Religion is a Mental Illness

Homophobia in the Gender Critical Movement?

What do we think is going on here?

hpluckrose.com

The recent surge of virulent homophobia among a subset of individuals identifying themselves as gender critical feminists has been the subject of much consternation and argumentation on X in recent weeks. It’s really not at all ambiguous.

I have had a couple of threads on this issue making what are really quite basic liberal arguments against the collective demonisation of gay men on the grounds of some mythical ‘gay sex culture’ that is the epitome of misogyny and sexual depravity and apparently responsible for everything from women having anal sex to the development of the concept of gender identity to anorexia.

Andrew Doyle, himself recently a target of some particularly nasty homophobic abuse, has been a solidly liberal voice in all this, consistently condemning the behaviour of homophobic GCs while stressing that this is a handful of toxic individuals who do not represent principled feminists or their goals to protect women’s rights which he continues to support. However, between the principled gender critical feminists who have straightforwardly condemned this development and the virulent homophobes who unapologetically defend it are a worryingly large number of gender critical feminists who, while not spewing homophobic bile themselves, seem inclined to prevaricate about the ethics of it on illiberal collectivist grounds. Andrew has pointed out correctly the similarity between these tactics and those of the Critical Social Justice movement.

He followed this up with a thought experiment,

and when it went unanswered, with this post.

I am not one to be able not to weigh in on a question like “What do we think is going on here?” I see two main drivers underlying the recent surge in gender critical homophobia - authoritarian social conservatism and radical misandry - sometimes operating independently and sometimes, bizarrely, overlapping.

The gender critical movement has, over the last couple of years, attracted a sizeable contingent of old-fashioned extreme authoritarian social conservatives. This is an odd development as they seek to enforce gender roles & gender stereotypes and so represent the opposite values to those typically held by gender critical feminists. The difference looks like this:

Gender critical feminism - "We believe 'gender' to be a harmful social construct which perpetuates roles & stereotypes which teach men to be domineering, aggressive & regard women as sexual objects & women to be submissive, self-effacing & servile to the desires of men. We reject these stereotypes and roles and believe there is no right way to be a man or a woman. Men who have traits more typically associated with femininity and women who have traits more associated with masculinity should simply embrace these rather than believing they have a gender identity at odds with their biological sex that they should identify with rather than their biological sex. Because we believe gender to be a harmful oppressive fiction that perpetuates these roles & stereotypes, we do not believe gender identity to be a real thing & to be, instead, another iteration of these roles & stereotypes that empower male sexual predators & present a threat to women. Gender nonconformity and same-sex attraction are naturally occuring phenomena which are enabled to thrive when pressure to conform to gender roles is reduced, and we support people who fit into either or both categories.

Extreme authoritarian social conservatism - Gender roles & stereotypes are good, actually. Men should be men & women should be women as defined by the most rigid gender roles & stereotypes which we should tie even more firmly to biological sex & enforce more strongly. Because we believe that men & women have a moral responsibility to uphold gender roles & stereotypes, we object to anybody who does not fit within a norm of stereotypically masculine men & stereotypically feminine women being attracted to each other and having monogamous relationships based on these stereotypical gender roles. We object to gender identity as the ultimate form of gender nonconformity that betrays this ideal and it’s convenient to piggyback on a well-established gender critical movement that has support due to its concerns for women’s rights and children’s bodies. However, our end goals are opposed and this becomes most evident when we do things like verbally abuse women with minds of their own in the public sphere by telling them they’re too fat, ugly & unfuckable to have a worthwhile opinion or send pictures of bunches of sticks (faggots) to men who are attracted to men.

Liberals reject authoritarian social conservatism because of its authoritarianism and support gender critical feminists’ goals to liberate people from restrictive gender roles and stereotypes that they do not wish to be in. We also support same-sex attracted people’s right to pursue their consensual romantic and sexual lives without interference or harassment. We may differ with gender critical feminists on the extent to which psychological differences between men and women are socially constructed. There is significant evidence that differences in our evolved brains and hormones has resulted in psychological sex differences between men and woman on average and that this influences what they choose to do in life. However, these are simply differences in distributions of traits on average which do not apply to every individual and do not justify constraining anybody into a gender role or making stereotypical assumptions about them.

Radical misandry has always had a presence in the feminist movement - a movement concerned with advancing or maintaining women’s equal rights and social status - and always been opposed by other feminists. Feminists are defined by their opposition to patriarchy - legal and social systems which give men all the power in society and especially power over women - but some of them expand and distort this to the demonisation of men. It is much the same pattern as seen in opposition to racism in which all anti-racists are defined by opposition to white supremacy - legal and social systems which give white people all the power in society and especially power over people of other races - but some of them expand and distort this to the demonisation of white people. This is, of course, bigotry that is rejected by the majority of people who recognise that patriarchy and misogyny can be and are opposed by people of both sexes and white supremacy and racism can be and are opposed by people of all races and that unified opposition to such unjust systems and horrible beliefs has been and remains the best way of overturning the systems and marginalising the beliefs. Some people continue to argue that misandry and anti-white racism are justifiable due to prejudice and discrimination against women and people of racial minority having been a far bigger problem for much longer. However, consistently principled people recognise this illiberal collectivist mentality to unhelpfully replicate the fallacious and morally abhorrent reasoning that justified and sustained systems like patriarchy and white supremacy in the first place, and this kind of ‘retributive justice’ to be no justice at all and reject it as both unethical and counterproductive.

Nevertheless, feminists who take a radical misandrist position continue to exist and to insist that the problem with society is men, men, men. Men’s depravity, men’s entitlement, men’s fragility, men’s aggression, men’s misogyny, men’s endless quest for domination. They take this position despite an abundance of evidence that many of the people promoting patriarchal systems and restrictive gender roles are women and many of those opposing them are men. One particularly revealing UK study from 2016, (just before Critical Social Justice became so culturally dominant that it melted a lot of people’s brains and sent them into tribal warfare mode) found that 86% of men and 74% of women supported equal rights for women. The evidence that men are at least as likely to support women’s rights as women are is neglected because misandrist feminists have a collectivist mentality which defines ‘men’ and ‘women’ as sex classes with specific sex class interests as defined by them and not as living, breathing men and women with diverse individual political and ideological views.

But why would misandry cause this subset of feminists to engage in virulent homophobia? Even if men were all violent, domineering sexual predators perpetuating a misogynistic rape culture to satisfy their own depraved sexual appetites, surely the men we’d have to worry about least are those whose appetite for sex with women is non-existent? My observation of this odd phenomenon suggests that this is related to a strong streak of puritanical opposition to male sexuality as something dark and inherently dangerous alongside a belief in the gentle purity of female sexuality. As I was informed following one of my threads, “Female sexuality DOES act as a breaker for male depravity, and it is absent here.” I was also informed in this thread that gay male sexuality is all about men publicly urinating on each other, engaging in public anal sex, walking about dressed as dogs with dildos protruding from their anuses and performing drag acts that feature fake vaginas. Rhetoric about ‘gayman culture’ (it seems a ‘gayman’ is something different to a man) and ‘gay male sex culture’ abound in these threads as do claims that all gender non-conforming men are autogynephilic sex offenders while autoandrophilia is absolutely not a thing.

