Boys and men from generation Z are more likely than older baby boomers to believe that feminism has done more harm than good, according to research that shows a “real risk of fractious division among this coming generation”.
One in four UK males aged 16 to 29 believe it is harder to be a man than a woman and a fifth of those who have heard of him now look favourably on the social media influencer Andrew Tate, the polling of over 3,600 people found.
Tate, the British-American former kickboxer who has 8.7 million followers on the social media platform X, is facing charges in Romania, which he denies, of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. He has talked about hitting and choking women and has said he is “absolutely a misogynist”.
…
On feminism, 16% of gen Z males felt it had done more harm than good. Among over-60s the figure was 13%.
The figures emerged from Ipsos polling for King’s College London’s Policy Institute and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. The research also found that 37% of men aged 16 to 29 consider “toxic masculinity” an unhelpful phrase, roughly double the number of young women who don’t like it.
“This is a new and unusual generational pattern,” said Prof Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute. “Normally, it tends to be the case that younger generations are consistently more comfortable with emerging social norms, as they grew up with these as a natural part of their lives.”
I can’t say I’m surprised that people like Andrew Tate, Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro have gained quite the social media following. Society has failed men, and the oligarchy that controls our world has a lot to answer for.
Men are disproportionately affected by a lot of the socioeconomic issues currently plaguing the Western world because despite decades of progress towards creating an egalitarian society, men are the ones who are negatively impacted if they cannot provide.
And before you dispute me on this notion, can you offer any other explanation for why the biggest role model for a lot of teenage boys is some bloomy rind dick cheese who looks like a spitting image of the Stonks meme guy?
It’s easy to get a following by fostering fear and hate. Literally just blame and vilify a group and blame them for all the problems your target audience has.
I do agree males are disproportionately impacted by certain things… look at prison, suicide, etc. but I also think feminism would correct that. I’m a truly equal society, men wouldn’t bare the brute of the stress of financial support, for example. I also think in a truly equal society, the notion that men chase women goes away. People are just out there trying to find love and/or happiness.
If you have that, a lot of the symptoms you mentioned, where men are disproportionately affected go away.
Men are disproportionately affected by a lot of the socioeconomic issues currently plaguing the Western world
Absolute nonsense. But good job exemplifying the segment the article is talking about by regurgitating that imaginary talking point.
Found the boomer?
It’s crazy how hard it is for some people to simply recognize that men have their own unique issues not being addressed by feminism.
Men are disproportionately affected by a lot of the socioeconomic issues
Women are more poor than men. So, what do you mean by this?
men are the ones who are negatively impacted if they cannot provide.
What does that even mean?
judicial decisions on child custody and alimony are heavily favoured towards women
Men are more likely than women to get custody when they ask for it. Men pay more alimony on average because they are more likely to have and earn more money.
Single mothers (not single fathers) are one of the poorest groups worldwide. That goes for the USA as well.
It seems like you really bought into the angry YouTubers.
Women are more poor than men.
Men are more homeless. The median wage difference between men and women 18-34 is not significant.
What does that even mean?
Going to the first point, societally, generally women have more to fall back on. Of course it would be great if everyone can choose to work or not, but generally in a straight relationship, the only one with a real choice is the woman. Also, obviously this is controversial to say, but semi-jokingly a lot of men see being able to sell sex/nudes as a privilege for relatively easy money.
Men are more likely than women to get custody when they ask for it.
Source?
Single mothers (not single fathers) are one of the poorest groups worldwide. That goes for the USA as well.
Does that include the single fathers in prison?
Men are more homeless.
Selection bias, as homeless women have twice the mortality of their male peers. There are more living homeless men entirely because there are more dead homeless women.
societally, generally women have more to fall back on
More of what?
Men are more likely than women to get custody when they ask for it.
What’s more damning is that In 91% of custody cases, the parents mutually decide to give custody to the mother. Fathers fight for custody in court in less than 4% of divorces. Twenty-seven percent of fathers completely abandon their children after divorce.
