I think the original authors are basically committing statistical malpractice by summing it all up into "Gen Z" and saying a third support the idea that a wife should obey the husband. For...
Exemplary
I think the original authors are basically committing statistical malpractice by summing it all up into "Gen Z" and saying a third support the idea that a wife should obey the husband.
For example, 66% of the Indonesians polled agreed with that statement. 7% of the French polled agreed.
Also, millennials are at 29% and Gen Z at 31%, so if anything it doesn’t seem like an exploding trend within the younger generations and within statically inaccuracies. The is a much bigger jump...
Also, millennials are at 29% and Gen Z at 31%, so if anything it doesn’t seem like an exploding trend within the younger generations and within statically inaccuracies. The is a much bigger jump from Gen X to millennials.
I think this is basically tracking number of men who have been married/in long-term relationships with women before and understand how they work vs. men who are operating mostly on naive...
I think this is basically tracking number of men who have been married/in long-term relationships with women before and understand how they work vs. men who are operating mostly on naive theorizing from ambient messaging. So it’s going to track closely with age.
I think the authors of the original study are just doing polling, albeit with a stated slant in honor of Women's International Day. The journalists covering the Ipsos poll are feeding their...
I think the authors of the original study are just doing polling, albeit with a stated slant in honor of Women's International Day. The journalists covering the Ipsos poll are feeding their readers... are intentionally misleading their readers.
First, if you look through the actual study, there are plenty of signs that things are not so bad. The same trends are found with women across the generations and polling questions. The so-called increases in misogynistic attitudes are proportionally small. There are several indicators that could be selected where attitudes are increasingly feminist, like "I define myself as a feminist."
Second, even for these misogynistic trends, there will be a natural weighting towards traditional attitudes in younger populations based purely on the fact that the countries with the highest fertility rates also happen to have strongly traditional attitudes, and will therefore exert a proportional weight in the results. As the disparity between fertility rates increases, so to will the resulting statistical bias in the data.
These polling results have nothing to do with manosphere influencers or the disillusionment of young men with western style democracy. In fact, it has hardly anything to do with "the West" at all, and the problem is that it is being presented as though it does. Of course, if it would be needlessly vindictive for a journalist to write about how 66% of all Indonesians belive that a wife should always obey her husband, even if it were accurate. (Or maybe not, see note).
However, to use statistical slight of hand to draw false equivalencies between totally disparate groups of people on opposite sides of the globe in radically different socio-political circumstances, is acceptable, it seems, so long as the target is "Generation Z men".
Malpractice indeed.
Edit: The technical result at the bottom of the study says,
“The Global Country Average” reflects the average result for all the countries and markets in which the survey was conducted. It has not been adjusted to the population size of each country or market and is not intended to suggest a total result.
What, then, is the use of the "Global Country Average"?
Mm, true, but their polling isn't just slanted, it's fundamentally poorly done. I hold them to a higher standard than the journalists. I can't really blame the journalists for making a bad article...
I think the authors of the original study are just doing polling,
Mm, true, but their polling isn't just slanted, it's fundamentally poorly done. I hold them to a higher standard than the journalists. I can't really blame the journalists for making a bad article out of bad data, if that makes sense; if you're going to be part of the scientific community you get held to a higher standard.
You already noted one of the biggest indicators that their report is bad with the "global country average" that's not actually the country average. But the data itself is very suspect, to my eye. Here's a quick table of some data from respondents in India.
Question
% Agree
When it comes to giving women equal rights with men, things have gone far enough in my country.
69%
I define myself as a feminist
68%
Things would work better if more women held positions with responsibilities [in gov't / corporations]
69%
Men are being expected to do too much to support equality.
70%
We have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men.
67%
Women won't achieve equality with men in ... unless there are more female leaders...[in gov't / corporations]
66%
[achieving equality is important to me personally]
79%
I'm not saying that it's impossible for one person to hold all of these views simultaneously. I am saying it's impossible for 70% of respondents to collectively hold all of these views. If you're polling and you see an illogical result like this, your first thought should be "uh oh, something bad happened" and not "wow! look at this novel result!"
(Disclaimer: Hopefully it goes without saying but this is a criticism of the data, not a criticism of Indians.)
Actually, the people writing the article are the same people who contracted Ipsos to perform the study, so yes, you actually can blame them, as they are one and the same.
Actually, the people writing the article are the same people who contracted Ipsos to perform the study, so yes, you actually can blame them, as they are one and the same.
Gen Z man here. I would agree they should obey the husband the same way the husband will obey the wife? Relationships are built on mutual respect and trust, and this question approaches it with...
Gen Z man here.
I would agree they should obey the husband the same way the husband will obey the wife? Relationships are built on mutual respect and trust, and this question approaches it with neither.
Well the question is: “A wife should always obey her husband.” I think it would be better to have the question be even more direct. Something like “A wife’s role is to be subordinate to her...