Heaven help any gay man who ventures into these threads to suggest that being a same-sex attracted small gamete producer may not actually be the same thing as being a fetishist exhibitionist and/or that he, personally, has objected to such public displays and argued that they subvert the purpose of Gay Pride to advance acceptance of same-sex relationships. This will not exempt him from being accused of complicity in the behaviour of other men who hold entirely different views and values and may be gay. May God have mercy on the soul of any lesbian who expresses a liking for anal sex and points out that it does not require a literal penis or suggests that anybody take a look at the genre of lesbian erotic fiction associated with terms like ‘stud’ or ‘packing’ before declaring too confidently that autoandrophilia is not a thing. She is likely to be accused of being a fake account run by a man. Any heterosexual woman objecting to the “vanillafication” of her sex life and pointing out that the 50 Shades of Gray phenomenon was not driven by male consumers (it certainly wasn’t inspired by the quality of the writing, captivating plot or compelling character development) or daring to say that she finds male sexuality…..well, sexy, is very likely to either disappear under a pile of ‘pick-me, dickpanderer’ accusations or be held up as an example of what gay male sex/porn/orgy culture does to poor, innocent women.

We cannot do anything with reasoning that works like this. It begins with its conclusion that men and male sexuality are defined by something dark, dangerous and ugly and that gay men’s sexuality, unconstrained by the influence of an imagined pure and virtuous female sexuality, represents a particularly concentrated variation of this vile and contaminating depravity. It then works backwards from there. No amount of reasoned argument or evidence to the contrary will reach true believers in this narrative. They are prisoners of their own minds and the rest of us can only be thankful we do not have to live in such minds. Nor can we realistically hope to be able to do much with the mindset of extreme authoritarian social conservatives. They too have a distorted ideologically captured mindset that is impervious to any attempts to introduce it to the reality of men and women as demographics with differing distributions of traits but also much individual variation. Nor can we convince them that it is perfectly fine if some women are not particularly feminine and some men are just not that masculine, that some women will be ideal leaders in the public sphere and some men the most wonderful full-time parents and that some people will be attracted to others of the same sex and we can just accept this reality and treat them with the same dignity and respect as everybody else. (Failing that, you can just leave them alone).

Fortunately, the majority of people do not hold either of these extreme positions and acceptance of same sex relationships in the UK continues to increase. (We have more cause for concern in the US). Homophobia, blessedly, remains a fringe position. However, I would suggest that there is genuine cause to be concerned for young gay men and especially for boys who are or will soon be recognising themselves to be gay and who are particularly likely to operate more in the social media world of narratives than in the real one. For them, we must fear the homophobic narratives of the ‘queer theory’ brand of Critical Social Justice activism which will try to convince some of them struggling with their sexuality that they are actually girls and the rest that it is transphobic to be solely same-sex attracted. We must continue to fear the ever-present extreme social conservatives who will tell them there is something wrong and dirty and disgusting about the way their attractions and their romantic love works. And, increasingly often, now, it seems we must also fear for those who reject both of those narratives and find themselves in the gender critical space where a small but highly vocal minority of those gender critical women will inform them that their sexuality is the root of seemingly all evil.

We cannot ban these homophobes or seek to cancel or penalise them for their morally abhorrent views (provided they remain in the realm of ideas). We can only counter them and ensure that there is another stronger, more convincing, more ethical and more evidence-based stance on male homosexuality that is easily findable online. There must be a principled, liberal stance that reminds young gay men that their same-sex attraction is both important and irrelevant. Human sexuality is important on a personal level because it determines what our closest and most enduring relationships look like and who we love and are loved by on the most intimate level. To some extent, it shapes what our families, friendship groups and communities look like. Those close human bonds are possibly the most important thing to humans and this was why it was so important to achieve acceptance of same-sex love and attraction in the first place. It should never have been “a love that dare not speak its name” leading countless individuals to lead lives of secrecy, loneliness or shame. We must never allow that to happen again.

At the same time, we do not need homosexuality or bisexuality or heterosexuality to be speaking its name at all times and in all contexts. In most broader, cultural contexts, an individual’s sexuality is, or should be, irrelevant. It has no inherent ethical or political content. It does not make somebody virtuous or immoral. It does not make them stunning and brave or degenerate and depraved. It does not make them special (or not especially special). Our individual qualities, beliefs, values and actions determine whether we are people who make the world better or worse and those are the only things on which each of us can be rightfully judged. Whenever somebody says “You are <insert race, sex, sexuality, other characteristic here> and this means you must hold specific abhorrent views and values, are complicit in some harmful culture or community and should be held accountable for the behaviour of other individuals who share this characteristic” that person is being illiberal, unethical and simply factually wrong. That person really is complicit in a harmful culture or community and the rest of us should uphold a culture that tells them so and holds their views in low esteem.

Sadly, it seems to be necessary to do this in the gender critical space at the moment in relation to homophobia. Plenty of gay men have been doing so and their voices will be particularly valuable for younger gay men who are concerned about CSJ ‘queer’ activism. Unfortunately, some gay men who share these concerns have now decided that their presence and support is not wanted in the gender critical feminist space. This makes it particularly important that principled gender critical feminists are also seen to object to the homophobes among them. This matters for strategic reasons of not alienating their allies but, more importantly, it matters for ethical reasons that hurling homophobic abuse at people is simply an appalling thing to do. Many have been condemning homophobia and I have been encouraged to see many gender critical feminists “liking” my tweets on the subject. Unfortunately, some continue to prevaricate on the issue. This will not do. While I could understand and respect feminists’ wish to avoid a ‘pile-on’ of any individual or a wish to address the problem privately with another feminist who is behaving badly rather than publicly, there really is a need for feminists who recognise that homophobia is wrong to say so publicly and without equivocation. The time to do that is now.

Redstockings were strongly opposed to lesbian separatism, seeing interpersonal relationships with men as an important arena of feminist struggle, and hence seeing separatism as escapist. (Like most radical feminists of the time, Redstockings saw lesbianism primarily as a political identity rather than a fundamental part of personal identity, and therefore analyzed it primarily in political terms.) Redstockings were also opposed to male homosexuality, which they saw as a deeply misogynist rejection of women.

Ladies, I don't think you understand how little validation men get. Like, women will get compliments just for being a woman. You'll get validation for being a certain gender. That's an amazing thing, that's a crazy thing.

Like, men will get hated on just for being men. Understand that men will get their first flowers typically at their funeral. They get very few compliments over the course of the year, genuine compliments. And they get almost no validation in their relationships. It's usually about their women, their female.

Women are flooded with attention, compliments, positivity, you know, from a young age. And that's an amazing, beautiful thing. But you guys gotta understand, like, men don't really get that. And that's why when you compliment a guy, it lights him up. Men really, like, go through a lot of stuff. Men are expected to provide support, take care of themselves with no reassurance from the world whatsoever. It's very difficult sometimes for men.

‘It’s a world made by men, for the benefit of men.’

The patriarchy, male privilege, gender oppression… again and again, we are beaten over the head with dogmatic, absolutist, and terrifying catch phrases, each to be accepted without question.

You see, when it comes to political and structural advantage, men have it all, and women have none.

But do such theories make sense in modern society?

Why, if our male privilege is so sweet, do so many thousands of men end their lives in such tragic stories of suicide?

Why, if our society is so patriarchal, does it ignore the countless and increasingly urgent issues that devastate men and boys?

And why, if this society is designed for my advantage, no less as a straight white man, then why in the build-up to a General Election is there not one policy designed for men and boys?

I don’t understand.

And if the world hates and neglects women so much, why do our major political parties line up to offer them a plethora of well-meaning policies, showering them with taxpayer money, and words of support, compassion, and kindness?

The political agendas are out, outlining the next generation of political change, and ambition, and it’s chock full of ‘women and girls’ being a national priority.

Meanwhile any question about the other half of society, to rightfully ask ‘what about men and boys?’, will only draw sneers and squeals, eye rolls, and violence, ‘this isn’t about you’, they snap back.

Yes.

We know that already. That’s the point.

It never is.

It never is about boys falling behind and out of education.

It never is about the homeless men left to die on the street.

It never is about the millions of male victims of abuse with nowhere to go.

