There’s nothing quite like a statistic to shake the foundations of what you thought you knew. I’m 26 and had always assumed that Gen Z men are for the most part — bar the manosphere and the strange factions within it: red pillers, incels, looksmaxxers et al — a pretty liberal bunch. That’s progress, right?
But a new global study of 23,000 people conducted by Ipsos and the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School, King’s College London, has found that Gen Z men and women are in fact the most divided generation when it comes to gender equality. Some 31 per cent of Gen Z men agree that a wife should always obey her husband, and 33 per cent think that a husband should have the final say on an important decision.
In addition, 24 per cent of Gen Z men agree that a woman should not appear too independent or self-sufficient, compared with 12 per cent of baby boomer men. And 21 per cent of Gen Z men believe that men who take part in caregiving for children are less masculine than those who do not, compared with just 8 per cent of baby boomer men.
To put it bluntly, lads, your grandad is more progressive than you. And unless this study was conducted by Borat, who then fudged the numbers to resonate with his worldview, we’re in trouble.
I don’t want to clutch my pearls, but these numbers come as a shock. I knew that there was an increasing divide between men and women, but I didn’t know it was this bad. A staggering 59 per cent of Gen Z men say that they are expected to do too much to support gender equality; 57 per cent think that in promoting gender equality we are now discriminating against men.
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Anecdotally the figures don’t add up. Almost all my male friends have had girlfriends; not a single one of them has complained that their girlfriend is “too independent”. Independence in a partner is a sought-after trait.
I’ve been dating my girlfriend for four years now. I don’t want to come across as mushy but I’d like to think that we make decisions together. This doesn’t mean we pull out the lectern and engage in furious debate every time we go for dinner — “This policy will reduce flatulence because Wing Wah gives me indigestion and Pizza Express does not” — but it does mean that we understand compromise.
When we moved flats we viewed and chose together. When we went on holiday we checked booking.com and picked together. When we bought furniture we visited Ikea and carried the garish lamp (a lamp that we love equally) on the Jubilee Line together.
Of course there are times when she or I take the lead. This is to be expected in any relationship: one person cannot do all the heavy lifting, physically and figuratively. When we visit Naples, my girlfriend’s native city, she takes charge. This is for two reasons. The first, and most important, is that she wants to. The second reason is that my Italian stinks, and I would probably be dead without her guidance.
But you get the point: relationships are built on a gentle see-saw of knowing when to take control and when to sit back; do too much of either and the balances of power are skewed.
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Yet perhaps I’m suffering from a sort of consensus bias. My friends and I share similar beliefs but it seems these beliefs are not shared by everyone else. Every now and then there’s that moment when you’re socialising at the pub and a friend of a friend says something that makes you start. Such as: “Put a muzzle on your woman.” What? “Just joking,” he replied, but…
Only last week I was travelling back from Hastings to London with my mother. As we boarded the train, a jumped-up-looking young man got off. Behind him scrambled the mother of his child with their pram, baby and enough bags to make Buckaroo wince. I watched as he stormed off in the direction of his friends, who were smoking weed on the platform. His girlfriend — young, tired and submissive — followed behind like a lapdog. None of the young men in the group offered a helping hand; none of them feigned concern.
What could be behind this? My strong hunch is it’s fear — fear and anger. After all, women are in the workplace and in education in record numbers, a cause for celebration surely. But a weaker kind of man — particularly one grappling with the difficult youth employment market — may interpret that as a threat. Added to that fire is the fuel of online machismo, of the sort mentioned earlier.
One of the bleakest figures in this study is that one centring on caregiving, that nearly a quarter of Gen Z men think that looking after one’s child makes them less masculine. In their eyes childcare is a woman’s job. My father wasn’t around for me when I was growing up. My mother had to be Mum and Dad.
Anyone who has grown up with a single parent, whether a father or mother, knows that there is nothing more worthy than caring for your child. I can only hope that the 21 per cent of young men who think otherwise are in a temporary quagmire of naivety. If not, I fear that succeeding generations are in for an epidemic of absent, backwards-minded fathers — and subdued mothers — too frightened to tell their children that they love them. What’s masculine about that?
I suspect these men have spent too long online
By Olivia Petter
We smashed the patriarchy. Called out the misogynists. And decided that women’s rights were, on the whole, a pretty good idea. Pats on the back all round.
Well, it turns out we were wasting our time. Because the kids have spoken — and somewhere in between staring at their screens and complaining about having jobs, they’ve decided that feminism is for old farts and it’s time to bring back some good old-fashioned female oppression. Just before International Women’s Day, no less.
The King’s study revealed huge generational differences when it comes to gender roles, with Gen Z men (born between 1997 and 2012) being twice as likely as baby boomer men (born between 1946 and 1964) to harbour traditional views on decision-making within a marriage.
The most jarring stats to me, though, were those around sexual norms: 21 per cent of Gen Z men saying they think a “real woman” should never initiate sex, reinforcing deeply harmful ideologies around female sexuality that are at the root of slut-shaming, not to mention the orgasm gap. God forbid a woman any kind of sexual appetite; keep Eve locked up in Eden, and so on.
To be clear, this is a global study — and I have no doubt that different cultures will have influenced the results. The study’s respondents in Great Britain were less likely than average personally to hold traditional views on household responsibilities, though they still felt that society had traditional expectations. Even so, at 31, I’m a millennial and I wasn’t surprised by these findings. If anything, I’m convinced my generation harbour similarly archaic views, at least in certain pockets.
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There are glimpses of it everywhere, particularly within heterosexual dating culture. A friend of mine recently went on a date with a man who told her, quite plainly, that he didn’t think women should be CEOs because they’d never be able to “fully commit” to the role due to maternity leave. Another suggested splitting the bill after an expensive meal and received a lecture about generosity and masculinity. And one left early because her date spent 20 minutes defending incels.
Such views are also occasionally perpetuated by women. Consider the rise of the high-value dating movement, which has women proudly pursuing wealthy men as caretakers, trading tips on how to do so on social media — there’s a reason why that “I’m looking for a man in finance” song went viral. Then there are the stay-at-home girlfriends and the tradwives: women who intentionally lean into lives governed by domestic servitude because it feels simpler and more Instagrammable.
Nara Smith, the South African model and influencer who has four children with her husband, Lucky Blue Smith
NARAAZIZA/INSTAGRAM
Among them, one of the most notable is 24-year-old Nara Smith, the South African model and influencer who has four children with her husband, Lucky Blue Smith, and regularly goes viral for her ludicrous recipe videos that show her making everything from scratch, often while clad in couture. Think bubblegum, popcorn and cola.
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But back to the Gen Z men of it all. The ones who, according to the survey, are so warped in their views that 30 per cent of them believe they shouldn’t say, “I love you,” to friends, while 43 per cent agree that “young men should try to be physically tough, even if they’re not naturally big”.
I can’t help but feel sorry for these men, who I suspect have spent more time in online spaces than they have in real-life ones with actual women. It seems to be the only reasonable explanation. Because these can’t be the views of people who’ve spent significant amounts of time with human women. You know, the ones who move, breathe and speak. Ones worthy of agency, respect and equal rights. I hope they meet some soon.