I worry folks are downvoting because they take the title as an endorsement of anti-feminism. This is an explicit statement that this sub is in no way anti-feminist. Read the sidebar.
Ask anyone under 30 if they’re a feminist and most would say no. Ask them if they believe women should have equal rights and they’d say, “Duh”.
Feminism is also not a useful term anymore - since people have vastly different definitions.
It’s probably better used as a label for a collection of movements than any singular one.
Problem is, people using this term might simply no understand each other, since they might mean quite different things.
Gen-X men see eye-to-eye with male Gen-Zers. An identical 43 percent of men in that bracket call themselves feminists, compared to 49 percent of the generation’s women.
I feel like the authors think these 2 sentences are supporting the same argument, and I think they do not.
Asking someone if they “identify as a feminist” is vastly different than exploring their core values. “Feminism” is a badly exploited word that means many different things to many different people, even within a generational cohort.
It’s entirely possible that the sample of Gen-Xers that identify as feminist also carry more regressive beliefs than Gen-Zers that said they were not feminists.
The way this study was summarized in the article smells a lot like an older author (read: Gen-X or Boomer) trying to make sense of Gen-Z by plopping them into buckets created for the older generation.
I don’t know anything about anything, but this smelled less of science than an article reporting a study ought to.
Though others have pointed out alternative interpretations of the poll (such as merely disagreeing with the label, not the ideals, of feminism), I am going to voice the minority opinion here: the straightforward interpretation may be right. In fact, I unfortunately find it completely plausible. Millennials, after all, went through ten formative years of #MeToo and BLM, the biggest protests for equality in a century. The younger generation aren’t going through a cultural revolution anywhere near that scale. Things have quieted down, and sentiment may have regressed to the mean.
I also think people may be underestimating how powerful rightwing bro media has become, with radical figures becoming mainstream like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan, etc. I don’t see many countervailing feminist voices with as much reach, especially those targeting impressionable boys. I’m not sure about any of this, and I know some may not like to hear the alarm, but I think we need to be realistic about the possibility.
There are also things like dating apps to consider. More and more adults are finding their relationships through dating apps, and women can be pretty disrespectful (obviously this doesn’t mean that men aren’t disrespectful as well).
“Must be 6’0”, have a steady job, must worship me, I hate men if you know what I mean" etc. See too much of that shit, go too long without any matches (alongside things like porn addiction giving you a skewed perspective on what sex/relationships are) and it’s hard not to take it personally.
This isn’t to say the young men are faultless, by any means. Just something that adds fuel to the fire.
I haven’t been in the dating world for quite a while but I assumed that type of profile was pretty rare and just commonly posted online to be ridiculed. Is that not the case?
While it’s probably rare to find a profile with everything I listed , many profiles have at least one of the things I mentioned. Most common one I’ve seen from the list is being unwilling to date men below 6 feet tall. Second most would have to be the “men r bad” or some variation of that.
I’m not comfortable blaming women for how horrible dating is, but I take your point that people can sometimes be pretty disrespectful.
But given that we’re making a comparative claim between generations, I wonder if this really explains the difference. Is disrespect on dating apps so much worse for gen Z men than Millennial men that it’s making men less feminist? I’m skeptical.
I would not blame women for how bad dating apps are either. But I think the average person would say something like “the women in my area suck” or “women just don’t like me” before they think the design of the app itself is part of the problem. Does that make them less feminist? Still probably not, but it could push them towards pickup artists type guys if they are really frustrated.
This isn’t to say that young men are faultless.
Obviously it isn’t black and white/women bad men good.
I mean it makes sense. Feminism has become quite the loaded term as of recent, and young people are going to be a lot more distanced from the earlier wages of feminism.
That’s what I’d assume. My impression is that many Gen-Z might associate the term “Feminism” with J.K. Rowling and such, Trans-Exclusionary feminists as it were. If there were questions that could suss out concern about trans issues, or even LGBT+ issues in general, I suspect the differences between generation might match.
Not even getting into substantive issues, the people who loudly proclaim their feminism online are usually total fucking jackasses since honest people see little need to hide behind the concept of “feminism”, as if it’s a shield against criticism.
Overall, a more substantive survey would just be better. Or really anything beyond “self ID with a broad and contentious label”.
But do they identify as a non-labelled person that respects women and their choices? Or is this just about political labelling made for marketing and division?
God bless keywords and seo. /S.
I prefer humanist over most other “-ists” as it’s more inclusive to all races/genders.
