Gen Z Men More Misogynistic Than Boomers, Survey Suggests

Days before International Women’s Day (Sunday, 8 March), King’s College London has published a report that found Gen Z men, born between 1997 and 2012, are most likely to say women should always obey their husbands.

Almost a third (31%) of Gen Z Men surveyed said they felt that way.

That’s over twice as much as Baby Boomer men (born from 1946-1964), who were least likely to express the sentiment at 13%.

And for Boomer women, that number plummeted to 6%.

In this research, which involved 23,000 people from 29 countries, including the UK, US, Brazil, and Australia, the breakdown was as follows:

1. Baby Boomers (1946-64)
   Men: 13%, Women: 6%
2. Gen X (1965-1980)
   Men: 21%, Women 13%
3. Millennials (1980-1997)
   Men: 29%, Women 19%
4. Gen Z (1997-2012)
   Men: 31%, Women 18%.

Interestingly, Millennial women seem slightly more likely (1%) than their Gen Z counterparts to agree with the statement. Gen Z women were the only group in the survey that disagreed more with it than their gender’s prior generation.

Gen Z men were also twice as likely as Boomer men (24% vs 12%) to say a woman shouldn’t appear too independent or self-sufficient.

59% of Gen Z men say their gender is asked to do too much for equality compared to 45% of Boomer men.

57% of Gen Z men said we’d gone so far to promote women’s rights, we’ve become sexist towards men; 42% of Boomer men agreed.

And 21% of Gen Z men said “real women” never initiated sex, vs 7% of Boomer men.

In all of these, women were significantly less likely to agree with the statements.

“It is deeply concerning to see traditional gender norms persisting today,” Professor Heejung Chung, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s Business School, said.

“Our data reveals a striking gap between people’s personal views, which are far more progressive, and what they imagine society demands of them.

“This gap is particularly pronounced among Gen Z men, who not only appear to feel intense pressure to conform to rigid masculine ideals, but in some cases seem to also expect women to retreat to more traditional ways of being.”

And the Hon Julia Gillard AC, Chair of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s Business School, added, “It is troubling to see that attitudes towards gender equality are not more positive, particularly among young men. Not only are many Gen Z men putting limiting expectations on women, they are also trapping themselves within restrictive gender norms.

“We must continue to do more to dispel the idea of a zero-sum game in which women are the only beneficiaries of a gender-equal world… As a society we need to resist the pressure to go backwards.”