A Study of Gender and Environmental Attitude (Case study: Urmia)

In recent years environmental issues have received greater attention within academic circles and society and the environment has become a major social issue for larger numbers of people than ever before. So the role of gender in environmental orientation is emphasized. Among various theories of the environmental sociology eco-feminism theory argues that there is a difference in environmental attitudes ​​and behavior in favor of women.
Goal: This study will investigate whether a potential difference of environmental attitudes between men and women could be explained by eco-feminism theory?
In this research¡ environmental attitude has been evaluated based on the Dunlap and Van-Liere (1978) scale. Methodologically survey method was applied with cluster sampling method to choose the samples. The main tool for collecting data was questionnaire.
Overall, the results showed that surveyed samples received a high score in environmental attitudes and gender has not a significant influence on people’s environmental attitudes. Hence eco-feminism theory that focuses on the further supporting of women towards environmental issues was not confirmed experimentally. This could be due to the absence of differences in the socialization of men and women in Iran.