New Survey Says Gen Z Men Aren’t Interested in Being Wimps
You might think that feminism wouldn’t have had a chance with me.
After all, I grew up among traditionally minded Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Not only did my mother stay at home to raise her 10 kids, every woman I knew and respected did too. It was totally natural that, as a kid, my dream job was either the kitchen or the nunnery.
And yet, somehow, by the time I’d met a man, married him, and birthed his child, feminism had done its work.
In principle, my husband and I agree. It’s best for our baby that he be the breadwinner and I rear the child and keep the home. As C. S. Lewis once wrote in a letter, “I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely in reality the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, miners, cars, government etc. exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, and safe in their own homes? … your job is the one for which all others exist.”
I find that quote beautiful. But, in practice, a day of chattering with a three-month-old and cooking leaves me simultaneously exhausted and convinced that I’ve done nothing productive. Why? The short answer is that, at some point, I began to associate money with productivity. (READ MORE: The Epstein Effect: Men, Women, and the Spectacle of Scandal)
It sounds absurd when it’s written out like that, but such is the power of the cultural experiment we’ve all been subjected to for decades. Feminism tells us women should be like men; they should be equal in the workplace; their earning potential should be the same. Feminists screech the moment they find that women somehow do not yet make up 50 percent of our governing officials, our scientists, or our engineers. They insist that the perfect society must pay men and women the same.
It all amounted to the subtle message that success and productivity are measured in dollars. Even when we know better, we find ourselves practicing this and other absurd lies.
As it turns out, despite being steeped in feminist propaganda, this generation may know better — or so a recent poll out of the King’s College London and Ipsos suggests. According to the poll, just under a third of Gen Z men believe that wives should “obey” their husbands, and an even larger percentage of them think husbands should have the final say.
The results didn’t stop there. This poll would suggest Gen Z is far less ideologically committed to feminism when compared to the generations that raised them. Not only do they believe St. Paul had a point, but 24 percent of Gen Z men believe women shouldn’t “appear too independent or self-sufficient” (the number is just 12 percent among baby boomer men), and 59 percent of Gen Z men believe they’re “expected to do too much to support equality” between the sexes.
The poll, it should be noted, included responses from 23,000 individuals across 29 countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, India, and the United States and was supposed to mark this year’s International Women’s Day. One imagines the results were a bit of a blow to feminists.
That said, generally, one should take statistics with a mountain of salt.
Not only do people simply no longer respond to the statisticians (just ask Gallup), but the attempt to measure humanity by percentages necessarily gives you a generalization so vague that it’s hard to consider it helpful in the quest to discover what humans really think. And yet, every now and then, statistics prove irresistible — especially when they are corroborated by anecdotal internet trends, as these ones certainly are. (READ MORE: Ivory Towers and the Volume of Women)
Recent years have seen the rise of all sorts of influencers — from stay-at-home moms promoting budget-conscious living to macho men (usually without wives) promoting six-packs and body counts. The poll, if you believe it, suggests that these accounts aren’t participating in a movement relegated to the fringes of the internet, but that they may be shaping a generation that’s disenchanted with the feminism we grew up with.
I’d like this to be all positive. It’s great, after all, that young men (and, to a lesser extent, young women) are beginning to recognize that the feminist narrative they were spoon-fed as kids doesn’t quite fulfill nature. It’s controversial to say, but there’s a reason St. Paul tells women to obey their husbands and husbands to love their wives with a self-sacrificial love: Both commandments are a remedy for our fallen nature.
Unfortunately, assuming that the polling at least reflects a social reality, it’s quite possible that Gen Z men aren’t invoking Pauline obedience, but instead the submission that men like Andrew Tate demand of their victims. One suspects that the answer is somewhere in between.
Regardless, one thing is clear: Men don’t want to be the wimps feminists have insisted they become. That’s worth celebrating, even if we must do so cautiously.
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