‘Climate change is not gender neutral’ is a statement that has gained more recognition within the climate change debate over the last decade. This has resulted in a new field of research called gender and climate change. The mainstream gender and climate change debate has earlier almost exclusively focused on women’s vulnerability. A brief reading of the literature clearly shows that men are rarely observed in this context. The objective of this thesis is to broaden the understanding of the relation between gender and climate change by bringing men into the discussion. I have selected four cases/countries where existing research on men’s gendered experiences of climate change are mentioned. These take place in Greenland, Australia, Peru and South Africa. The result show five common findings between the cases: gendered responsibilities, changing traditional gender roles, psychological impacts, alcohol consumption and violence against women. The concept hegemonic masculinities is utilized as a framework used to understand why men are negatively affected by climate change. Masculine norms of attitudes and behavior identified in the multiple case studies are invulnerability and unwillingness to seek help. The analysis show that in times of climate variability can masculine norms be damaging for both men and women. A second analytical framework, the gender transformative approach brings the analysis to critically reflect upon masculinities and climate change as functions of power. From this perspective this thesis concludes that the gender and climate change discourse needs to move beyond a focus on women’s vulnerabilities, which divide the world into two classes: women as victims and men as perpetrators. This approach rather urge for a focus on the structures of power and domination within laws, behaviors and institutions that generates injustices.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:lnu-44709 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | Söderström, Ellen |
| Publisher | Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för samhällsstudier (SS) |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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