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”.

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.”

Link to study: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/masculinity-and-womens-equality-study-finds-emerging-gender-divide-in-young-peoples-attitudes

  • @lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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    01 year ago

    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.

    • @eatthecake@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      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.

        • @eatthecake@lemmy.world
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          01 year ago

          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.

    • @spujb@lemmy.cafe
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      1 year ago

      edit: Replacing what I said, still trying to figure out the best way to word this sorry yall.

      The branding problem was intentionally created. Leaders in the manosphere profit off of young men subscribing to misogynistic beliefs. While movement PR is important, I would not be so quick to assign blame because this this has been an attack decades in the making, bolstered by social media algorithms.

      • @lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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        -11 year ago

        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.

        • @spujb@lemmy.cafe
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          -11 year ago

          Rereading what I wrote and I get why you thought I misunderstood. I edited my original response as well. Sorry about that.

  • @kescusay@lemmy.world
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    01 year ago

    Seriously doubt this (and most polling these days). Gen Z is particularly unlikely to respond to polls or answer unknown callers in general. Until those issues in polling are solved, I take them with a grain of salt.

      • Flying Squid
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        -11 year ago

        If you pay me to answer your poll, I’ll answer it however you want me to.

      • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Your first link disagrees with the article you posted…

        And while younger people overall have a more favourable view of this phrase, there is a big gender divide in views among them: 37% of men aged 16 to 29 say “toxic masculinity” is an unhelpful phrase, roughly double the 19% of young women who feel this way. Correspondingly, young women (47%) are considerably more likely than young men (29%) – or any other age category – to find it a helpful term.

        By contrast, views among older age groups vary less by gender – although older men are more likely than younger men to say “toxic masculinity” is an unhelpful term.

        It sounds like the only change is you get women are more supportive of feminism than older women…

          • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            -11 year ago

            Looked at the pdf …

            The public think the oldest group of men are most likely to believe equal opportunities for women have gone too far – but it is actually men aged 30 to 59 men who are more likely to feel this way47% of the public think older men aged 60+ are most likely to believe attempts to give women equal opportunities have gone too far – the top answer given. But in reality, 20% of men aged 30 to 59 hold this view, compared with 13% of men aged 60+.

            For 16-29, it’s 5%

            So yeah, still not sure why you’re using a string of different articles, but they don’t agree with you main post bud…

              • @givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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                -11 year ago

                Thank!

                I saw the survey was just British respondents, but I didn’t know that question was specifically about British culture…

                Sorry, it’s really hard to follow all the omissions and misrepresentations a survey went thru to get to the post you decided should be the main one.

                But yeah, older people are going to remember what it was like 40 years ago and can see the good feminism has done.

                A teenager would have know first hand knowledge how bad it was even a decade ago.

  • @Aceticon@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The problem is the so called Third Wave Feminism, which is far too often just middle and high-middle class women trying to obtain special benefits for themselves by claimimg the whole group they were born into “is a victim” (even though they themselves were born into and are amongst the most priviledged 1% of people in the World) and hence “must be compensated” in some way which is discriminatory against all those not in the group and which is invariably in a form that is mainly usefull for middle class and high-middle class well educated women in well-of western nations. Hence things like Quotas or the practice of Benevolent Mascism in power situations such as in Court (for example the whole gender-discriminatory idea that the Mother should be prefered as the custodian of children when a couple separates).

    This is generally neither fair, nor equal (you know, the whole judge and treat people based on what they do, not based on the genetics they were born with) and even has zero positive effects for the vast majority of women out there who aren’t the well-of scions of well-of families in well-of countries: you get loud noises about the “glass ceiling” that stops well-of women from maximizing their income from being in the upper classes, not about the 3000% difference in incomes between those above said glass chieling such as corporate CEOs and the average worker, which includes most women.

    This shit isn’t Leftwing, it’s just a “make believe leftie” facet of “Greed is good” Neoliberal Capitalism: personal upside maximization hidden behind “the group” so that it doesn’t just look like naked greed, hence why you see this mostly supported by Liberals in Anglo-Saxon nations, not traditional Lefties.