Well the question is:
“A wife should always obey her husband.”
I think it would be better to have the question be even more direct. Something like “A wife’s role is to be subordinate to her husband”. I want to see the % of people that stand by that statement. A simple patriarchy test.
I don't think a relationship can consist of mutual respect and trust when one party must "obey" the other. Obedience is an inherent imbalanced, subordinating dynamic, and while it societally makes...
I don't think a relationship can consist of mutual respect and trust when one party must "obey" the other. Obedience is an inherent imbalanced, subordinating dynamic, and while it societally makes sense in certain contexts (extremely imbalanced relationships like parent-child), I don't think it's possible for a relationship to contain "obedience" (outside of like... kink play) and to be an equal relationship.
Are you a native English speaker? I think the connotations of "obey" here are pretty clear, but it occurs to me that these nuances may not be clear. "Obey" is very different from "listen to" or "agree with" or "respect."
I think the word "obey" is still a problem. I'd rather ask "Do you think a wife should always demonstrate respect for her husband's opinions?" I word it that way so it's not internal "sure I...
I think the word "obey" is still a problem. I'd rather ask "Do you think a wife should always demonstrate respect for her husband's opinions?" I word it that way so it's not internal "sure I respect it, but I don't need to do anything about it," not the same as obeying (which is for commands), and not the same as agreeing (that's ridiculous).
That's not to mention that no one's seriously asking whether husbands should obey their wives. Or just wording it as spouses or partners.
A more interesting question might be "Do you agree that women should be cherished, but only as long as they don't embarrass you/themselves or undermine your masculinity?" I legitimately think people would be happy to be honest about that one, and it would be telling.
When you’re doing a survey across multiple countries, cultures, and languages it’s basically impossible to localize those sorts of nuances in wording in a way where meaning will be consistent...
When you’re doing a survey across multiple countries, cultures, and languages it’s basically impossible to localize those sorts of nuances in wording in a way where meaning will be consistent between them. The simpler and more blunt the statement the more internally valid your findings will be. But even the bluntest sounding statements can end up having nuances in how they’re interpreted after translation. It’s a hornet’s nest.
I mean, 23000 people sampled really isn't THAT big a sample size, but that still has me kind of worried. To any Gen Z guys lurking who might resonate with some of these responses: it's okay to...
I mean, 23000 people sampled really isn't THAT big a sample size, but that still has me kind of worried.
To any Gen Z guys lurking who might resonate with some of these responses: it's okay to tell your friends you love them. I promise. Please do it and do it often, you never know when that door might close and you'll never be able to see them again.
With a carefully selected sample 23k people easily is a big enough sample. But it really seems strange that literally all the metrics are continually increasing from boomers to gen Z. edit:...
With a carefully selected sample 23k people easily is a big enough sample. But it really seems strange that literally all the metrics are continually increasing from boomers to gen Z.
edit: looking at the data, it is not a carefully selected representative sample.
I mean at the risk of being crass is it really that surprising? I feel like it's once a week we have some study that shows gen z men being more conservative and gen z women being more progressive....
I mean at the risk of being crass is it really that surprising? I feel like it's once a week we have some study that shows gen z men being more conservative and gen z women being more progressive.
I don't have any evidence to support it, but I'm going to place some blame on the increasingly bad a socio-econimic conditions and honestly Big Tech. I know both of those are just easy scapegoats but I don't really think most people (unless you are a young(er) man, like myself) understand the impact and influence the "Manosphere" has on guys minds. Especially on YouTube and other sites. It is so incredibly easy to fall down that rabbithole and holy shit is it not impossible to pull yourself out without some big changes or someone who loves you helping.
Life is fucking hard, as we all know, and it seems like guys are looking for someone to blame. The Manosphere makes it easy to blame your problems on women and with that comes the return to the "traditional" mindset of the man is right and the woman should be subservient. I absolutely don't agree with that, but as someone who had friends go down that road - that seems to be the likely culprit.
I believe a big part of what gives the manosphere its power is that there’s a notable vacuum of individuals and material providing guidance overtly aimed at that particular demographic, which it...
I believe a big part of what gives the manosphere its power is that there’s a notable vacuum of individuals and material providing guidance overtly aimed at that particular demographic, which it is (unfortunately) taking full advantage of.
There are certainly some who are looking for someone to blame but I think many young men are lured in simply because the manosphere is loud, clear, and aligned in its signaling where other sources are quiet and sometimes contradictory. In short, these young guys are looking for leadership and examples to follow, but upstanding figures have elected to not step up to the plate.
I'm actually kind of sick of this argument. It's not just that "manosphere influencers are the only people willing to reach out to young men!" It's that manosphere influencers are willing to lie...