Does that include the single fathers in prison?
Bizarrely, yes. In the rare instances when fathers with convictions attempt to win custody, they have a better than average chance of obtaining it.
A great deal of this boils down to with the gender pay gap which favors men at virtually every income tier and along every sociological fault line. Since primary guardianship is officially a gender neutral dispute, the individual with the larger income enjoys disproportionate advantage in winning custody.
There are more living homeless men entirely because there are more dead homeless women.
You can’t honestly believe this. The mortality rate is awful but it does not sufficiently explain why there are more men than women unhoused.
You can’t honestly believe this.
I don’t have to believe it. I’ve got the data to prove it.
The mortality rate is awful but it does not sufficiently explain
When the mortality rate among women is twice that of men, the only way you get an equivalent number of homeless women is if the deficit is made up by women moving into the homeless population faster than men.
So which is it? Are men predominant because women die faster? Or are they not predominant because more women are becoming homeless?
I don’t have to believe it. I’ve got the data to prove it.
Ok, this is hilarious! I actually dug into your data, but I didn’t have to dig that deep to find you are COMPLETELY misreading it. Just read this from the FIRST PAGE:
Within the homeless population, people who are Black, FEMALE, and Hispanic have LOWER relative mortality risk than their white, male, and non-Hispanic counterparts.
So wait, your data which you used to dismiss the male homelessness issue by provocatively suggesting women were dying in the hundreds of thousands, actually shows the exact OPPOSITE?
I mean, I am not a statistician, I will be humble for a moment and accept the possibility that maybe I have misread something here, because this level of irony is hard for me to believe. I get things wrong sometimes! Where am I wrong? Point to me where in the data you can get away with saying that female homeless mortality is double. Make it make sense.This seems to happen every time an issue affecting boys and men is discussed. No matter what the data says, the welfare of men is dismissed hastily. It’s like people think this is a zero sum game or something.
For the most part these are great points. No arguments, save for that you mentioned women earn less than men - not disagreeing with you, but my understanding is that where men and women are doing the same job the wage gap is almost nonexistent.
Factors like the glass ceiling and draconian laws about taking time off work to parent - and who can do this - contribute as well.
Also men tend to gravitate towards higher paying, and more dangerous, jobs. Women generally want jobs that will help others and give their life meaning, whereas many men will kill vows in a manure pit with their teeth for 8 hours a day if you pay them enough.
Of course things are changing - there Fd women working in the trades, for example.
So yes, the gap exists but the “why” of it and the solutions are complex and nuanced. I felt hat because of this it detracts from otherwie well made arguments.
Yeah that is there but the playing fiekd
The gender pay gap is very real. Women end up with holes in their CVs due to pregnancy, child birth and then child care. That holes means lower pay. Lower pay means more likely to do child care. Society pushed childcare more on to women. If child care costs more than they earn, of course they aren’t going to work. Making the CV hole worse. It’s a negative feedback loop kicked off by having kids.
Yep. Tovuhed on this. Many countries allow both parents equal time off to take care of kids. Which is the better solution here.
Cherry picking, cherry picking and, finally, cherry picking.
Nice.
There are many things.
For instance, I am working legally in the US, this is my third year, I had to run away feom my home in Mexico because od the narco, I didn’t mess with anybody, I hardly got out just to get groceries and my job. Some narco srill burned my house.
I know 2 women with the same issue, but they came here illegally. One of them works and the other didn’t. But both, in a year, are already residents. I for instance pay my taxes do everything legal and i got denied of any form of aid to change my status.
And for instance, I helped at one place where they help single mothers… all have the kids and some.od yhem still do drugs. I doubt what you say about the custody.
Because their content is controversial, thus driving engagement, thus being favored by the algorithms of many social media platforms. I still get recommended some of their garbage on YouTube, despite never having watched anything remotely similar to it.