    Previous generations of Feminism (and those who still now fight for Equality and Fairness) are the ones who are deserving of tremendous respect and support, not these pampered, priviledged, greedy people who happen to have been born with 2 X cromossomes and who want to maintain the discriminatory and prejudiced treatment of people base on the genetics they were born with, as long as theirs is the group getting benefited by that discrimination.

    It’s thus not surprising that amongst those who are not in the groups that benefits form the discrimination these people defend and are exposed to this highly moralistic variance of greed is good, grow negative about it. The thing is made even worse in the US because Politics ther is entirelly in the Moral space (people have no genuine choice on how the Economics is managed in that country since both sides of the Power Duopoly do the same in that field) so you end up with equally pro-descrimination groups on the other side, who just differ in who gets favoured by said discriminationand face off against these, muddling the whole “equality” domain.

    It’s pretty hard to find a space if you’re genuinelly pro-Equality and pro-Fairness and not be confuse by either side of selfish fucker as being in the other side of selfish fuckers.

    • @CharAhNalaar@lemmy.world
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      01 year ago

      Replace “woman” with “Black” in this rant and it sounds just like someone trying to make reparations look bad by strawmanning its supporters.

      I agree that neoliberal capitalism has (largely successfully) used feminism as a way to distract from society’s real problems. But this ain’t it.

      • @Aceticon@lemmy.world
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        You can just as easilly replace “women” there with “the arian race” and suddenly find out that my post is a critique of the social side of Nazism that would apply even before they started exterminating people when all their messaging was about “protecting the arian race”.

        If you’re deeming people worthy/victims or unworthy/aggressors merelly on their genetics rather than on their actions and what they support, you’re part of the problem because you’re being prejudiced rather than fair - by judging people on externally visible genetic differences you end up de facto protecting bad people when they have the genetics of those you deem victims and treating badly good people when they have the genetics of those you deem agressors.

        It doesn’t matter what “genetically defined group” you put in there because there will always be good people and bad people amongst them and if they can the bad people in that group will do exactly what the bad people amongst Feminists are doing: use the goodwill of others who see the world in an oversimplified prejudiced way, to maximize personal upsides, and along with them drag many from the neutral middle who see an opportunity for personal gain, so they gladly jump on the bandwagon.

        (In simple terms, every group of people defined by things that have nothing to do with their actual actions, contains assholes and lots of people who will easilly turn into one if they come out better of by doing so).

        That’s why one fights actual actions of unequal and/or unfair treatmente and do so no matter the “genetic makeup” of the victim and the aggressor - it’s the acts themselves that are wrong, not the chromossomes with externally visible expressions of the victims and aggressors.

  • 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.

    • @Fungah@lemmy.world
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      -11 year ago

      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.

  • bedrooms
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    01 year ago

    Although I understand the importance of feminism, I never had the impression that feminists are good at PR. Somehow, most articles written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.

    • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)
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      1 year ago

      Somehow, most articles written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.

      Does anyone have a link to any of these? I keep hearing recently that somehow this has been a thing for ages, but last I checked “wanting gender equality” was the driving idea of feminism, and that a large portion of women and men agreed with this.

      I’m in my early 40’s and I definitely haven’t seen some deluge of articles by women, who while proclaiming feminism, “stereotype and bash men.”

      EDIT: Seven downvotes, zero links. Pretty par for the course, guys. I’m not surprised, just disappointed.

      EDIT 2: To any men, or boys, reading this who have been assaulted, there are supports for you. Feminism is as much about getting you the support you need that you don’t have just as much as it is about getting women the support they need. I can’t cover every country here, but if you’re from Canada like me here is a government link to services for men and boys in intimate partner violence situations, and for ‘general abuse’ there is this link. There are people out there who care, please reach out to them.

      • @Derproid@sh.itjust.works
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        01 year ago

        Go take a look at the UN’s Twitter account on National Men’s day. Or I remember articles about how 1 in 4 homeless are women and it’s a tragedy for women. Honestly if you have seen articles like these before you’re either not reading many of them or you aren’t noticing what they are saying.

        • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)
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          -11 year ago

          Go take a look at the UN’s Twitter account on National Men’s day. Or I remember articles about how 1 in 4 homeless are women and it’s a tragedy for women. Honestly if you have seen articles like these before you’re either not reading many of them or you aren’t noticing what they are saying.

          So an article, and some twitter comments. That’s not exactly “…most articles written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.”

          • How dishonest can you be? You specifically asked for a link to ANY of these. You got a response that gave you some examples, and you respond:

            So an article, and some twitter comments. That’s not exactly "…most articles written by feministsI

            You didn’t ask for most of the articles and it isn’t reasonable to expect someone to provide you 50-100 links.

            If you have a genuine disagreement with what they provided you should present that, but as it stands you’re being terribly dishonest and disingenuous.

            • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)
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              1 year ago

              You got a response that gave you some examples, and you respond:

              What examples? The guy said look on twitter on National Men’s Day, and a reference to an article (without linking to it) for a hand sweeping ‘Most articles written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.’

              (EDIT: To be specific, here’s EXACTLY what I said:

              Does anyone have a link to any of these? )

              No-one here has linked to any deluge of ‘feminist’ articles that ‘love to stereotype and bash men’.

              What is the actual, legitimate complaint against this:

              Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.

              • @bostonbananarama@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                What examples?

                The ones you were given.

                The guy said look on twitter on National Men’s Day,

                No, they didn’t. They told you to look at a specific account on a specific day.

                and a reference to an article (without linking to it) for a hand sweeping ‘Most articles written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.’

                Yes, which you could have easily googled if you wanted to read it.

                Regardless you asked for examples, and then upon receiving them stated “that’s most?”. No amount of examples was going to be sufficient, your response would have been the same regardless. Your original question was dishonest in that you weren’t interested in the answer.

                Edit: As for your definition, I don’t think anyone opposed that definition. Feminism is a large banner under which a lot of groups identify. So your extremely generic definition doesn’t encapsulate all persons or groups.

                • TSG_Asmodeus (he, him)
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                  -11 year ago

                  No, they didn’t. They told you to look at a specific account on a specific day.

                  Not the OP, and still not any links. ‘Go take a look at the UN’s Twitter account on National Men’s day.’ isn’t an article written by a feminist. ‘Or I remember articles about how 1 in 4 homeless are women and it’s a tragedy for women.’ that’s both not a link, and doesn’t ‘stereotype and bash men.’

                  Still waiting for a link of an ‘article written by feministsI’ve read love to stereotype and bash men.’ Feel free to post one.

  • @maness300@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Feminism has 100% turned into a push for superiority, not equality.

    Modern feminists believe it’s “their turn” to be the abusers.

    Just listen to the disparaging jokes we’ve all heard them make towards men and imagine how they would react if the same things were said about women.

  • @AdmiralShat@programming.dev
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    1 year ago

    I find the internet is super good at locking people into echo chambers. For some reason, I feel especially keen on this when I was super into reddit over the last decade. I could FEEL just how a community would shift into just saying the same 10 things on repeat and any deviation would result in downvotes and messages in my inbox.

    But it’s not just reddit. Modern video feed algorithms and other social media just need to feed you the same stuff you’ve engaged with previously.

    So what ends up happening is young boys only see the videos of angry purple haired stereotype liberal feminist first year college student get SLAMMED/DESTROYED by Ben Shapiro or Jordan Peterson or a woman who is clearly saying something sarcastic with sad sigma male music in the background and all the comments are calling for her to be put in prison or death.

    And that’s not to say people don’t experience these types IRL and it morphs their opinions, my sister is this stereotype and is pretty fucking stupid and she will get into heated debates on Facebook about stuff she has no idea about. She’ll read a headline and form a whole mindset of bullshit around it and never verify if it was just a click bait article posted to Facebook to get ad revenue with no concept of journalist integrity. It’s really difficult talking to her about anything political because even though I’m pretty liberal/progressive myself, she’ll just say things that are factually wrong and when I try to talk to her about it she takes it as me disagreeing and won’t listen to reason or logic outside of her preconceived image of reality. Very difficult person

    I often have to look at her and remind myself that people like her are a very small portion of the population and aren’t really indicative of the masses.

  • @Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    -11 year ago

    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.