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View all search resultsDon't place the burden of going green on female consumers
In contrast, men are more wasteful, leave a greater carbon footprint, recycle less and feel less guilty about their non-green behavior.
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F
rom bringing reusable shopping bags to sorting out household waste, society has labeled sustainable actions as a feminine trait. The reason behind this is obvious yet uncomfortable. Women are seen as the primary and often the only caretaker of various domestic duties.
Therefore, it is unsurprising that a myriad of eco-friendly brands targets female customers. Eventually, this gesture has contributed to reinforcing green-feminine stereotypes and subsequently justifies men avoiding green behaviors.
Expecting the valiant minority of female green consumers to find a way out of unsustainability is not enough. While females are key to promoting a circular economy, businesses and the government are required to play their part to fix structural problems, which could balance the people's responsibility, irrespective of their gender, to act sustainably.
Prior research has found that women are more eco-friendly than men in many aspects, including behavior, attitudes or choices. In purchasing goods and services, for instance, they care about green labels and prefer energy-saving products. Women also actively reuse, recycle and sort household waste. In contrast, men produce more waste, leave a greater carbon footprint, recycle less and feel less guilty about their non-green behavior.
Consistent with those findings, last year's study by Bindu Shrestha et al. suggested that women actively participate in energy-saving actions and are significantly more aware of their families' energy consumption.
On the flip side, contrary to their nobler intentions to act sustainably, women may inevitably litter frequently than thought. They experience a monthly period for roughly 40 years during their lives and, therefore, may use 5,000 to 15,000 menstrual pads or tampons, producing a lot of waste. In addition, society has disproportionately shifted the burden to women as family caretakers. Hence, household decisions to consider purchasing disposable or cloth diapers for their children are mainly made by mothers.
Against this backdrop, the following questions arise: Why do women choose disposable products when they have a higher intention to use green products? Should they bear the responsibility alone? What are the roles of businesses and policymakers? To answer those questions, we must first understand sustainable consumption and what entails such a practice.