Exemplary
I'm actually kind of sick of this argument. It's not just that "manosphere influencers are the only people willing to reach out to young men!" It's that manosphere influencers are willing to lie to young men, to tell them that their problems have a clear source (women) and an easy answer (a return to the past, misogyny. There are plenty of people online saying the truth -- which is that dating is hard, we're at a moment of inflection in society with regards to dating and relationships (and, well, everything else) -- but that's not algorithm friendly. It's not easy. It doesn't make you mad enough. Manosphere influencers hating on women, or women calling for separatism as a reaction (reviving the late 20th-century idea of political lesbianism, yuck)? Now that's algorithmically viable. That's an ideology that can spread.
Absolutely true that they’re lying and that reality isn’t so simple. It’s also true that the truth isn’t as algorithm friendly. That said, I think those on the side of truth could be doing a great...
Absolutely true that they’re lying and that reality isn’t so simple. It’s also true that the truth isn’t as algorithm friendly.
That said, I think those on the side of truth could be doing a great deal more to make themselves visible and readily available to men who need them. As far as I can see, there is practically no “truth funnel” to speak of and most of the guys who end up taking the correct path were always going to end up there due to good parenting, positive environment, etc.
Social media has given the manosphere a huge shot in the arm but it shouldn’t be ignored that it also goes out of its way to place itself where men are most likely to run across it. That’s a huge source of growth that the positive influences haven’t done much to leverage.
No, that is not what is surprising. What is surprising is the graphs showing that the younger you are, the more of those conservative sentiments you have in general, meaning boomers are by far the...
I mean at the risk of being crass is it really that surprising? I feel like it's once a week we have some study that shows gen z men being more conservative and gen z women being more progressive.
No, that is not what is surprising. What is surprising is the graphs showing that the younger you are, the more of those conservative sentiments you have in general, meaning boomers are by far the most progressive generation, gen X less so and millenials are almost as conservative as gen Z.
Ah, I misunderstood, thanks for clarifying! I mean Boomer's were around for the counter culture so them being bthe most progressive does make sense to an extent.
Ah, I misunderstood, thanks for clarifying! I mean Boomer's were around for the counter culture so them being bthe most progressive does make sense to an extent.
Yeah, I fully agree with you. Like, shit sucks for people right now and the wealth gap is growing and social media makes it easy for these alt-right grifters to make money off young men by blaming...
Yeah, I fully agree with you. Like, shit sucks for people right now and the wealth gap is growing and social media makes it easy for these alt-right grifters to make money off young men by blaming every problem on women/"liberalism". I mean, I guess that's honestly kind of the same reason that Bernie has a bunch of fans, he addresses the issues and puts the blame on the wealthy (which, I mean, is the real cause but anyways).
I wonder how much is from difference in culture for different generations vs changes in opinions over time. There are some comparisons to previous polls, but only from a few years ago....
I wonder how much is from difference in culture for different generations vs changes in opinions over time. There are some comparisons to previous polls, but only from a few years ago. Unfortunately they won’t have done a comparable survey from 50 years ago!
This is an interest opinions survey about world views on gender (seemingly only looking at binary male/female in this research from what I can see). I would strongly recommend looking at the...
This is an interest opinions survey about world views on gender (seemingly only looking at binary male/female in this research from what I can see).
I would strongly recommend looking at the actual data in the PDF which tells many more stories than the title and summary text.
Further note when comparing countries, the methodology does have a significant limitation: ” Samples in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy,...
Further note when comparing countries, the methodology does have a significant limitation:
” Samples in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. can be considered representative of their general adult populations under the age of 75.
Samples in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, and Türkiye are more urban, more educated, and/or more affluent than the general population. The survey results for these countries should be viewed as reflecting the views of the more “connected” segment of their population. India’s sample represents a large subset of its urban population — social economic classes A, B and C in metros and tier 1-3 town classes across all four zones.”
Does this resonate with anyone anecdotally? I know a few millenial and gen z men that have descended the "alpha" rabbit hole with this bullshit, but the vast majority have not. Whenever I talk to...
Does this resonate with anyone anecdotally? I know a few millenial and gen z men that have descended the
"alpha" rabbit hole with this bullshit, but the vast majority have not. Whenever I talk to women baby boomers or gen Xers in my life, they comment on how excited they are to see how men of our generation are helping with childcare/housework/etc and just how different it was for them. Considering how lived experience has changed, I'm surprised these are the results of the study.
That is wild and out. I'm always shocked what people are willing to tolerate. I guess I'm doing the thing again where I assume I have a well rounded perspective on things only to realize I live in...
“I’m impressed by your intelligence; you seem to have a good head on your shoulders — that’s a rare quality these days. There’s a lot someone like you could learn from someone like me, and there’s a lot I’d be willing to teach you. We need to get your hustle up. If you do as I tell you, you’ll be on my level in no time.”
That is wild and out. I'm always shocked what people are willing to tolerate. I guess I'm doing the thing again where I assume I have a well rounded perspective on things only to realize I live in a bubble. Kind of like watching super bowl ads.
