Feminists don’t hate men, scientists say as they debunk the long-standing stereotype

Man-hating feminists are a myth, because those who support women’s rights do not have more negative views of men.

Jane Fonda said she was late to the feminist movement because she assumed that being a feminist meant being “angry at men.”

But a study of nearly 10,000 people, including women who identify as feminists and those who don’t, found that both had a positive view of men on average.

People in nine countries, including the UK, US, Italy and Japan, were asked how warm and favorable they felt towards men, how much they liked and trusted them, and felt positive emotions such as fondness towards them, or negative emotions such as contempt.

Feminists and non-feminists were, largely equally, positive towards men, with little evidence of any difference between their views.

In fact, the study, which questioned people of both genders about their feelings towards men, found that women’s rights activists were no more ‘man-hating’ than men themselves.

Women’s rights activists saw men as more of a threat than non-feminists did, based on their agreement with statements such as “Many women live in fear of male aggression.”

But this may be balanced by feminists being more inclined to see men and women as broadly similar – hence their call for equal rights.

Seeing men as similar may make them feel more warm towards the opposite sex.

The study, led by Dr Ivy Hopkins Doyle, a psychologist at the University of Surrey, says: “The feminist movement has made many impressive advances for women and girls as well as men and boys.

“At the same time, since at least the 19th century, the phenomenon has suffered from the perception that it is motivated by anti-male sentiment, or hatred of men.

This is a “harmful stereotype” that is “false and widespread,” according to the study’s authors, who add: “Feminists’ general warmth toward men means that general antipathy is not necessary for this politicized definition — nor even intrinsically related.” with her.

Feminists saw men as more of a threat than non-feminists, based on their agreement with statements such as “Many women live in fear of male aggression.”

The research, published in the Psychology of Women Quarterly, describes previous evidence showing that feminists are often viewed as “unfeminine, man-hating, and lesbian.”

This view is said to have deterred women from becoming feminists, and encouraged men to oppose the feminist movement.

The study looked at feminists’ unconscious views toward men, as well as those they explicitly reported.

The researchers did this by assessing how quickly and accurately participants associated masculine words like “Mister” and “Kevin” with positive and negative words like “awesome” and “awful.”

If people are faster to categorize masculine words with positive words, this indicates more positive attitudes.

Both feminists and non-feminists had unconsciously positive views of men, and there were no differences between them.

“Compared to non-feminists, feminists saw men as a greater threat to women’s dignity and well-being,” Dr Hopkins-Doyle said.

This, in turn, was associated with less positive attitudes toward men.

“However, countering this trend, they also realized that men and women were more similar, which in turn led to more positive attitudes.

“We have found people, including feminists, mistakenly believe that feminists have negative views of men.

“Feminists can hate the mistreatment of women by patriarchy, without hating men.”