- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
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
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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.
Probably not the comment you were expecting, but, what’s “sad sigma male music”? And why is it called that?
There are a few sound clips that got used a lot when the whole dumbass sigma male thing was popular
Modern video feed algorithms and other social media just need to feed you the same stuff you’ve engaged with previously.
People should really stop saying this. Every YouTube ad I get and recommendation I get is crap now. It is like someone ordered the developers to break echo chambers by making sure people don’t get what they want. I am not a fucking kid, I know what I want to watch, and what I don’t want to watch. Tired of the anti trans bullshit I am constantly being suggested.
i think your experience is likely anecdotal and non-representative of general trends.
scholars still indicate that algorithms play a significant role in gathering echo chambers
That’s not anti-echohamber. That’s the algorithm reinforcing the anti-trans propaganda that drives clicks and views on most platforms. Controversy is sensational, and anger provokes responses.
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.
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.
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.
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”
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.
The wording here is really important. We don’t know how masculinity and feminism are being defined here.
Stuff that began with “woman’s suffrage” are honored by people in this age group. They think it’s normal women vote, have jobs, leave the house etc. Some of this stuff probably isn’t even “feminism” to them but just “normal.”
Remember that these guys are on social media a lot more than us and see those words misued frequently for click bait, etc.
But that misuse of the word is harming the overall cause. It’s not like the need for feminism has evaporated, although it has surely evolved, and if young men think it’s harmful… Even if what they think is harmful is not an accurate representation of what feminism is, they aren’t going to be supporters of what it actually is if it has the name attached.
Maybe it is time for a new movement with a new name.
I suppose that could work. I do know several religious women who wouldn’t identify as feminists but still believe in abortion, etc (remember that not all religious people are white supremacist Protestants). The word may have fell out of favor but honestly it’s the idea that matter anyways.
If I have to take a guess, perhaps there is a base woman’s suffrage that is now universal and now feminism is now used by the younger generation to be what was considered “feminist extremism” by us. Words do change, it happens.