I don't know that I've ever met anyone, of any age, who would agree with the sentiment that wives should obey husbands. Maybe this is because I'm a woman and people tend to withhold this...
I don't know that I've ever met anyone, of any age, who would agree with the sentiment that wives should obey husbands. Maybe this is because I'm a woman and people tend to withhold this particular view from me?
On the other hand, virtually every husband-wife pair I've ever known has fallen somewhere between mildly to extremely wife-dominant, with the wife making most of the family and household decisions, both large and small. Along similar lines, I most often see couples move to be closer to the wife's family than to the husband's family. These are definitely the norms in my family, going back generations, and I'm seeing the same pattern in younger couples in my family.
I have a pretty passive/doormat-ish kind of personality, yet I've never had any problem with men I've dated trying to take charge. They've all been pretty happy to let me make decisions for both of us. Even in the abusive relationship I was stuck in for a few years, he still had a pretty matriarchal mindset (he wanted to change his last name to mine, wanted to basically join my family rather than have me join his family, was happy to prioritize my education/career over his, etc.).
It might just be my cultural bubble. I'm from the southern US (Tennessee/Georgia area), and I grew up in pretty low-income areas, where father absenteeism is very common, which I imagine could contribute to a more mother-oriented culture.
Where I live now in southeastern Australia, the culture is more overtly egalitarian (it's uncommon for men to pay for dates, it's very common for women to ask men out on dates, etc.), and the effect might be a little milder here. But at least in the circles where I run, it still seems to be the norm. Like my own family, my partner's family seems to follow a similar pattern, with basically mothers making most decisions within the family units, and a grandmother essentially directing the extended family at large. And I see the same pattern in my own relationship, despite our different nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds. My partner has a naturally more confident, dominant personality than me, yet he happily defers to me on any decision, big or small. (Mind you, he was raised by a single mother, which could be a factor — and if I were domineering or powertrippy, I imagine he might push back. He definitely pushes back pretty hard when other people step on his toes.)
I'm extremely dubious that you've never met someone who believes wives should obey her husband if you're from the Southern US, unless you've managed to avoid religious people to a truly...
I'm extremely dubious that you've never met someone who believes wives should obey her husband if you're from the Southern US, unless you've managed to avoid religious people to a truly unbelievable extent. Yeah, not all Christians believe this shit, but an absolute shitload of them do, and it's the dominant view among US fundamentalist evangelicals. I just can't imagine you grew up in Tennessee/Georgia without ever meeting a Southern Baptist or other evangelical fundie who openly believes this -- in my experience they don't usually bring it up apropos of nothing, but they'll answer honestly if you ask if they believe wives should obey their husbands outright (though I think "be submissive to their husbands" is the more popular wording in that crowd) and the various denominations usually explicitly contain some phrase acknowledging this in their statements of faith or wherever else they list their core beliefs.
And fwiw, this does not contradict couples in which the wife is "dominant" in household matters. If anything, that's the norm among this type of religious person.
I'm sure I've come across random people who think that way, but I've never heard them express their views on it. Everyone I've met whose views I know anything about definitely did not hold that...
I'm sure I've come across random people who think that way, but I've never heard them express their views on it. Everyone I've met whose views I know anything about definitely did not hold that view (or if they did, they misled me). This is why I used the phrasing "I don't know that I've met" because I genuinely don't. Unless you count arguing with people online, I guess.
It's also worth noting that, in the Southeast at least, this viewpoint seems to be mostly associated with evangelical Christians. I'm a second-generation atheist, and my extended family and culture is leftwing Methodist. I know evangelicals are out there (they spend a lot of money on billboards) but I've barely met any. I did have one evangelical friend growing up (Southern Baptist to be specific), but her family had a very high divorce rate and very little father involvement, and they didn't exactly have the most optimistic opinions about men.
yeah, this is definitely an evangelical thing (I was raised evangelical myself), mainline Protestants tend to be more progressive in general. I just know that evangelicals seem to have a stronger...
yeah, this is definitely an evangelical thing (I was raised evangelical myself), mainline Protestants tend to be more progressive in general. I just know that evangelicals seem to have a stronger foothold in the southeast than anywhere else except maybe parts of the Midwest.
I just finally glanced at this, and I think this is definitely one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" sort of "studies" ... to whatever extent there is a trend here, it is primarily...
I just finally glanced at this, and I think this is definitely one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" sort of "studies" ... to whatever extent there is a trend here, it is primarily cultural, rather than generational.
Which brings me to my anecdotal resonance ... I lived in Hungary for several years. I don't believe that most young men there would "exactly" buy into this "women must obey men" claim, but there definitely is a strong, old-school patriarchal vibe there ... boys are spoiled and treated like princes growing up, while girls are told they are precious, but treated badly, left to fend for themselves, get second-hand care, etc ... girls and women are also strongly told that their value lies in their baby-making potential (preferably boy babies). Women that don't want to have babies are very stigmatized.
