst: Hey guys, if we don’t have a planet, we don’t have a place for you to be macho at.)

The study consisted of seven experiments with over 2,000 participants from the U.S. and China. It showed a link between environmentalism and feminine behavior. For example, people of both sexes described someone who used a canvas bag for grocery shopping rather than a plastic bag as more feminine.

Another experiment involved asking people to recall times they did something good or bad for the environment. Participants again perceived themselves as “more feminine” when they did good things.

One of the most interesting — and maddening — experiments involved giving men a pink, flowery gift card. They were then asked to purchase a lamp, a backpack and some batteries. The men given the pink gift card were more likely to choose items that were worse for the environment than men given a generic gift card.

The study came to the conclusion that to help men embrace going green, we need to make it “manly.” But instead, might we suggest that straight men get the fuck over themselves?

Seriously, who knew that toxic masculinity was quite literally toxic?

Aside from, you know, every woman ever.

Have straight men completely lost their minds?

This article was originally published on March 4, 2020. It has since been updated.