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New research has found that boys and young men have more conservative views on gender than baby boomers.
Over 3,600 people were polled by Ipsos for King’s College London’s Policy Institute and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership. 16 per cent of young men agreed with the statement “feminism has done more harm than good”, while just 13 per cent of over-60s felt the same.
The figures show that one in four UK males aged 16 to 29 believe it is harder to be a man than a woman. This is in spite of a quarter of women experiencing some form of sexual violence and the UK gender pay gap standing at 7.7 per cent. The survey also found that 68 per cent of women the same age believe it is harder to be a woman than a man.
In addition, a fifth of young men have a “favourable” view of self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate. Tate is currently facing charges in Romania, which he denies, of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to sexually exploit women. He has openly used his social media platforms to speak about women in degrading and dehumanising ways, describing women who aren’t virgins as “used goods” and suggesting that rape victims must bear “some responsibility” for being raped.
Men from ethnic minority groups are most likely to follow Tate, with more than a third agreeing he “raises important points about real threats to male identity and gender roles”, compared to 12 per cent of young white men. Speaking to The Guardian, youth worker Colin Brent explained that this could be due to Tate appearing to offer immediate solutions to men struggling to find a place in society. “Andrew Tate talks about immediacy and that’s what people find attractive,” Brent says. “He says this is how you should be a man. This is how you should get rich. He offers an alternative to the slow process of political change.”
NEW: Young people's attitudes to masculinity and women's equality show signs of an emerging gender divide, with the views of men and women often differing more within younger, rather than older, generations.
— The Policy Institute (@policyatkings) February 1, 2024
Our latest culture wars study with @IpsosUK & @GIWLkings 🧵⬇️ pic.twitter.com/LovdiswGah
Jordan Peterson is also seen favourably by 32 per cent of 16 to 29-year-old boys and men, compared with just 12 per cent of women the same age. Peterson has suggested that “enforced monogamy” could help stop male violence and implied that the patriarchy was in place because men are inherently more competent.
“This is a new and unusual generational pattern,” Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the KCL Policy Institute, told The Guardian. “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.”
Professor Rosie Campbell, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at KCL, told The Guardian that she believes social media may have fostered the spread of misogynistic beliefs among young men. “The fact that this group is the first to derive most of their information from social media is likely to be at least part of the explanation,” she says.
While it is cheering that men subscribing to these sexist beliefs appear to be firmly in the minority, Duffy stresses that the numbers of young men taking an unfavourable view of feminism are by no means insignificant. “There is a consistent minority of between one-fifth and one-third who hold the opposite view. This points to a real risk of fractious division among this coming generation,” he said.