Those who say, ‘this isn’t about you’, have yet to realise they have missed the point entirely, whilst simultaneously impaling themselves upon it.

We know.

This isn’t about us, and it never is.

So, who, in another full house of political neglect, betrayal and failure, are you going to vote for?

Our culture’s trashing of boys and men is having toxic consequences

archive.ph

For a long time, the internet and social media have been bloated with memes, even articles, that denigrate men and most forms of traditional masculinity. Many of the people behind these posts insist that they are simply snarky barbs aimed at people with the most “privilege” who can’t take a joke.

If there was ever any doubt about the veracity of or honesty behind such a statement, a growing trend appears to pull back the veil.

Recently, the online magazine Slate ran an eye-opening story revealing that many young couples are using in vitro fertilization to ensure they conceive daughters instead of sons. In other countries, IVF is legal only as a screening measure to detect the likelihood for genetic diseases. Not in the U.S., where IVF clinics have mushroomed in number over the past two decades because prospective parents want freedom of choice.  

In one American study, white parents picked a female embryo 70 percent of the time. A 2010 study showed that American adoptive parents were 30 percent more likely to prefer girls than boys, and were willing to pay an additional $16,000 to ensure they got a girl. 

One 31-year-old woman interviewed for that piece, who works in human resources (an industry dedicated to equity and parity) said, “When I think about having a child that’s a boy, it’s almost a repulsion, like, Oh my God, no.”

Such disturbing sentiments are widespread in the U.S. and are part of a growing trend in Western cultures — popularly called Gender Disappointment. An Australian psychologist who specializes in antenatal and postnatal care conducted a Facebook survey and found that Gender Disappointment is most common in women, who unabashedly want daughters, not sons. One woman posted on a mothers’ chat board that the “vast majority” of women on “every social media (Facebook, Instagram) site or general website (Netmums, Mumsnet, Reddit)” voice this gender bias. “There are websites like ingender and genderdreaming just dedicated to Gender disappointment…some of them are straight out Boy bashing or anti boy posts.”

This invites the question: What exactly is it about having boys that seems so repellent? Many of the women in the Slate article, even mothers of boys, pointed to that sweeping, damning and vague label “toxic masculinity.” They spoke to girls’ “limitless potential” versus that of boys. Girls move out of the house earlier, achieve greater academic success, are more likely to attend and graduate from college, find jobs more readily than male peers and have higher emotional IQ.

One woman insisted that boys are “less caring toward their parents.” This woman craves a ‘“close friendship”’ with her future child that ‘“seemed possible only with a female child.”’  

It isn’t just women. Another interviewee echoed the sentiments of many younger men when she said her husband values characteristics ‘“more [stereotypically] associated with girls,”’ such as “empathy, social skills, and kindness.”

This invites the question: If these skills are so important — and they are, as schools, workplaces and relationships increasingly demand them — why can’t we simply teach them to boys?  

Such gender bias is emblematic of the selective empathy trend in which people proffer tolerance, compassion and context only for those they deem worthy. Though unintentional, this was what Rachel, who works in spaces that empower girls and women, was speaking to after reading my book.

“I had no idea so many men struggle deep down and have these anguished inner lives,” she said. “Many of us have this belief that men’s privilege insulates them from the struggles the rest of us have.”

I absolutely appreciated her sincerity and thoughtful admission. And the lack of empathy that belies many girls’ and women’s perception of boys and men is problematic. It’s maladaptive and robs males — one-half of the population — of their humanity and very real struggles.

Part of the reason this dearth of empathy exists is that too many men have abdicated their responsibilities. The men who are wounded by this brand of toxic messaging don’t speak up because they are afraid of the backlash, especially of being “canceled” or widely attacked on social media. They fear being labeled (unfairly) as extremist “Men’s Rights” apologists.

And the men who do speak up rarely do so in a productive way. Too often they shrug and pretend not to care, and instead take their grievances to the online “manosphere’s” dark corners, where they exact revenge among a receptive, misogynistic audience.   

It’s also time that women did some soul searching — that they stop and reconsider their prevailing, limiting perceptions about men and masculinity. Their own personal experiences with men don’t apply across the board, and such wanton attacks on and wholesale dismissal of boys and men only perpetuate and normalize a reactivity that’s uncritical and self-pitying.

A more productive social media post might feature a montage of boys and men with this caption: “Yes, you need to level up…you also deserve empathy and compassion along the way.” It’s not catchy, but it moves the conversation forward in a way we need it to go.

Having a negative perception of masculinity is linked to worse mental health, study finds

A new study of over 4,000 men suggests that viewing masculinity negatively is linked to lower mental well-being, challenging the idea that m

PsyPost - Psychology News

Holding the view that masculinity negatively impacts one’s behavior is associated with lower mental well-being, according to a new study of more than 4,000 men. The findings shed light on the relationship between societal perceptions of masculinity and individual mental health, challenging previous notions that masculine attitudes are inherently harmful or detrimental. The study was published in the International Journal of Health Sciences.

For decades, masculinity has been a topic of both public and academic debate. Historically, traits like being active, dominant, and self-contained were synonymous with masculinity. However, from the 1980s, there was a notable shift. Masculinity began to be viewed through a more critical lens, often associated with negative traits like misogyny and homophobia, and linked to issues such as poor mental health and aggressive behavior.

This transition was partly fueled by sociological theories, leading to what some call a “deficit model” of masculinity – focusing primarily on its negative aspects. But how accurate is this negative portrayal, and what impact does it have on men’s mental health? This was the central question guiding the researchers in this extensive study.

“Suicide is around three times higher in men than women worldwide, yet the reasons for this tend to be overlooked or misunderstood,” said study author John Barry, the co-founder of the Centre for Male Psychology and author of “Perspectives in Male Psychology: An Introduction.”

“When I started researching male psychology over a decade ago, I based my hypothesis on the dominant explanation of the time – that poor mental health and suicide are linked to masculinity. My findings didn’t convincingly support this hypothesis, so I delved deeper into existing research and realized a lot of it was based on a surprisingly negative view of masculinity that did not seem grounded in the reality of male mental health and suicide.”

The study, a comprehensive online survey, was conducted with 2,023 men from the United Kingdom and 2,002 from Germany. The survey, designed to gather a wide range of data, asked questions about demographic details like age, marital status, and employment, as well as more subjective areas such as their personal values and how healthy they felt.

A key part of this survey was the Positive Mindset Index, a tool used to measure mental positivity. This scale consists of questions designed to assess feelings of happiness, confidence, control, emotional stability, motivation, and optimism.

The survey also included several questions specifically about masculinity, designed to understand how men perceive its impact on their lives. These questions were grouped into categories that reflected whether men saw masculinity as having a negative or positive impact on them, or whether they considered it irrelevant in today’s society.

Men who reported greater satisfaction with their personal growth had significantly higher mental positivity. This was the strongest predictor of mental well-being in both countries. Contrary to stereotypes of declining happiness with age, the study found that older men reported higher levels of mental positivity. Men more satisfied with their health also reported higher mental positivity.

Perhaps most notably, the study found that men who had a less negative view of masculinity reported higher levels of mental positivity. This was particularly evident in the UK sample. In other words, when men disagreed with statements such as “Masculinity prevents me from talking about how I feel about my problems,” they tended to have a better overall mental outlook.

In Germany, not only did a less negative view of masculinity correlate with better mental health, but a positive view of masculinity was also a significant predictor of higher mental positivity. Positive views of masculinity encompassed attitudes such as feeling a sense of protectiveness towards women and a desire to be a strong pillar of support for one’s family.

