9 mo. ago • 90%

Gen Z boys and men more likely than baby boomers to believe feminism harmful, says poll

www.theguardian.com Gen Z boys and men more likely than baby boomers to believe feminism harmful, says poll

Fifth of men aged 16-29 look favourably on social media influencer Andrew Tate

44 comments

It's almost like there's been a continuous effort in right wing media to demonize and bastardize feminists. When they talk about feminism they always screech about the most extreme views held by the smallest amount of people, and make it sound like that represents the entire group.

It's the same strategy they use to attack any group.

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If you consider Andrew Tate a meaningful source on any subject I really don't care what generation you're a part of - you're a fucking idiot and you need to sort yourself out. All you are to him is a gullible mark to extract money from.

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- The thing to keep in mind here is that he's very much targeting kids (teenagers but still minors lacking real-world experience) and this is exactly the wrong response to that sort of phenomenon.
  
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  I'm not saying you're wrong but there's also a LOT of men in their 20s-30s and upwards who've bought into his shit. And even teens (speaking as parent to some) know that someone who's been arrested for sex trafficking isn't someone to listen to.
  
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- Legit, his job was to get kicked in the head professionally, and people look to him for wisdom?
  
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Flanderization is a thing.

You know the whole process where the most cartoonishly exaggerated viewpoints gain the most media attention?

Well, that doesn't only apply to people on the outside - groups and movements internally select for attention-grabbing as well. Over time, whatever gains the most eyeballs gradually becomes normalised. When you get people like Clementine ford unironically saying things like Honestly the coronavirus isn't killing men fast enough, the attention it garners moves the Overton window a little bit each time, pulling the mainstream closer towards it. We've become accustomed to the clickbait, but the kids these days are a lot more resistant to it.

Gen Z are a lot more OK than people give them credit for. They grew up living and breathing meme culture, which is massively intertextual and has more layers of irony than my genX ass can even count. They don't do uncritical acceptance of anyone's messaging, because they contextualise the living shit out of everything they see, and it's frankly terrifying.

I'm willing to bet that a lot of the survey respondents 'looked favourably on' Tate because they find his awfulness hilarious, and because they find pretending to admire him even funnier because of course he's a festering piece of shit, that's the joke (under 27 layers of self-reference). That'd be completely on-brand for my kid, certainly.

At the same time, they're also going to find terms like 'toxic masculinity' unhelpful, because of course they can see how an originally-helpful concept slid via unfortunate phrasing into little more than a derogatory term through popular use and cynical attention-grabbing. They are going to grow into hellaciously effective arts majors, because not only can they see the mechanisms at work, they find them a lot more interesting than the actual content.

I really don't think this poll reflects what people think it does.

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I can hate on the boomers because they had every opportunity to not be shitty. I think in the case of gen z, society ultimately failed them. They have no bright future to look forward to, just rampant inequality and a dying planet. When some loon comes around and tells them all they can go off and be little apes venting their frustration on society with violence and bigotry there's less reason to ignore them than there should be. That's not to say everyone's blameless, but it's not like 20% of the cohort was born evil and will forever be that way; something external influenced this situation and we need to fix it.

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- What a bizarre and ageist take.
  
  Edit: This interaction is not exactly helping in persuading people that gen z aren't really bigoted. In fact it will righteously confirm such opinions.
  
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Big yikes. Hopefully this is a symptom of radicalization on both sides, and not a trend of increasing conservativism overall.

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It's because of the general culture of edginess and missing people off = funny that's big with these people.

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Do you mean the rapist and sex trafficker Andrew Tate?

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Yeah. A lot of young boys look up to Tate.

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- I think it’s because there’s kind of a lack of bold, healthy male role models than don’t make young men feel ashamed for… well, being men.
  
  I’m not saying it’s correct, I’m saying that’s the feelings behind what’s going on here
  
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- They can aspire to living in a romanian prison like him
  
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There is a difference between old school feminism and some new types. Really its like anything. Some groups emphasize some parts over others and the message changes. Im totally down with jane adams style feminism.

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Genz is not be blamed for this, previous generation failed them.

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- Each individual is fully responsible for the views they carry, there are things instilled in us growing up by previous generations, but it's on you to improve on their mistakes.
  
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  And how do they know what's a mistake and what's not a mistake? Nature v nurture.
  
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Permanently Deleted

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- Using the word wokeism is the mask coming off.
  
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  Sure.
  
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- Feminism in the 70s, 80s and 90s was women trying to be heard and taken seriously.
  
  Forced quotas are because nothing changed and the rise of fuckheads like Tate is directly related. Too many men think that feminism is a zero sum game. i.e Women getting more rights means men are losing rights. Despite the fact that all they want is EQUAL rights.
  
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  It's because they know deep down that their lifestyle is built on the backs of women and minorities instead of on their own effort.
  
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  To be fair, men will lose privileges. Before they had to compete only with other men for that juicy executive position. Now they also face women, lowering their chance to get the job. That's just one example and it is absolutely necessary for this to happen.
  
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  Despite the fact that all they want is EQUAL rights.
  
  And that's the lie. Try to tell those "equal rights and quotas" people the same should apply to men in jobs heavily dominated by women and a sizeable and very loud part of them will explode in your face screaming and slavering because you dared to even mention the idea of equality.
  
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- but feminism and “wokeism” is just stupid.
  
  Christ
  
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- Please define what the fuck "wokeism" is. Feminism isn't stupid either, it's necessary and has never stopped being necessary.
  
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  Feminism isn’t stupid either
  
  That was badly worded. The fourth wave of feminism is stupid in my opinion.
  
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- "Woke" means anything anyone wants it to mean at the time, so any claim you make about wokeism is devoid of importance, just any claim I make about it is. You could claim wokeism is responsible for colony collapse disorder in bees and I wouldn't be able to argue with you, it's an effectively meaningless word.
  
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  That's pretty much why i put it in quotas.
  
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- You're wrong, not because you're a millennial but because you are saying wrong shit.
  
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  So what's wrong with what i'm saying? Feminism is stupid? Well, you should read up on the history of feminism and especially the fourth wave, that basically is nothing else but neoliberalism in it's worst form. Everything before 2010 basically.
  
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- ‘Forced quotas’
  
  Look at you talk like men we’re never handed anything and absolutely 100% qualified for their jobs this whole time. Now everyone gets handed a chance to fuck it all up without consequence and be mediocre. And this is where you’re drawing the line. HhhMmmk.
  
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