Masculinity & Male Emissions

A new study shows that women emit 26% less carbon than men in food and transport - the two biggest lifestyle contributors to climate chaos. And it’s not because women eat like little or never leave the house. The difference holds even after adjusting for calorie intake, commuting distance, and job status.

So where does the extra male pollution come from? Two things: meat and motors. And the researchers aren’t shy about it, these behaviours are “associated with male identity.” In other words, we’re burning the planet so men can feel manly.

The average man’s lifestyle in these sectors spews 5.3 tonnes of CO₂-equivalent a year. Women? 3.9. That’s not a rounding error, it’s a crisis of identity. This isn’t about personal choice or food preference. It’s about how deeply consumption has been gendered, and how hard some people cling to behaviours that scream “power” no matter the cost.

Masculinity has a meat problem.

Across the world, women are more likely to go plant-based. Why? Because they’re less tethered to the myth that eating corpses is some kind of primal performance. A 2023 Vegan Society briefing showed that men face social pressure, nutrition myths, and fragile ego triggers that keep them locked into animal consumption. Apparently, steak is still a status symbol, and being kind is still “feminine.”

The transport emissions gap is even more revealing: it only shows up in couples, and gets worse when children are involved. That’s right, once paired up, men commandeer the car and rack up miles while women vanish from the stats. It’s not biology. It’s entitlement.

The implications for climate policy are glaring. The people most responsible for the emissions are the least likely to support the policies needed to cut them. Because if your identity is built on control, excess, and resistance to change, giving up meat or the car isn’t just inconvenient, it’s unthinkable. Climate breakdown is bad, but looking “unmanly”? Apparently worse.

If climate solutions don’t challenge cultural norms, especially around gender, they won’t land. We need policies that don’t just nudge individuals but interrogate why certain behaviours are seen as normal, powerful, or necessary. Eating animals isn’t just a dietary choice. It’s a learned behaviour, propped up by marketing, myth, and misplaced masculinity.

It’s not that women are perfect. It’s that they’re less invested in domination.

And that’s the root of the problem. Not just for climate policy, but for any justice movement. Domination, of land, other animals, humans, is the blueprint. And if we don’t dismantle it, we’ll be stuck debating carpool lanes while the world burns.

If you're serious about climate justice, start with the basics:

Reject animal use. Challenge norms. Stop enabling the fragile male supremacy complex.