“‘Toxic masculinity is toxic terminology,'” Barry told PsyPost. “We all need to stop using toxic terminology such as ‘toxic masculinity’, because it is possible these ideas are being internalized by men and boys and impacting them negatively. In some cases, men with serious mental health problems may ‘act out’ in antisocial behaviors, so it is likely that toxic terminology – in the media, schools, government and elsewhere – is actually increasing the likelihood of behaviors they are intended to reduce. Instead, it might help if we highlight more the ways that masculinity can be a positive influence on men and society.”

Across age groups, men generally agreed that their sense of masculinity was associated with feeling protective towards women. However, the study revealed interesting generational differences in how masculinity influences violent attitudes towards women. Older men, more than their younger counterparts, disagreed with the notion that masculinity “makes me inclined to be violent toward women.” On average, men over the age of 60 largely disagreed with this proposition, whereas men under the age of 40 were notably more inclined to agree with it.

“Men who felt protective towards women had better mental wellbeing, whereas those who felt violent to women had lower mental wellbeing,” Barry said. “I was surprised and saddened that younger men, below around age 35 or 40, think masculinity makes them feel violent towards women. I suspect this self-concept is due to the influence of negative concepts about masculinity perpetuated in our culture in recent decades.”

While the study provides valuable insights, it’s important to note its limitations. The cross-sectional nature of the survey means that while it can highlight correlations, it cannot definitively prove cause and effect.

“Correlation is not causation,” Barry said. “This is the case for lots of studies, but worth pointing out that for example we can’t say from this study whether poor mental wellbeing causes people to think negatively about masculinity, or vice versa.”

Looking to the future, this research paves the way for further studies to explore how different cultures and age groups perceive masculinity and its impact on mental well-being. Longitudinal studies, which track the same individuals over time, could provide deeper insights into how perceptions of masculinity evolve and influence men’s mental health throughout their lives.

“It’s not people’s fault they think masculinity is bad, after all, we all live in a soup of information created by policy making organizations, governments, academia and the media, all telling us in various ways that masculinity is a problem,” Barry added. “However the profession of psychology needs to find its way out of this haze in order to be able to properly understand and cope with male psychology and men’s mental health.”

The study was titled: “The belief that masculinity has a negative influence on one’s behavior is related to reduced mental well-being“.

Objectives: Masculinity is sometimes presumed to be a cause of mental health problems and antisocial behavior in men. This study sought to identify the predictors of men’s mental well-being, including their attitudes to masculinity.

Methods: 4,025 men from the UK and Germany (GDR) were asked about their core values, which areas of their life they felt were important, and their opinions about masculinity., Their mental well-being was measured using the Positive Mindset Index (PMI). Multiple linear regression assessed the degree to which their answers were linked to their mental well-being.

Results: The results in both countries were similar. The main predictors of higher PMI scores were Personal Growth Satisfaction, Age (being older), not taking a Negative view of Masculinity, and Health Satisfaction. In addition, in the UK, Education Satisfaction was the fourth strongest predictor of PMI, and in Germany, Having a Positive View of Masculinity was the fifth strongest predictor of PMI.

Conclusions: These findings are discussed in relation to whether the negative view of masculinity often cited in the media and elsewhere is having a negative impact on men’s mental health.

"Then you should understand people choosing the bear"

I'm a sexual assault survivor. When I was 15, a 55-year-old woman assaulted me and three of my friends at a party where she served a bunch of 15-year-olds alcohol. Way to go Granny.

And I don't hate women. I've stepped in to defend women against attacks from men in city streets or bars. I can't say if they're all sexually related or sexually motivated - they probably were.

But when we get to the question of this, I mean, like I do empathize for victims. I get that.

But the question isn't real. And we all know the question isn't real. It's hypothetical.

I was just at a store. There are hundreds or thousands of people at this Walmart, men and women walking around, doing their thing minding their own business. Not a single woman in there was shifty eyed, dysphoric or afraid of any of the men in that store.

I was just at a restaurant. I was at a bank. I was at a coffee shop. I was walking through a park. No one was afraid of men.

Replace any of those men with one bear and see what happens.

So, because we know it's hypothetical, let's have an adult conversation. Ready?

The existence of the question at all creates bias against men. I can trick you just the same way. I'd say, what do you think more Islamic men use to murder their wives with, guns or knives or rope?

The fact that I asked the question, you go, well why is he asking that question? Do they murder their wives a lot?

The queston is: safety, bear, man, alone. Right, those are the four real words in that question. It is embedding a bias against men. Every woman that has answered that question "bear" has stepped out in public since, has interracted with hundreds of men. The average woman will interact with 300 men per day.

Maybe they'd opted for the bear just cause they wanna mix it up. They're like, I'm getting so bored with the thousands of men that I see every week that maybe I just wanna see a bear.

I don't think you understand the gravity of this question. As a abuse survivor, I'm standing up against a false claim against the nature of men, where one in a thousand men - or maybe just a hair over one in one thousand men - will commit a crime of this nature. It's a very thin number of men.

And as a man whose family was responsible for starting World War I - you know, the assassination by the Black Hand, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, my family paid for that assassination. We started World War I, which is why World War II happened. Because I'm so closely tied to that genocide, I've studied it.

And, Hitler and the Germans use the same type of questionings and comparative logic to wage war against Jews. I am literally trying to stop thousands of women who don't know any better but than to participate in a trend from creating this wave of propaganda against men.

Someone is trying to use this question against men, and women think it's a cool, dramatic way to say, "I'm afraid of men." But they're really actually not afraid of men. Cause they wouldn't go outside. They wouldn't go shopping. They wouldn't walk through the park. They wouldn't do anything. They'd be so actually mortified of men.

The question appeals to a logical fallacy called the Fallacy of Relative Privation. They're trying to say that because a single man could do more harm than a single bear, that all men are more dangerous than all bears on average. Regardless of the context of the interaction. That strips away all sense of goodwill or truth to the fact that women interact with 300 men per day on average. That strips away the truth that a woman, per male exposure, if you walk down the sidewalk and you see a guy, you have a 1 in 35 million chance of being forcibly [g]raped in that walk by on the sidewalk.

That Fallacy of Relative Privation strips all logic to the fact that men are, by and large, safe. But yeah, 81% of women will report being sexually harassed or assaulted. 43% of men just the same.

The number of people who will experience unwanted sexual contact, men and women, are roughly the same[**]. Men will underreport at three times the rate of women. Men are victimized just as much, but we're stigmatized against talking about it.

Both sides are victims, but men are not doing this campaign to smear women to try to damage the entire, like, gender of women.

Except for me, now. I'm doing what's called logical parallels. My whole argument for the last two weeks has been such: since women assault children, their children, their biological kids at 2.5 times the rate that all men assault women sexually, then women should lose custody of their kids until they stop it. Because, the phrase going around online right now is all men until no men. So, until no women, all women. Women do not deserve custody of their biological kids if any of them are capable of harming a child. Because children are innocent and honestly, all parallels aside, it's the abuse of children that is propagating people who are becoming monsters later on in life.

So, if anyone could make a decision right now to make the world a better place in the next 15 years, it's women not abusing their kids. It's already too late for us as adults. We're already screwed. We all have our trauma that we have to work through, and that's gonna be a dog fight. But if we wanna guarantee the world's gonna be a better place, let's stop abusing kids.

So, the reason why women are choosing the bears is cause it's not a real question and they won't have consequences if they answer in a dramatic way for effect.

Just like the 30-something percent of boys are like, well, dude, if like, there's no consequences, I'd totally take advantage of a chick. See, yeah, maybe people are bad people by nature, but people still obey the law. And that's why if 32% of college men would commit SA if there's no consequences, but then only one out of every thousand men will commit that crime, that shows how much people have discipline over their nature.

And you cannot say the same thing about a bear.