Younger people tend to be easier to influence, and they often lack the experience to smell bullshit. And the more people hear something, the more likely they are to believe it.
The double edged sword with how custody is awarded is that if men are the primary breadwinner of the household, and the mother is the primary caregiver, a judge will say “okay, you spend a lot of time away from the family as it is earning money to support them, then you won’t mind if we mandate that you aren’t legally allowed to see your kids for 75% of the month.”
I can’t say I’m surprised that people like Andrew Tate, Steven Crowder, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro have gained quite the social media following.
I can. Their content sucks. It’s whiny and boring and utterly tasteless. Tate’s an absolute skeez. Crowder has zero swag. Peterson is an incoherent puddle. And Ben Shapiro… well… just come on, wtf is this?
And before you dispute me on this notion, can you offer any other explanation for why the biggest role model for a lot of teenage boys is some bloomy rind dick cheese who looks like a spitting image of the Stonks meme guy?
Because that’s half of what YouTube / Twitch / Netflix / et al serves up anymore. These people are the dregs of modern media, but they and their promoters are everywhere. Its the same way that AM radio is the endless cesspool of senile racists whining about scary foreigners and Daytime TV is washed up fashion models pretending to have the secret to fame, fortune, and eternal youth. The lowest common denominator of mass media is overflowing with gross, juvenile bullshit.
And when you simply cannot escape the morass of filth, that’s going to affect you one way or another.
Childless men don’t have a stake in child custody, visitation, child support or spousal support so that can’t be it.
I used to be sympathetic to these types of arguments until I actually gained relevant experience with the formula that gets used to calculate family support.
I have to assume you’re talking about Andrew Tate. Pretty much everyone who ever pushed cryptocurrency as part of their social media sponsorships I assume is or was on the Russian take. We experienced the same exact type of messaging in 2014-2015 about how unfair life is for men when women are by default responsible for raising and providing for kids if Dad skips town or otherwise leaves the picture.
How did they define femanism cos by trational dedinition of equal i heighly doubt it
Y’all know it’s incels, right?
From what I read of the polls, Im strongly inclined that its religion based not incels.
Well, that’s a new one. Not that surprising, though.
Feminism it’s just another tactic of the world depopulation plan by the elite. That’s it more rights for women and equality it’s just for them to not be just reproductive meat. They want women to not have a lot of kids a now they didn’t have time for it they need to make more money. LMAO
Or, you know, women wanted to stop being told by men like you what they ought to do and how to arrange society. Smh
Maybe but pretty hard to coordinate the way it’s being coordinated, at a global scale seems more like the elite pushing their agenda.
You don’t think it’s possible that women might want equal rights? LMAO
I think equal rights it’s not the problem about it, the problem it’s the manly role feminism propose. Equal rights /not the same/ manly role. I believe the agenda it’s pushing a manly role instead of equal rights to prevent world over population what at the same time it’s not all bad tbh.
So it seems it’s largely ethnic minorities in this age bracket that support this view?
What’s the bet that correlates strongly with religiousness.
Well, in the old days US women couldn’t even vote. Feminism was thus more important than it is today. It’s not really surprising to me that opponents increase by 3% points as women win more equality.
Should we start referring to them as Gen incel?
Feminism has a branding problem. The name itself makes it sound like it’s about putting women above men. People who don’t know better—the kind of people who are disproportionately young—will judge feminism based on the name.
Calling it feminism made sense when everyone “knew” women were generally inferior to men, but since gender equality has become the mainstream view, the name had lost the context that made it work. Combined with the scope creep of feminism that causes it to encompass issues like disability rights and economic inequality, I think feminism is becoming indistinguishable from leftism.
So “humanism”?
Problem is that the branding issue is a problem for women too. The vast majority of feminists are great folks who want equality. But it also attracts the self important types that want to use victim status to get ahead or just generally put the other side down. And they’re usually the loudest “feminists”. That perpetuates the branding problem.