Before other Hungarians jump on me here, to clarify, this is a tendency in the culture. Of course, not all Hungarian families are like this. But this kind of inequality does run through the culture there.
Separately (or not, IDK), there are a lot of Hungarians--men and women--looking for any scapegoat to blame for their life, economy, society, etc, sucking there ... immigrants and gypsies are top of the list, but "uppity women" are definitely on that list, too.
I’m curious as to whether the perceived increase relative to older generations isn’t a decrease of feminist/egalitarian sentiment, but instead a decrease in “don’t know/don’t care/unsures” and a...
I’m curious as to whether the perceived increase relative to older generations isn’t a decrease of feminist/egalitarian sentiment, but instead a decrease in “don’t know/don’t care/unsures” and a hardening of agree/disagree sentiments.
Seems like it. At least some of the data exludes "don't know/not stated", which could distort the results by a lot. It doesn't even need to be a true hardening of agree/disagree sentiments in this...
Seems like it. At least some of the data exludes "don't know/not stated", which could distort the results by a lot. It doesn't even need to be a true hardening of agree/disagree sentiments in this young generation, it could just be that young people may tend to have stronger opinions in general.
On top of that most of the data was collected online and naturally includes more people from urban/well connected groups. This likely selects for more educated and liberal boomers specifically because 60-80 years old people with more conservative views and/or from rural areas are surely much less likely to respond to online polls.
Some of the groups are also really small. They don't weight the results based on population I think, which means that countries with few respondents have the same weight as countries with a lot of respondents, but the boomer groups may be tiny with a lot of noise in them.
And speaking from experience with similar polls done in the EU, there are sometimes issues with translation that create pretty big biases, for example in this case it could be "wife should always obey the husband" translated to something like "wife should always respect or follow the husband", which is far less extreme. I remember something like this happening with polls on attitudes towards ethnic minorities, the wording was different enough in different languages that it made some countries look nonsensically bad.
Only the first two points would directly lead to what we're seeing in the graphs, but I'm not convinced by the quality of the data in general.
Wait, are they not even weighting countries by population? Even if you make the (seemingly incorrect) assumption that each sample within a country is representative of that country's population,...
They don't weight the results based on population I think, which means that countries with few respondents have the same weight as countries with a lot of respondents, but the boomer groups may be tiny with a lot of noise in them.
Wait, are they not even weighting countries by population? Even if you make the (seemingly incorrect) assumption that each sample within a country is representative of that country's population, surely reporting worldwide statistics while equally weighting each country would be wildly misleading.
I only went through the data briefly (it's linked in the article) and I don't have more time right now, so maybe I misunderstood, but that is what it seemed like.
I only went through the data briefly (it's linked in the article) and I don't have more time right now, so maybe I misunderstood, but that is what it seemed like.
Wow, that's even worse than what I already thought they were doing, and what I already thought they were doing was pretty awful statistics to begin with.
Wow, that's even worse than what I already thought they were doing, and what I already thought they were doing was pretty awful statistics to begin with.
I think the original authors are basically committing statistical malpractice by summing it all up into "Gen Z" and saying a third support the idea that a wife should obey the husband.
For example, 66% of the Indonesians polled agreed with that statement. 7% of the French polled agreed.
Also, millennials are at 29% and Gen Z at 31%, so if anything it doesn’t seem like an exploding trend within the younger generations and within statically inaccuracies. The is a much bigger jump from Gen X to millennials.
I think this is basically tracking number of men who have been married/in long-term relationships with women before and understand how they work vs. men who are operating mostly on naive theorizing from ambient messaging. So it’s going to track closely with age.
I think the authors of the original study are just doing polling, albeit with a stated slant in honor of Women's International Day. The journalists covering the Ipsos poll are feeding their readers... are intentionally misleading their readers.
First, if you look through the actual study, there are plenty of signs that things are not so bad. The same trends are found with women across the generations and polling questions. The so-called increases in misogynistic attitudes are proportionally small. There are several indicators that could be selected where attitudes are increasingly feminist, like "I define myself as a feminist."
Second, even for these misogynistic trends, there will be a natural weighting towards traditional attitudes in younger populations based purely on the fact that the countries with the highest fertility rates also happen to have strongly traditional attitudes, and will therefore exert a proportional weight in the results. As the disparity between fertility rates increases, so to will the resulting statistical bias in the data.
These polling results have nothing to do with manosphere influencers or the disillusionment of young men with western style democracy. In fact, it has hardly anything to do with "the West" at all, and the problem is that it is being presented as though it does. Of course, if it would be needlessly vindictive for a journalist to write about how 66% of all Indonesians belive that a wife should always obey her husband, even if it were accurate. (Or maybe not, see note).
However, to use statistical slight of hand to draw false equivalencies between totally disparate groups of people on opposite sides of the globe in radically different socio-political circumstances, is acceptable, it seems, so long as the target is "Generation Z men".