"uh no, you just made that up"

There are 85 million moms in the USA and 165 million men. 300,000 women are assaulted by men, 234,000 children are assaulted by their mothers.

Means just under 3 moms per thousand abuse their kids, and just under 2 men per thousand commit assault.

That makes moms the higher perpetrator than men.

And bonus round. Kids who are abused are more likely to become assailants when they're adults. So, if we want to stop men from assaulting women, let's stop single mothers from assaulting their children. The dominoes fall in a certain direction and we can pull the earlier domino.

No equality movement should be based on denying reality and the painful experiences of another.

And yet we’ve seen it time and time again from feminist voices in certain feminist spaces; minimising, or flat out denying the existence of male survivors of domestic and sexual violence.

Katherine Spiller, Editor of Ms magazine, said domestic violence is just a ‘clean-up word for wife-beating, because that's really what it is.’

And Dr Mary Koss, one of the most influential researchers in sexual violence in America, stated it is ‘inappropriate’ to see men as survivors of rape.

Both are untrue, but also, how is this *women’s* rights?

Why is feminism not just about child brides, FGM, reproductive autonomy or educating girls in Africa?

If it were, I’d sign up today.

Why is it so often about denying the trauma of men and boys, muddling the data and manipulating the narrative?

This is not advocacy.

And it’s disappointing to see Spiller and Dr Koss, and the many, many others, not being reminded of such.

Because these are not just words of bigotry, they have been highly effective in influencing our policies and laws to exclude male survivors rape from data collection, to deny them refuge in shelters and exclude them from domestic violence strategies and interventions.

So when will the beady eye of accountability be turned inward, on itself?

When will the ideological dogma be reined in and reinvented, to remind us all of where and why feminism began?

When will we see change?

The World Economic Forum is a (self-anointed) global thought leader on politics, sustainability, innovation and equality.

In fact, I actually know the World Economic Forum quite well, I’ve worked with them professionally dozens of times; we’ve collaborated on important projects, we’ve shaken hands, sat around tables and pretended to laugh at each other’s jokes. I’ve even scaled the icy mountains of Switzerland to spend the week documenting the ultra-VIP Davos conference.

Their Global Gender Gap Report is a highly anticipated and respected annual barometer for how the world is doing on its meandering journey toward equality. But with no sense of irony, the report’s methodology is itself, systemically sexist.

So, let’s turn the beady eye of equality onto those pointing the finger, is the GGGR sexist and how?

It’s time to say GG, to the GGGR

Read it for yourself - https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GGGR_2021.pdf

I mean, I have to say that until I started doing this work, I just wasn't dialed into the level of hostility that exists. It's so woven into our fabric and normalised.

I was in a major museum in London the other day, and in their greeting card section, they had a card that says, "I like everyone," and then underneath it in brackets, "even men." And that's like a mainstream London museum. And I thought if I went in there and I saw a card that said, "I like everyone", and then in brackets, "even lesbians", you're just never going to be, you're never going to be allowed to sell that kind of card, in that environment. But we can make those kind of jokes about men.

And it's really interesting to me, I am a gay woman, and I often when people are speaking about men in certain situations, or I am reading posts online, I think if I took out "men" from what's being said, and put in "lesbians", what would I be feeling?

Would that be acceptable? Yeah.

Would I feel safe now if in one hand you were telling me something kind of dismissive and stigmatising and shaming about myself, and then also telling me that I need to speak the things that I'm most vulnerable about, having been probably potentially kept those things to myself all my life.

So, the idea, I think when you've kept things so suppressed, the idea then of being vulnerable about it, about speaking it aloud, is so disorientating.

So of course you're just going to send me further away from feeling the psychological safety that I can actually articulate my pain and have it heard with compassion.

So, I think for me, like one of the most fundamental critical aspects of this, that I think it's incumbent on every single person to sit with, because I know how transformative it has been for myself, sitting with it, so the psychologist I mentioned earlier, Martin Seager and a colleague, John Barry, have come up with these ideas about how our empathy is socialised. So how in our societies, our empathy is socialised to see men as causing harm, more readily than we are to see men as being harmed. So, we're more easy to see men as privileged than to see men as being victims of things.

And when that happens, the landscape is no longer like this in terms of our compassion, it's like this. And that is so dangerous then. That's such a fundamental thing that I think every single human being can start engaging with the work of thinking: how is my empathy being socialised? How am I responding when I'm hearing things about men? How might I be listening to the men in my life differently than I might be listening to the women? And start to reflect on our own kind of behaviors around that.

Have you noticed how male success is chalked up to some kind of structural advantage, or undeserved privilege; whilst female success is championed, and celebrated as some kind of achievement?

You see it everywhere – in the areas of physics, maths, engineering and technology, where men and boys have historically been overrepresented, and such imbalances are treated as a national emergency; a problem to be corrected.

An “Old Boys Club” to be broken apart, opened up, and conquered; within yet another epic saga of patriarchy-smashing, by the noble feminist movement.

And yet in the many areas where women and girls dominate, it’s seen differently, and such shrill squarks for equality fall silent.

In two thirds of degrees for example, women and girls are now overrepresented, and yet this is not seen as an “Old Girls Club” but is instead heralded as a kind of utopian ideal of equality.

Overrepresentation of women in psychology, biology, or teaching, is never the subject of intervention, never discussed, and certainly isn’t seen as part of some cartoonish, tyrannical oppressor class of women.

You can see it in the news today, where in piano competitions men continue to dominate.

80% of piano competitions are won by men; yup, the patriarchy has donned its black tie and shiny shoes and brought its regime to the classical music world.

Or that’s what Caroline Criado Perez would have you believe, in yet another one of her fragile, one-sided whines.

And it’s one sided because almost the exact same disparity exists in reverse within violin competitions – where 75% of winners are women, and guess what, nobody bats an eye.

So why do we keep doing this?

Why is male success so grotesque to us, and thus a target for intervention?

Why is such a view not expressed when women are more successful?

And maybe men are just better at piano, and women are better at violin?

Kemi Badenoch: Britain’s diversity drive has backfired

Number of employment tribunals hearing cases brought under the Equality Act has seen a notable uptick, writes Business Secretary

The Telegraph

Britain’s diversity drive has been “counterproductive” and done little to reduce prejudice despite millions being spent on inclusivity initiatives, Kemi Badenoch has said. 

The Business Secretary commissioned a report which found that the majority of spending on equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) was a waste of money.

The report calls on bosses to take into account disadvantages faced by the white working classes when shaping diversity schemes, rather than focusing on “visible” quotas.

It comes amid a wider government crackdown on wasteful diversity schemes, with Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, using his Budget earlier this month to urge councils to cut spending on such policies and Rishi Sunak appointing a “common sense minister”.

Writing for The Telegraph, Mrs Badenoch, who is also equalities minister, says: “The new report shows that, while millions are being spent on these initiatives, many popular EDI practices – such as diversity training – have little to no tangible impact in increasing diversity or reducing prejudice.  

“In fact, many practices have not only been proven to be ineffective, they have also been counterproductive.”

She adds: “No group should ever be worse off because of companies’ diversity policies – whether that be black women, or white men ... Performative gestures such as compulsory pronouns and rainbow lanyards are often a sign that organisations are struggling to demonstrate how they are being inclusive.”

Mrs Badenoch commissioned the independent Inclusion at Work Panel last year to investigate whether EDI was working in Britain amid concerns that too much money was being spent on the schemes.

Diversity training aims to help staff understand the types of discrimination, including direct, indirect, harassment and victimisation, and how to treat others with respect.

But the Business Secretary claimed that it had little impact in increasing diversity or reducing prejudice, pointing out that the number of employment tribunals hearing cases brought under the Equality Act had seen a “notable uptick”.