I think this problem is always going to exist when we’re talking about large political or philosophical movements. There’s no Council of Feminism who gets to decide who “counts” as a “real feminist”. I’ve met self proclaimed feminists whose views are what I would describe as actively anti-feminist, but there’s nothing I can do to change that.
An example that comes to my mind is how I grappled with the existence of Trans-Exclusionary-Radical-Feminism and it’s adherents (TERFs). It wasn’t just their transphobia I had beef with, but so much of their supporting worldview made me want to proclaim that they are “no true feminists”. That felt intellectually disingenuous though, because who am I to say what “true feminism” is?
I’ve come to terms with this kind of discomfort, and it’s something that has affected to what extent I call myself a feminist. I still do, but like any word, it’s utility depends on context and often it’s just not a useful label when it covers such a wide diversity of viewpoints. Certainly it shouldn’t be seen as a synonym for “good”, which is perhaps how I sometimes thought of it.
Well put. This is a very salient observation! But as OP said, I think feminism is a particularly bad name. It comes across to many as equivalent to misandrist, matriarchist, or a female only club. Rather than anyone in favor of equality for women.
Feminism is leftism and leftism is feminism. It’s always been that way because it’s all about the same issue, equality. Women’s rights, civil rights, trans rights, they’re all fighting for the same thing. One of my favorite quotes comes from Fannie Lou Hamer, civil rights and women’s rights activist, “Nobody’s free until everybody’s free”
“Nobody’s free until everybody’s free”
This is like a main tenet of existentialisme, at least as it’s described by Sartre and De Beauvoir. To anyone reading, check out the very easy reads of Ethics of Ambiguity by De Beauvoir and Existentialism is a Humanism by Sartre.
I think feminism is becoming indistinguishable from leftism.
There might be a reason for that. Where on the right are you hearing strong advocacy for women’s rights and equality?
People in politics are painting infrastructure bills as progressive these days, so feminism is one of those leftisms just like repaving roads and fixing bridges that are years out of spec. The overton window must be the window on a plane because it wont stop moving.
Believibg in the power of cooperation is already communism in some circles…
Wait a sec. Doesn’t it make libertarians communists in their eyes?
I think it’s important to remember that feminism is as much a political movement as a philosophical one. How things should be versus how to fix things are different.
I think it’s accurate now because feminists don’t want equality; they want superiority.
They will lie to you and talk to their friends behind your backs about the truth.
You’re who I was talking about in my first paragraph.
Isn’t this the same rationale for ‘All Lives Matter’? You want to remove the history of oppression and pretend we’re equal, despite trump and tate and the incels. Feminism was and is necessary, the US is removing womens right to bodily autonomy and you’re pretending it’s all over.
Sorry, did you respond to the wrong comment?
Nope. Feminism is no more about putting women above men than BLM is about putting black lives above others. By removing women from the name you remove the history of oppression, a history that should’nt be hushed uo, and in a world with trump and tate feminism is sorely needed.
So why are you “responding” to a bunch of things I never said or even remotely suggested?
This is such an out-of-touch take. I truly hope you can engage in some learning and arrive at a more productive and truth-seeking conclusion in the future.
Branding problems generally don’t arise out of nowhere. When issues like this arise, it’s crucial to ask, ‘Can anyone benefit monetarily from reshaping this narrative?’ Are there individuals and groups being amplified who profit from redefining ‘feminism’ as repackaged misandry?
If you’re familiar with figures from the manosphere like Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, it’s abundantly clear that the answer is abso-fucking-litely, there are individuals who exploit this narrative. It’s not merely a branding problem; it’s a deliberate disinformation campaign orchestrated by genuine misogynists and opportunists, especially prevalent on platforms like YouTube, bolstered by algorithmic failures in what’s commonly referred to as the ‘alt-right pipeline.’
Remember when YouTube was inundated with content titled ‘BEN SHAPIRO DESTROYS FEMINIST LIBTARD’? That wasn’t an accident; it was the beginning of years of messaging and investment. Now, these same individuals are profiting from their unchecked efforts, ranging from merchandise sales to literal fucking exploitation and human trafficking.