Malpractice indeed.
Edit: The technical result at the bottom of the study says,
What, then, is the use of the "Global Country Average"?
Mm, true, but their polling isn't just slanted, it's fundamentally poorly done. I hold them to a higher standard than the journalists. I can't really blame the journalists for making a bad article out of bad data, if that makes sense; if you're going to be part of the scientific community you get held to a higher standard.
You already noted one of the biggest indicators that their report is bad with the "global country average" that's not actually the country average. But the data itself is very suspect, to my eye. Here's a quick table of some data from respondents in India.
I'm not saying that it's impossible for one person to hold all of these views simultaneously. I am saying it's impossible for 70% of respondents to collectively hold all of these views. If you're polling and you see an illogical result like this, your first thought should be "uh oh, something bad happened" and not "wow! look at this novel result!"
(Disclaimer: Hopefully it goes without saying but this is a criticism of the data, not a criticism of Indians.)
Actually, the people writing the article are the same people who contracted Ipsos to perform the study, so yes, you actually can blame them, as they are one and the same.
Hah, well, there you go.
I agree it’s an unusual headline compared to the reality of the data.
Gen Z man here.
I would agree they should obey the husband the same way the husband will obey the wife? Relationships are built on mutual respect and trust, and this question approaches it with neither.
Well the question is:
“A wife should always obey her husband.”
I think it would be better to have the question be even more direct. Something like “A wife’s role is to be subordinate to her husband”. I want to see the % of people that stand by that statement. A simple patriarchy test.
It blows my mind that some people actually believe that
I don't think a relationship can consist of mutual respect and trust when one party must "obey" the other. Obedience is an inherent imbalanced, subordinating dynamic, and while it societally makes sense in certain contexts (extremely imbalanced relationships like parent-child), I don't think it's possible for a relationship to contain "obedience" (outside of like... kink play) and to be an equal relationship.
Are you a native English speaker? I think the connotations of "obey" here are pretty clear, but it occurs to me that these nuances may not be clear. "Obey" is very different from "listen to" or "agree with" or "respect."
I think the word "obey" is still a problem. I'd rather ask "Do you think a wife should always demonstrate respect for her husband's opinions?" I word it that way so it's not internal "sure I respect it, but I don't need to do anything about it," not the same as obeying (which is for commands), and not the same as agreeing (that's ridiculous).
That's not to mention that no one's seriously asking whether husbands should obey their wives. Or just wording it as spouses or partners.
A more interesting question might be "Do you agree that women should be cherished, but only as long as they don't embarrass you/themselves or undermine your masculinity?" I legitimately think people would be happy to be honest about that one, and it would be telling.
When you’re doing a survey across multiple countries, cultures, and languages it’s basically impossible to localize those sorts of nuances in wording in a way where meaning will be consistent between them. The simpler and more blunt the statement the more internally valid your findings will be. But even the bluntest sounding statements can end up having nuances in how they’re interpreted after translation. It’s a hornet’s nest.
You're totally right. I had forgotten to keep in mind that this was international.
I mean, 23000 people sampled really isn't THAT big a sample size, but that still has me kind of worried.
To any Gen Z guys lurking who might resonate with some of these responses: it's okay to tell your friends you love them. I promise. Please do it and do it often, you never know when that door might close and you'll never be able to see them again.
With a carefully selected sample 23k people easily is a big enough sample. But it really seems strange that literally all the metrics are continually increasing from boomers to gen Z.
edit: looking at the data, it is not a carefully selected representative sample.
I mean at the risk of being crass is it really that surprising? I feel like it's once a week we have some study that shows gen z men being more conservative and gen z women being more progressive.
I don't have any evidence to support it, but I'm going to place some blame on the increasingly bad a socio-econimic conditions and honestly Big Tech. I know both of those are just easy scapegoats but I don't really think most people (unless you are a young(er) man, like myself) understand the impact and influence the "Manosphere" has on guys minds. Especially on YouTube and other sites. It is so incredibly easy to fall down that rabbithole and holy shit is it not impossible to pull yourself out without some big changes or someone who loves you helping.
Life is fucking hard, as we all know, and it seems like guys are looking for someone to blame. The Manosphere makes it easy to blame your problems on women and with that comes the return to the "traditional" mindset of the man is right and the woman should be subservient. I absolutely don't agree with that, but as someone who had friends go down that road - that seems to be the likely culprit.
I believe a big part of what gives the manosphere its power is that there’s a notable vacuum of individuals and material providing guidance overtly aimed at that particular demographic, which it is (unfortunately) taking full advantage of.
There are certainly some who are looking for someone to blame but I think many young men are lured in simply because the manosphere is loud, clear, and aligned in its signaling where other sources are quiet and sometimes contradictory. In short, these young guys are looking for leadership and examples to follow, but upstanding figures have elected to not step up to the plate.