Experts also said that the “well-intentioned” attempts to boost visible diversity could lead to organisations breaking the law by discriminating against white candidates for jobs.

They found that one in four business leaders said their approach to diversity was reactive, such as being “in response to societal events like the Black Lives Matter protests” that started in 2020.

The report recommended that bosses avoid diversity schemes which alienate certain groups – such as the white working class – cause division, and have no impact. It called on the Equality and Human Rights Commission to clarify the legal status for employers in relation to diversity and inclusion practice.

It also urged bosses to take into account disadvantages faced by the working classes when shaping diversity schemes, concluding: “Employers must also consider less visible diversity, including socioeconomic and educational background.”

Mrs Badenoch – who last year said that Britain was “the best country in the world to be black” – hits out at “snake oil” diversity schemes and tells firms that their equality strategies must uphold “fairness and meritocracy”.

She says some firms had broken the law under the guise of diversity and inclusion by “censoring beliefs or discriminating against certain groups in favour of others”.

“The report finds that, in some cases, employers are even inadvertently breaking the law under the guise of diversity and inclusion by censoring beliefs or discriminating against certain groups in favour of others,” she says.

“This Government believes that EDI policies should unite rather than alienate employees, and crucially uphold fairness and meritocracy.”

The report cited the example of Cheshire Police, which in 2019 had to pay out £100,000 after being found to have discriminated against a white applicant on the grounds of sexual orientation, race and gender.

The panel also highlighted the RAF’s discrimination against white men as part of its drive to improve diversity. Last year, it admitted that initiatives to increase the numbers of women and people from ethnic minorities had led to unlawful positive discrimination.

An internal inquiry was sparked by the resignation of a female RAF group captain who told her superiors the policy penalised white men. The inquiry found that she had faced significant and unreasonable pressure to meet diversity targets.

Earlier this year, The Telegraph revealed that military personnel wanted to relax clearance checks for ethnic minority officers in a push to hit diversity targets.

Grant Shapps, the Defence Secretary, said the findings showed a “woke” and “extremist culture” had been allowed to infiltrate the Army.

The independent panel said firms should ensure that the number of EDI staff they had represented “value for money”, pointing out that the UK appointed twice as many as any other country.

Freedom of Information requests submitted in 2022 to 6,000 public bodies including the NHS found they employed around 10,000 diversity and inclusion staff, at a cost of £557 million a year to the taxpayer.

Mrs Badenoch is considering a further crackdown on EDI spending in government, with a possible new rule that external consultants should not run such schemes.

It comes after Mr Hunt told government departments last year to sack diversity managers if they wanted to bring in more staff, saying: “Smashing glass ceilings is everyone’s job – not a box to be ticked by hiring a diversity manager.”

Pamela Dow, the chairman of the independent panel, from think tank Civic Future, said: “It has been a privilege to work with such expert colleagues, united in the goal of fairness and belonging in the workplace. Our aim was to support leaders in all sectors to spend time and money well.

“The insights from our wide discussions show how we can build a useful evidence base, track data, improve confidence and trust, and reduce burdens, for organisations across the UK.”

My journey through gender equality advocacy has been one of two starkly different halves.

When I tell people about my support of women, I do so to more or less exclusive approval and applause. The stories of standing up to cat callers and to confronting misogynists are warmly welcomed; my time spent homeless in London raising money for vulnerable women, a proud feather in my hat.

And whilst it’s not why I did these things, I can’t help but noticed how it’s made me socially, intellectually and dare I say it, sexually, more attractive.

Then I move onto part two. I’ll talk about boys failing in school, the unique criminalisation of gay men historically, the abysmal male life expectency, or the abused men shut out from refuges, and suddenly the situation changes.

The environment runs cold, smiles are wiped from faces, and nodding heads grow stiff.

Often outage and condemnation follows. To them I’ve fallen down some kind of rabbit hole. My views are problematic. Ignorant. And somehow misogynistic.

People, even my own family, will protest and leave the room. “King of the Incels!” or “Z List Jordan Peterson” I am called. I’m always left wondering why I am the subject of such colourful language, for simply making my views consistent and my compassion complete?

And so the transformation is complete. The face of compassion, warmth and approval, has become the face of ignorance, coldness and stupidity.

It is, in my eyes, the ugly side of equality.

The male side; of snails and puppy dog tails, of lazy and obtuse catchphrases and victim blaming mentality. Toxic this, and patriarchy that, and privilege sprinted on top. Yawn.

So how has your journey into the ugly side of equality played out?

And why do so many progressives forsake their own beliefs, compassion and virtue so quickly?

At a fundamental level, for a patriarchy to exist, men will have to value other men, above women.

We know the story by now.

Laws, policies, jobs, departments, societal structures and social strategies, are designed for the advancement of men – aka male privilege.

But whilst it’s undeniable that the laws are written by men (mostly), this in no way means that the laws are written *for* men.

Because they aren’t.

I’ve never heard of the Office for Mens Health, or seen the Minister for Men.

I must have missed the Violence Against Men Act, or lost the Biden Agenda For Men.

I for one am looking forward to @UNWomen (and the dozens of other handles the UN has for women) making their first account for men, so too I’m excited to see the Department of Labor launch their Men’s Bureau too.

I mean, have you *ever* seen a political leader advocate for men’s issues, or call themselves a men’s advocate?

It’s certainly a strange kind of patriarchy.

I joke, but beneath this is an obvious truth, for which there is lots of scientific evidence: as a group, men don’t actually value other men above women.

And even more uncomfortable, this in-group bias is far more pronounced in women.

So let’s take a look.

Four experiments confirmed that women’s automatic in-group bias is remarkably stronger than men’s and investigated explanations for this sex difference, derived from potential sources of implicit attitudes (L. A. Rudman, 2004). In Experiment 1, only women (not men) showed cognitive balance among in group bias, identity, and self-esteem (A. G. Greenwald et al., 2002), revealing that men lack a mechanism that bolsters automatic own group preference. Experiments 2 and 3 found pro-female bias to the extent that participants automatically favored their mothers over their fathers or associated male gender with violence, suggesting that maternal bonding and male intimidation influence gender attitudes. Experiment 4 showed that for sexually experienced men, the more positive their attitude was toward sex, the more they implicitly favored women. In concert, the findings help to explain sex differences in automatic in-group bias and underscore the uniqueness of gender for intergroup relations theorists.

Abstract Two studies investigated (1) how people react to research describing a sex difference, depending on whether that difference favours males or females, and (2) how accurately people can predict how the average man and woman will react. In Study 1, Western participants (N = 492) viewed a fictional popular-science article describing either a male-favouring or a female-favouring sex difference (i.e., men/women draw better; women/men lie more). Both sexes reacted less positively to the male-favouring differences, judging the findings to be less important, less credible, and more offensive, harmful, and upsetting. Participants predicted that the average man and woman would react more positively to sex differences favouring their own sex. This was true of the average woman, although the level of own-sex favouritism was lower than participants predicted. It was not true, however, of the average man, who – like the average woman – reacted more positively to the female-favouring differences. Study 2 replicated these findings in a Southeast Asian sample (N = 336). Our results are consistent with the idea that both sexes are more protective of women than men, but that both exaggerate the level of same-sex favouritism within each sex – a misconception that could potentially harm relations between the sexes.

Women like women more than men like men

Women are nearly five times more likely to show an automatic preference for their own gender than men are to show such favoritism for their own gender, according to a study in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Vol. 87, No. 4).

Through four experiments, psychologists Laurie A. Rudman, PhD, of Rutgers, and Stephanie A. Goodwin, PhD, of Purdue University, used the Implicit Association Test to discover 204 heterosexual college students' automatic gender preferences and gender identity by asking them to associate positive and negative gender-free words with either "men" or "women." They also tested participants' self-esteem by asking them to associate those words with "I" or "others."