Please let me know if any part of this is unclear or poorly worded, or if you have any questions at all. I am genuinely committed to deplatforming these psychos, and it begins with informing people when they may unwittingly defend their actions.
The only conclusion I can take from your screed is that you completely misunderstood everything I said. I’m not defending assholes like Peterson and Tate in any way.
Rereading what I wrote and I get why you thought I misunderstood. I edited my original response as well. Sorry about that.
i’m sorry you feel that way. any downplaying of current attitudes towards feminism to just a matter of marketing is playing into the narratives of Peterson and Tate.
sorry man.
It won’t change as woman in literally in feminism name. The proper word is egalitarianism.
What’s the difference between that and ‘All Lives Matter’.
“the scope creep of feminism that causes it to encompass issues like disability rights and economic inequality, I think feminism is becoming indistinguishable from leftism.”
Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?
Because not everyone is a leftist.
If movement A wants to achieve B and C, then people who don’t want C won’t support movement A (probably), even if they want B. If A just wants B, then everyone that wants B will support A, which makes B way more likely to happen at the cost of C being slightly less likely.
You’re asking people to judge the effect of a movement, but only one group remembers what things were like before the movement. It could just be that more gen z men honestly don’t know the answer.
I’d like to warn all the Americans against generalizing based upon their personal experiences or beliefs here. This is a UK study that sampled a UK population. These results can’t necessarily be generalized to any other country, this is focused on the UK culture.
There was a recent story on NPR that addressed this. I can’t find it now but basically it said that all these studies in isolation have issues but now there appears to be a trend that transcends national boundaries and cultures.
I don’t know about the NPR one, but Business Insider and the Financial Times had articles recently pulling together a bunch of surveys finding similar trends in the US and around the world respectively
I wonder how this reconciles against the other recent report of Gen Z more likely to be LGBTQ than Republican. On one hand, Republicans are the most vocal enemy of feminism and the LGBTQ+ community, but on the other hand, my anecdotal experience dealing with Gen Z dudes are that they’re fucking idiot reactionaries who think “feminism” is “blue haired land whale blaming all her problems on men”. I’m not here to paint any group of people with a broad brush, but again, speaking anecdotally, it seems that Gen X parents are neglectful as shit and their Gen Z sons are desperately looking for father figures elsewhere.
I think the venn diagram between gen z members who are republicans and those who believe feminism is harmful is just one circle inside of another.
I think these things are very related.
I’m queer and trans, and I’m not so picky about the demographic that I hang out with. I’ve met a lot of dudes who wanted to act their best in good faith, but received such vitriol for even showing up in conversations that they stopped bothering. Even as a transgender person, I don’t tend to engage much with community because there’s so little room for meaningful dialogue that isn’t totally prescribed. There seem to be a lot of rules on how you should and shouldn’t be. I understand that propping up the voices of those who have historically been ignored is an important thing, but there is something to be said about the fact that men and boys are often actively shunned from specific groups. If you’re frequently told that you have no place in community, you’re probably going to model a different community around that rejection.
Now what I actually think is happening is that tools of mass manipulation like the more centralized social media platforms are weaponizing the language of social justice to create division and escalation. All media platforms are quite effective at serving the ruling class, but social media is particularly insidious in that it pretends to be real life and the exposure is virtually constant.
Older people have had more history with the term, seeing people burn their bras in the 70s for example. My uncle, around 60, said he loved feminism because it was great when women starting not wearing bras and dressing in more revealing things haha.
I can’t imagine being born after Youtube and Facebook were created. Propaganda through media is incessant and young people have been subjected to the most potent forms for their entire lives.
One thing that may deform statistics is the interpretation of feminism.
Personally i prefer equality and I recognize that the majority of people mean equality when talking about feminism.