I'm actually kind of sick of this argument. It's not just that "manosphere influencers are the only people willing to reach out to young men!" It's that manosphere influencers are willing to lie to young men, to tell them that their problems have a clear source (women) and an easy answer (a return to the past, misogyny. There are plenty of people online saying the truth -- which is that dating is hard, we're at a moment of inflection in society with regards to dating and relationships (and, well, everything else) -- but that's not algorithm friendly. It's not easy. It doesn't make you mad enough. Manosphere influencers hating on women, or women calling for separatism as a reaction (reviving the late 20th-century idea of political lesbianism, yuck)? Now that's algorithmically viable. That's an ideology that can spread.
Absolutely true that they’re lying and that reality isn’t so simple. It’s also true that the truth isn’t as algorithm friendly.
That said, I think those on the side of truth could be doing a great deal more to make themselves visible and readily available to men who need them. As far as I can see, there is practically no “truth funnel” to speak of and most of the guys who end up taking the correct path were always going to end up there due to good parenting, positive environment, etc.
Social media has given the manosphere a huge shot in the arm but it shouldn’t be ignored that it also goes out of its way to place itself where men are most likely to run across it. That’s a huge source of growth that the positive influences haven’t done much to leverage.
No, that is not what is surprising. What is surprising is the graphs showing that the younger you are, the more of those conservative sentiments you have in general, meaning boomers are by far the most progressive generation, gen X less so and millenials are almost as conservative as gen Z.
Ah, I misunderstood, thanks for clarifying! I mean Boomer's were around for the counter culture so them being bthe most progressive does make sense to an extent.
Yeah, I fully agree with you. Like, shit sucks for people right now and the wealth gap is growing and social media makes it easy for these alt-right grifters to make money off young men by blaming every problem on women/"liberalism". I mean, I guess that's honestly kind of the same reason that Bernie has a bunch of fans, he addresses the issues and puts the blame on the wealthy (which, I mean, is the real cause but anyways).
I wonder how much is from difference in culture for different generations vs changes in opinions over time. There are some comparisons to previous polls, but only from a few years ago. Unfortunately they won’t have done a comparable survey from 50 years ago!
It's also totally ok for guys to hug your guy friends. I do it all the time and it feels great
This is an interest opinions survey about world views on gender (seemingly only looking at binary male/female in this research from what I can see).
I would strongly recommend looking at the actual data in the PDF which tells many more stories than the title and summary text.
Further note when comparing countries, the methodology does have a significant limitation:
” Samples in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, and the U.S. can be considered representative of their general adult populations under the age of 75.
Samples in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Thailand, and Türkiye are more urban, more educated, and/or more affluent than the general population. The survey results for these countries should be viewed as reflecting the views of the more “connected” segment of their population. India’s sample represents a large subset of its urban population — social economic classes A, B and C in metros and tier 1-3 town classes across all four zones.”
Does this resonate with anyone anecdotally? I know a few millenial and gen z men that have descended the
"alpha" rabbit hole with this bullshit, but the vast majority have not. Whenever I talk to women baby boomers or gen Xers in my life, they comment on how excited they are to see how men of our generation are helping with childcare/housework/etc and just how different it was for them. Considering how lived experience has changed, I'm surprised these are the results of the study.
That is wild and out. I'm always shocked what people are willing to tolerate. I guess I'm doing the thing again where I assume I have a well rounded perspective on things only to realize I live in a bubble. Kind of like watching super bowl ads.
I don't know that I've ever met anyone, of any age, who would agree with the sentiment that wives should obey husbands. Maybe this is because I'm a woman and people tend to withhold this particular view from me?
On the other hand, virtually every husband-wife pair I've ever known has fallen somewhere between mildly to extremely wife-dominant, with the wife making most of the family and household decisions, both large and small. Along similar lines, I most often see couples move to be closer to the wife's family than to the husband's family. These are definitely the norms in my family, going back generations, and I'm seeing the same pattern in younger couples in my family.
I have a pretty passive/doormat-ish kind of personality, yet I've never had any problem with men I've dated trying to take charge. They've all been pretty happy to let me make decisions for both of us. Even in the abusive relationship I was stuck in for a few years, he still had a pretty matriarchal mindset (he wanted to change his last name to mine, wanted to basically join my family rather than have me join his family, was happy to prioritize my education/career over his, etc.).
It might just be my cultural bubble. I'm from the southern US (Tennessee/Georgia area), and I grew up in pretty low-income areas, where father absenteeism is very common, which I imagine could contribute to a more mother-oriented culture.
Where I live now in southeastern Australia, the culture is more overtly egalitarian (it's uncommon for men to pay for dates, it's very common for women to ask men out on dates, etc.), and the effect might be a little milder here. But at least in the circles where I run, it still seems to be the norm. Like my own family, my partner's family seems to follow a similar pattern, with basically mothers making most decisions within the family units, and a grandmother essentially directing the extended family at large. And I see the same pattern in my own relationship, despite our different nationalities and socioeconomic backgrounds. My partner has a naturally more confident, dominant personality than me, yet he happily defers to me on any decision, big or small. (Mind you, he was raised by a single mother, which could be a factor — and if I were domineering or powertrippy, I imagine he might push back. He definitely pushes back pretty hard when other people step on his toes.)
