Opinion: Alexander Huntley
Alexander Huntley, research and policy officer at The Vegan Society, talks us through the phenomenon of gender imbalance within veganism, from theories on the ‘meat-masculinity link’ to data on gender-specific barriers to a plant-based life.
The issue of veganism and gender has been of interest to The Vegan Society for some time. We know that there is a gender imbalance within the vegan population, with women more likely to be vegan than men. This phenomenon was reconfirmed with our recent How Many Vegans data which found that 3.6% of women identify as vegan or plant-based, compared to 1.98% of men.
The fact that men are less likely to go vegan presents a problem for The Vegan Society and the wider vegan movement. We want to show that veganism is for everyone and encourage people of all backgrounds to try it. To do so, we need to understand what is stopping certain groups, such as men, from making that positive change.
Knowing that there is a gender imbalance within veganism raises two key questions: why does this imbalance exist and what can we do about it? We’ve spent the past two years trying to answer these points.
Answering why a gender imbalance exists is relatively straightforward thanks to a plethora of research on the topic. From reviewing the existing literature, we found that social stigma or the expectation that going vegan will negatively impact personal relationships is preventing more men from going vegan. We found that this is true not only of veganism but of any lifestyle which excludes meat from one’s diet.
Not eating meat may be viewed as a gender role violation. Essentially, over time meat eating has become strongly associated with mainstream masculinity. Hunting for, cooking and eating meat are all ways in which masculinity is ‘performed’, in part because dominance and physical strength are core values to some traditional understandings of masculinity. This has been theorized as the ‘meat-masculinity link’, whereby eating meat is ‘manly’ and being manly means eating meat. Of course, women also eat meat, but research shows that men are more likely to consider meat eating to be ‘natural’.
This link is deeply rooted in cultures where meat consumption is high — most Western countries including the UK. Letting go of these values and charting a more positive interpretation of masculinity may be difficult for a lot of men.
However, masculinity is dynamic; what is considered masculine changes over time. Masculinity as a concept is a contested space and there is no good reason to believe that the meat-masculinity link cannot be overcome.
“Social stigma and gender role expectations represent the main barrier preventing more men from going vegan.”
Social stigma and gender role expectations represent the main barrier preventing more men from going vegan. While this helps us understand the gender imbalance, we’re still left wondering what we can do about it. To answer this, we gathered data from almost 100 vegan men to find out how they overcame these obstacles. We also gathered data from 1,000 non-vegan men to better understand current levels of interest in veganism.
From the vegan men we learnt that many of them had indeed experienced issues with friends and family who were unsupportive and made their transition to veganism difficult. Nevertheless, these men stood firm in their convictions and acknowledged that, while lack of support is a barrier, nothing could dissuade them from pursuing veganism. Those that found transitioning to veganism the easiest were those with a strong support system in place, showing how important our relationships can be when it comes to making any ethically informed behavioural changes.
Our data from the non-vegan men is very encouraging; we found that 7% are planning to go vegan in the future and 34% have some interest in adopting a vegan diet but have some concerns preventing them from doing so. These numbers confirm that there are plenty of future vegans out there — they just need support and encouragement to take that step.
That leaves 59% of non-vegan men who reported having no interest in making the switch. But, as someone who would have chosen this answer before going vegan myself, I would not write off these men too quickly.
What does all of this tell us? We know that men experience gender-specific barriers to going vegan and we know that with the right kind of support, many more men are likely to go vegan in future. It is now up to vegan organizations to provide useful resources to ease the transition.
Veganism and gender is complicated, but only by addressing the issue head on can we hope to break down the barriers causing the gender divide within veganism and, by doing that, build a world where animals are not needlessly used and exploited.
By Alexander Huntley, The Vegan Society