In almost all ideological groups theres a section of extremist that listen to the same name. Extremist often yell the loudest and say stupid, hatefull memeable stuff. The post of extremist make ripe content for opposers of the general movement to show how stupid/bad an entire group is.
You can be an otherwise very rational person if the only example of feminism you know is jk rowling then it influenced the decision.
On why its different between generation. In general i observe gen-x and boomers care alot about official definition and proper terminology which leads to narrower thinking but also less Confusion on how to perceive in unity.
Millenials and gen z tend to play More creative with language which can allow much more nuanced communication and fresh perspectives but causes different word meanings within different word groups. Misunderstanding outside of it.
Yep - this is why I consider myself pro gender-equality and endorse classic feminism, but am against “post-modern” feminism. I’ve met plenty of women irl and many more online who under that banner (yes, anecdotal, I know, but we all form opinions based on our experiences ultimately) treat men like shit, unapologetically call “all men evil” etc. etc.
When this comes up I describe myself as egalitarian.
Leaves a lot of the baggage behind, IMO.
The problem is all the blue haired land whales blaming all their problems. On mend a,qnd calling it feminism. ² The idea that feminism is actu. &ally a nuanced field of study / advocacy that aims to understand and dismantle harmful patriarchal norms and ideologies.
That doesn’t sell well online. Add in the name of the game “feminism” and it’s enemy " patriarchy" and it’s pretty easy to see how anyone that’s never engaged with actual feminism - regardless of their gender, can think it’s just “grrrrls good boys bad”.
While I do think the blue haired land whales and the gravy seal anti feminists would agree on what feminism is they’re both probably going to be wrong. And I don’t think this is a no true Scotsman type thing, and at the same time in a sense feminism “is” what the land whales and neck beard say it is, which is to say that the whole thing has gotten very muddied by polarized andsimplistiv viewpoints that have muddied the fact that feminism has a serious fucking pr problem.
Hey, my guy, there’s a backspace key and an edit button. Just saying.
Maybe he wrote it on a typewriter?
I’m glad someone noticed my first stroke. I feel so seen.
Considering the kind of feminists that are extremely loud today, and how they’re borderline, if not literally, misandrist… I’m not entirely surprised.
This, of course, leaves them wide open to suggestion from bad actors like Andrew Tate.
LOL people have vomited precisely what you just said for 100 years on this subject. Of course, 100 years ago, they were using the police to torture women who wanted to vote, so maybe there is progress.
No, no they didn’t. But hey, who am I to expect current day militant brainlets to be educated in history?
lol right to the personal attack. Grow up
It’s always funny when people who propagate a certain detrimental idealogy cry about being personally attacked.
You are the problem. Of course you’re getting personally attacked.
The absolute cesspool of r/feminism is really damaging to women’s rights.
Ah yes, confused men want to uphold the tradition of mysoginy, misandry, the very patriarchy that subverts men to be stupid soldiers and labourers, sacrificing emotional intelligence and their individuality to become stereotypical puppets of the powers that be.
MGTOW energy Indeed. Just the kind of weakness a grifter like Tate loves to exploit.
Dumbasses.
Most of Gen Z is children.
95 to 2010, so yeah - mostly.
Chalk it up to exploitation of boys to become exploitable males.
I was born in 95, I’m 28 not a child by any stretch of the imagination… although if I am considered a child can I quit this whole 40 hours of work every week to barely get by shit?
97 to 2012 actually.
Yeah I saw this over on Mastodon, and there were a lot of stats folks questioning the methodology. I’m not qualified to do that, but my sons are Zoomers as are all their male friends, and they are all good feminists. This is in NW Europe, so might be a bit biased.
To be honest I don’t think parents is a good source of their children’s beliefs usually.
Fair enough point in general, sure.
We’re talking 16% vs 13%. Still a small minority. Based on what groups of people these are concentrated in, and what group you run in, it’s completely plausible you don’t know any of them well enough to understand this is how they feel.
Worse, depending on sample size, this might not even be a meaningful difference.