Both male and female participants associated the positive words--such as good, happy and sunshine--more often with women than with men, Rudman says.

Moreover, men and women tended to show high implicit self-esteem and high gender identity; however, men showed low pro-male gender attitudes, according to the study.

"A clear pattern shown in all four studies is that men do not like themselves automatically as much as women like themselves," Rudman says. "This contradicts a lot of theoretical thinking about implicit attitudes regarding status differences."

Abstract We investigate in-group gender bias in real-world hiring decisions by combining administrative data with data from a large-scale field experiment on hiring in which fictitious resumes with randomly assigned information about gender were sent to Swedish employers. Our results suggest that women (female recruiters or firms with a high share of female employees) favor women in the recruitment process. In contrast, we do not find much evidence that men (male recruiters or firms with a high share of male employees) favor men.

This study assessed whether women and minorities are discriminated against in the early stages of the recruitment process for senior positions in the APS, while also testing the impact of implementing a ‘blind’ or de-identified approach to reviewing candidates.

Over 2,100 public servants from 14 agencies participated in the trial. They completed an exercise in which they shortlisted applicants for a hypothetical senior role in their agency. Participants were randomly assigned to receive application materials for candidates in standard form or in de-identified form (with information about candidate gender, race and ethnicity removed). We found that the public servants engaged in positive (not negative) discrimination towards female and minority candidates:

• Participants were 2.9% more likely to shortlist female candidates and 3.2% less likely to shortlist male applicants when they were identifiable, compared with when they were de-identified.
• Minority males were 5.8% more likely to be shortlisted and minority females were 8.6% more likely to be shortlisted when identifiable compared to when applications were de-identified.
• The positive discrimination was strongest for Indigenous female candidates who were 22.2% more likely to be shortlisted when identifiable compared to when the applications were de-identified.

Interestingly, male reviewers displayed markedly more positive discrimination in favour of minority candidates than did female counterparts, and reviewers aged 40+ displayed much stronger affirmative action in favour for both women and minorities than did younger ones.

Overall, the results indicate the need for caution when moving towards ’blind’ recruitment processes in the Australian Public Service, as de-identification may frustrate efforts aimed at promoting diversity.

Abstract Little is known about implicit evaluations of complex, multiply categorizable social targets. Across five studies (N = 5,204), we investigated implicit evaluations of targets varying in race, gender, social class, and age. Overall, the largest and most consistent evaluative bias was pro-women/anti-men bias, followed by smaller but nonetheless consistent pro-upper-class/anti-lower-class biases. By contrast, we observed less consistent effects of targets' race, no effects of targets' age, and no consistent interactions between target-level categories. An integrative data analysis highlighted a number of moderating factors, but a stable pro-women/anti-men and pro-upper-class/anti-lower-class bias across demographic groups. Overall, these results suggest that implicit biases compound across multiple categories asymmetrically, with a dominant category (here, gender) largely driving evaluations, and ancillary categories (here, social class and race) exerting relatively smaller additional effects. We discuss potential implications of this work for understanding how implicit biases operate in real-world social settings.

The Myth of Pervasive Misogyny

Sydney. London. Toronto.

Quillette

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition. ~Timothy Leary

Many feminists and progressives argue that the West is plagued by pervasive misogyny. In fact, this claim is made with such frequency, and is so rarely challenged, that it has become part of the Left’s catechism of victimhood, repeated by rote without a second thought. The only real question is how powerful and pernicious the misogyny is. Real-world data, however, suggest a different narrative, complicated by the fact that men have worse outcomes in many domains. For example, they are much more likely to be incarcerated, to be shot by the police, to be a victim of violent crime, to be homeless, to commit suicide, and to die on the job or in combat than women. Furthermore, they have a shorter life expectancy and are less likely to be college educated than women. Although these (and similar) data can be reconciled with the pervasive misogyny theory, they should at least give pause to the open-minded. The best data from contemporary social science tell a rather different story and suggest that the very persistence of the pervasive misogyny narrative is itself a manifestation of the opposite: society is largely biased in favor of women.

The world, of course, is a messy place and disparities between men and women may have many causes. This is why carefully controlled social science is useful for examining the extent, direction, and nature of sex-related biases. Although the details can get complicated, the basic idea behind most bias studies is pretty straightforward. Researchers present participants with identical information that has some bearing on the abilities of males or females while manipulating which sex the information is about. For example, they might ask two groups of people to evaluate identical essays, telling one group that it was written by a man and the other group that it was written by a woman. If participants who believed the essay was written by a man evaluated it as more compelling, more intelligent, more insightful, and so on than participants who believed it was written by a woman, psychologists would consider that a bias in favor of men. Similarly, if one asked two groups of people to evaluate identical scientific studies that discovered that either men or women performed better on a measure of leadership, and participants who read that men outperformed women regarded the study as higher quality than participants who read that women outperformed men, psychologists would consider this a male-favoring bias (everyday people consider such patterns to be biases as well).

Contrary to expectations from the pervasive misogyny theory, across a variety of topics, samples, and research teams, recent findings in psychology suggest that such biases often favor women. For example, a paper just published in the British Journal of Psychology led by Steve Stewart-Williams found that people respond to research on sex differences in ways that favor females. In two studies, participants were asked to read a popular science article that was experimentally manipulated to suggest that either men or women have a more desirable quality (for example, men/women are better at drawing or men/women lie less often). Participants evaluated the female-favoring research more favorably than the male-favoring research. Specifically, participants found the female-favoring research more important, more plausible, and more well-conducted and found the male-favoring research more offensive, more harmful, more upsetting, and more inherently sexist. This pro-female bias was observed among both male and female participants, and in study two, the researchers replicated the results in a south-east Asian sample.

In some of our own work, we found a similar pattern for the socially desired trait of intelligence. In two studies, participants read about a (fictitious) scientific study that identified a gene associated with higher intelligence that purported to explain why either (1) men score higher on intelligence tests than women, (2) women score higher on intelligence tests than men, or (3) men and women score roughly equally on intelligence tests. Participants evaluated the scientific study to be similarly credible when it drew the conclusion that men and women score equally on intelligence tests and when women were said to score higher than men, but participants found the study less credible when it suggested that men score higher on intelligence tests than women.

In a related study, participants read about a college entrance exam that is remarkably accurate at predicting academic performance in college. They were told that either men tend to outperform women or that women tend to outperform men on the exam. Participants endorsed use of the exam more when women were said to outperform men than when men were said to outperform women. These findings suggest that people more readily accept the notion that women could be smarter than men than vice versa.

Scholars observed a similar pattern among psychology academics. In 2017, the social scientists William von Hippel and David Buss emailed a survey to a sample of psychologists, asking their beliefs about a variety of evolutionary claims and findings. These psychologists were more likely to endorse a female-favoring sex difference than a male-favoring one. Specifically, they were more likely to accept that women could have evolved to be more verbally talented than men than that men could have evolved to be more mathematically talented than women. Although these sex differences are not perfectly symmetrical (one regards verbal ability and the other mathematical ability), there is little reason to believe that an evolutionary explanation for one sex difference is more plausible than the other. Like non-academics, scientists themselves may have preferences for pro-female information over pro-male information.

We have also found that people have a stronger desire to censor science that disfavors women. In this study, participants were asked to read a series of passages from books and to decide whether the text should be censored (for example, whether it should be removed from the library, whether a professor should not be allowed to require it for class). One passage argued that either men or women make better leaders. The results showed that people wanted to censor the book more when it argued that men make better leaders than women than when it argued the opposite.