I'm extremely dubious that you've never met someone who believes wives should obey her husband if you're from the Southern US, unless you've managed to avoid religious people to a truly unbelievable extent. Yeah, not all Christians believe this shit, but an absolute shitload of them do, and it's the dominant view among US fundamentalist evangelicals. I just can't imagine you grew up in Tennessee/Georgia without ever meeting a Southern Baptist or other evangelical fundie who openly believes this -- in my experience they don't usually bring it up apropos of nothing, but they'll answer honestly if you ask if they believe wives should obey their husbands outright (though I think "be submissive to their husbands" is the more popular wording in that crowd) and the various denominations usually explicitly contain some phrase acknowledging this in their statements of faith or wherever else they list their core beliefs.
And fwiw, this does not contradict couples in which the wife is "dominant" in household matters. If anything, that's the norm among this type of religious person.
I'm sure I've come across random people who think that way, but I've never heard them express their views on it. Everyone I've met whose views I know anything about definitely did not hold that view (or if they did, they misled me). This is why I used the phrasing "I don't know that I've met" because I genuinely don't. Unless you count arguing with people online, I guess.
It's also worth noting that, in the Southeast at least, this viewpoint seems to be mostly associated with evangelical Christians. I'm a second-generation atheist, and my extended family and culture is leftwing Methodist. I know evangelicals are out there (they spend a lot of money on billboards) but I've barely met any. I did have one evangelical friend growing up (Southern Baptist to be specific), but her family had a very high divorce rate and very little father involvement, and they didn't exactly have the most optimistic opinions about men.
yeah, this is definitely an evangelical thing (I was raised evangelical myself), mainline Protestants tend to be more progressive in general. I just know that evangelicals seem to have a stronger foothold in the southeast than anywhere else except maybe parts of the Midwest.
I just finally glanced at this, and I think this is definitely one of those "lies, damned lies, and statistics" sort of "studies" ... to whatever extent there is a trend here, it is primarily cultural, rather than generational.
Which brings me to my anecdotal resonance ... I lived in Hungary for several years. I don't believe that most young men there would "exactly" buy into this "women must obey men" claim, but there definitely is a strong, old-school patriarchal vibe there ... boys are spoiled and treated like princes growing up, while girls are told they are precious, but treated badly, left to fend for themselves, get second-hand care, etc ... girls and women are also strongly told that their value lies in their baby-making potential (preferably boy babies). Women that don't want to have babies are very stigmatized.
Before other Hungarians jump on me here, to clarify, this is a tendency in the culture. Of course, not all Hungarian families are like this. But this kind of inequality does run through the culture there.
Separately (or not, IDK), there are a lot of Hungarians--men and women--looking for any scapegoat to blame for their life, economy, society, etc, sucking there ... immigrants and gypsies are top of the list, but "uppity women" are definitely on that list, too.
I’m curious as to whether the perceived increase relative to older generations isn’t a decrease of feminist/egalitarian sentiment, but instead a decrease in “don’t know/don’t care/unsures” and a hardening of agree/disagree sentiments.
Seems like it. At least some of the data exludes "don't know/not stated", which could distort the results by a lot. It doesn't even need to be a true hardening of agree/disagree sentiments in this young generation, it could just be that young people may tend to have stronger opinions in general.
On top of that most of the data was collected online and naturally includes more people from urban/well connected groups. This likely selects for more educated and liberal boomers specifically because 60-80 years old people with more conservative views and/or from rural areas are surely much less likely to respond to online polls.
Some of the groups are also really small. They don't weight the results based on population I think, which means that countries with few respondents have the same weight as countries with a lot of respondents, but the boomer groups may be tiny with a lot of noise in them.
And speaking from experience with similar polls done in the EU, there are sometimes issues with translation that create pretty big biases, for example in this case it could be "wife should always obey the husband" translated to something like "wife should always respect or follow the husband", which is far less extreme. I remember something like this happening with polls on attitudes towards ethnic minorities, the wording was different enough in different languages that it made some countries look nonsensically bad.
Only the first two points would directly lead to what we're seeing in the graphs, but I'm not convinced by the quality of the data in general.
Wait, are they not even weighting countries by population? Even if you make the (seemingly incorrect) assumption that each sample within a country is representative of that country's population, surely reporting worldwide statistics while equally weighting each country would be wildly misleading.
I only went through the data briefly (it's linked in the article) and I don't have more time right now, so maybe I misunderstood, but that is what it seemed like.
Wow, that's even worse than what I already thought they were doing, and what I already thought they were doing was pretty awful statistics to begin with.