Ironically, these pro-female preferences may explain why mainstream narratives focus so assiduously on the possibility of anti-female biases: society cares more about the wellbeing of women than men and is thus less tolerant of disparities that disfavor them. A series of studies led by Katharina Block found that people care more about female underrepresentation in careers than male underrepresentation. In one such study, for example, participants were told that a particular career was dominated either by men or women. Participants were then asked whether policies and programs should be put in place to encourage whichever group was underrepresented to enter that career and whether efforts should be made to actively recruit the underrepresented group. Participants were more likely to support this social action when women were underrepresented than when men were.

Moreover, when the career was said to be accompanied by a high salary, people were more likely to say that prohibitive norms were blocking women from entering the male-dominated career than that prohibitive norms were blocking men from entering the female-dominated fields. So, people are more likely to believe that external barriers explain women’s underrepresentation in desirable careers than men’s underrepresentation. These findings suggest that when real world disparities exist between men and women, people are more likely to care and more likely to try to engage in corrective behavior when women are at a disadvantage.

One explanation for these pro-female biases is that humans may have evolved a general protectiveness of women. Indeed, numerous reports over the past few decades have shown that people have more sympathy for female than male suffering. For just a few examples, people are less willing to harm a female than a male, women receive more help than men, those who harm women are punished more severely than those who harm men, and women are punished less severely than men for the same crimes.

Such findings contradict the concept of “himpathy,” introduced in philosopher Kate Manne’s successful book Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. Anecdotes can create an illusion of excessive sympathy for men, but more systematic analyses suggest the opposite: People are vastly more sympathetic toward women. The success of Manne’s book might indeed be a manifestation of these very sympathies, because people are more alarmed and disturbed by the possibility of a bias against women than against men.

Concerns about women’s wellbeing are so strong that researchers often frame pro-female preferences and biases as harmful to women. For example, in a series of studies led by Lily Jampol, researchers asked participants to evaluate essays and give feedback to the author. Participants who then discovered the essay writer was female were more likely to adjust their performance evaluations upward than participants who were told the essay writer was male. This paper was entitled “The Dark Side of White Lies in the Workplace: Feedback to Women Is Upwardly Distorted,” highlighting the potentially harmful consequences of providing softened or distorted feedback to women.

Of course, it is possible that overly positive feedback harms women in the long-run, but it might also help them, for example, if it boosts their confidence, or if evaluators internalize the flattering feedback. Furthermore, it’s difficult to imagine that similar but opposite results would be framed as potentially deleterious to men. It seems as if research is often framed as “if biases favor men, then that’s bad for women; if biases favor women, then that’s also bad for women.” For example, the women-are-wonderful effect, which is the tendency for people to view women more favorably than men, is often regarded as a form of benevolent sexism against women. We eagerly await a paper that claims preferences for men as teachers or leaders illustrates a kind of benevolent sexism against men.

Though not exhaustive, the table below summarizes findings from numerous studies demonstrating biases and attitudes that appear to favor women.

Various findings demonstrating biases, attitudes, and treatments that favor women over men

• People prefer to spare the lives of females over the lives of males : Awad, Bonnefon, Shariff, & Rahwan, 2019
• People support more social action to correct female underrepresentation in careers than male underrepresentation : Block, Croft, De Souza, & Schmader, 2019
• Both male and female faculty preferred hiring a female over a male applicant for tenure-track assistant professorships in STEM : Ceci & Williams, 2015
• Offenders who victimize females receive longer sentences than those who victimize males; males who victimize females receive the longest sentences : Curry, Lee, & Rodriguez, 2004
• Police respond more negatively toward hypothetical male rape victims than hypothetical female rape victims : Davies, Smith, & Rogers, 2009
• Women receive more help than men : Eagly & Crowley, 1986
• Women are evaluated more favorably than men : Eagly, Mladinic, & Otto, 1991
• People are less willing to harm females than males : FeldmanHall, Dalgleish, Evans, Navrady, Tedeschi, & Mobbs, 2016
• In vehicular homicides, drivers who kill women are given longer sentences than those who kill men : Glaeser & Sacerdote, 2003
• People are particularly intolerant of aggression from a male and aggression directed toward a female : Harris & Knight-Bohnhoff, 1996
• People adjust essay performance evaluations upward when they learn the writer is female : Jampol & Zayas, 2017
• Women are punished less than men for the same crime : Mazzella & Feingold, 1994
• Controlling for numerous characteristics, men receive longer prison sentences than women : Mustard, 2001
• People have more empathy for female than male perpetrators and female than male victims : Osman, 2011
• Women are more easily seen as victims and men as perpetrators : Reynolds, Howard, Sjåstad, Zhu, Okimoto, Baumeister, Aquino, & Kim, 2020
• People attribute less guilt to a female-on-male sexual aggressor than a male-on-female sexual aggressor : Russel, Oswald, & Kraus, 2011
• People have less sympathy for male than female perpetrators and more sympathy for female than male victims : Savage, Scarduzio, Lockwood Harris, Carlyle, & Sheff, 2017
• Female sex offenders are given shorter sentences than male sex offenders : Shields & Cochran, 2019
• Women’s aggression is perceived as more acceptable than men’s aggression : Stewart-Williams, 2002
• People evaluate science on female-favoring sex differences more favorably than science on male-favoring sex differences : Stewart-Williams, Chang, Wong, Blackburn, & Thomas, 2020
• Psychologists agree more that it is possible that women evolved to be more verbally talented than men than that men evolved to be more mathematically talented than women : von Hippel & Buss, 2017
• People evaluate science that suggests that women score higher on IQ tests than men more favorably than science that suggests the opposite : Winegard, Clark, Hasty, & Baumeister, 2018
• People wish to censor a book that suggests that men evolved to be better leaders than women more than a book that suggests the opposite : Winegard, Clark, Bunnel, & Farkas, 2019

As noted above, an important feature of many of these studies (though not all of them) is that they are experimental—they randomly assign participants to evaluate information with some bearing on outcomes for men or women (or a man or woman). Many scholars who argue that sexism against women is still a major problem in modern Western societies point to real-world disparities between men and women (but ignore many others). For example, they point out that women are underrepresented in high-paying STEM careers and leadership positions, and full-time working women earn less than full-time working men. However, the existence of such differences tells us little about the causes of them, for just as correlation does not equal causation, so too disparity does not equal discrimination. And, in fact, the claim that women are underrepresented in STEM because qualified male job candidates are preferred over equally qualified female job candidates no longer seems plausible. Experimental work suggests that faculty in STEM fields have demonstrated a preference for female applicants over equally qualified male applicants. Other explanations, such as differences in personality and vocational interests therefore appear much more promising.

This does not mean, of course, that there are no biases against women. For a long time, women in the West were treated as property and were considered emotional, irrational, and incapable of contributing significantly to higher culture. It is not unimaginable that some of these prejudices still persist and shape society. For just one example, there seems to be a sort of genius bias against women, such that people more readily associate men with extremely high levels of intelligence than women. And although there is reason to believe that men might be more highly represented at the highest (and lowest) ends of intelligence, this stereotype could explain part of the underrepresentation of women at the highest ends of achievement. However, overall, the results presented here make the claim that the West is pervaded by misogyny difficult to maintain.

The mainstream view is that we live in a sexist patriarchy that is persistently unfair toward women and privileges men in nearly all ways. And any claims to the contrary are treated as the protestations of benighted conservatives or other masculinist cranks. A Google Scholar search for misogyny yielded 114,000 results, whereas a search for misandry yielded only 2,340. We suspect this difference in interest in misogyny over misandry reflects not the relative prevalence of each type of prejudice, but rather greater concern for the wellbeing of women than men. All of the arguments, anecdotes, and data forwarded to support the narrative that we live in an implacably misogynistic society, in fact, may be evidence of precisely the opposite.