Women’s rights have gone ‘too far’, say majority of Gen Z and millennials, study shows

This.

The faux progressive movement we have now is a great way for individuals and corporations to virtue signal without any troubling of the status quo.

To actually address male violence and workplace inequality, there'd have to be one hell of a societal change. And too many are invested in that not happening.

Agree that race and class intersect with this. They are especially pertinent when looking at unfair, impenetrable systems like the police and top positions at city firms. In other areas though, patriarchal capitalism doesn't necessarily care what race or class you are. But it will always require some women's free/ poorly paid labour.

You didn't and I didn't mean to imply that you did! but I have seen (even on mumsnet) the theory that women choosing to work is the main reason the cost of living has risen and women now have to work. And I don't think that's true! Also, more broadly, the idea that men can't find women because they are too picky about income often coincides with the idea women should stay home with children which is illogical. But I didn't mean you thought that! I was responding to the article.

What was that experiment done in schools - where teachers made sure they spent 50% of their time talking to and encouraging girls and boys in the classroom. The boys then said afterwards they felt they were being ignored and the girls said they didn't like the attention.... this smacks of that.

Agreed!!

Neither do I think women are the cause of men's troubles

Where did I say that?

I mean I'm glad I have a job and a child. But many of my peers (male and female) spent their 20s grinding in low paid or even unpaid jobs to make it on the ladder and many are now in "decent" jobs in their 30s but can't afford a mortgage on a family sized home or if thy can its only with both working. I don't think its "boomers" faults either by the way. But I can see why people look back with rose tinted glasses (probably on a past that never existed). Or blame men/women/older generations.

Men have been working FT and having children quite happily for a very long time.

The problem is not working (or the absolutely awful, patronising framing of it as ‘women having it all’); the problem
is that men do not pull their weight.

That’s true whether the woman works or not.

@Moonicorn We’ve kind of played into men’s hands and also the government’s thanks to some knee jerk feminism in the 80s and 90s, and I think younger woman are disillusioned with it.

I don't think we played into men's hands actually (controversial I know). Neither do I think women are the cause of men's troubles (not being able to earn enough to start a family etc). Rather I think that globalisation, urbanisation and other factors mean that 1 middle class professional earning enough to support a stay at home partner and children is no longer sustainable. You either have a situation like many parts of East Asia where one person (male) works Insanely long hours and never see their children while the partner (female) is at home with the children whether she wants to be or not. Or 2 working parents juggle childcare and work (and often the home burden falls more on the woman even though she also works). Neither are great but I still prefer the second version to the first.

That doesn't mean its a sustainable situation. But I don't think putting women/men at each others throats on this, or trying to turn the clock back is helpful

I'm millennial. We can be pretty old!

I think the full context for our discrimination is denied us. Women's history isn't really taught in a way which explains that society was and still is to an extent built upon the back of free labour from women. Often reality only hits home after childbirth, but then we're exhausted. The full extent of male violence against women is only just beginning to be recognised and talked about. However most women still internalise shame and blame for their experiences of sexual violence.

When you're within something, it's hard to see the context. Moreover, it can be painful and scary to see the context and I think many people would prefer not to. That's before you get to the fact that seeing the context - ie a feminist analysis of male violence against women and male subjugation of women - is like social death to many and we're accused of being TERFs etc.

The long and short of it is that working full time and having children is the worst of both worlds.

It's so depressing to see young women saying and feeling this. I have always worked FT, have had a great career and have been very hands on with my dc. Personally, I have always felt that I have had the best of both worlds.

I hope my dd won't end up feeling like you in the future.

The stats quoted in this article are pretty depressing, but I'm not surprised that younger generations are less aware of the discrimination that still exists. I think it becomes increasingly apparent as you get older and witness more.

The thing is, the entire premise of a question about equality going ‘too far’ is flawed. You only get somewhat stupid responses to it.

im too depressed by the idiocracy of this to comment

The research seems to suggest that far greater proportions of the youngest generations are afraid of speaking out in favour of women’s equal rights. Which is is interesting given how often younger people are portrayed as fearlessly speaking up for what they think is right.

My hypothesis there would be that older women know everyone just views them as ‘difficult’ anyway so they fear being ‘cancelled’ far less than younger women. Younger people are very keen to speak up only in those areas and in those ways that will go down well. Standing for women’s rights is likely to be met with horror. It much safer to stick a rainbow on things and call yourself an ally on ‘the right side of history’.

The thing about being a young woman (as many of us can probably now reflect) is that you don’t believe that those horrible old hags are actually relevant to your future. So you aren’t likely to align yourself with any cause that looks pro-hag.

I am 26 and pregnant with my first baby. I would never want to be a SAHM like my mum (she is Gen X), but I wish childcare was more affordable for couples working full time (my DP and I are the same age and work full time). Even if I wanted to be a SAHM, we couldn’t afford it. Living costs are so much more expensive nowadays. I have a really good professional career, but I can’t take a full year off.

I agree.

The article basically says the more than 50% of those polled ( I think it was about 40% of women and 60% of men to average out at 52% but it's not clear how big the survey was) think that "feminism has gone too far".

It's the most depressing thing I've read in a long time. It smacks of people who say that "diversity has gone too far" because there are two black people on a cop show or a major character is gay in the latest medical drama.

It's also based on this false premise that men are being discriminated against in favour of women.

I feel slightly ill by the whole thing.

I was amused to see this headline below the article:
"Church in town that Vicar of Dibley’s Dawn French once called home bans female vicars"

Maybe they’ll get their way and have a transwoman as Vicar. That would be sure to please everyone.

It’s possible that this is a larger scale version of the effect where women are perceived as dominating and taking over well before the female air time proportion gets near 50%.

With the younger generations simply not having had the experience of hitting the glass ceiling or struggling to have senior men take them seriously and such like. When you’re 25, you don’t expect senior colleagues to take you seriously in
the same was as when you’re 45 and your post is more senior to theirs. Nor does sex discrimination seem the same kind of problem when you’re still young enough that the people recruiting for a post don’t consider you to be at risk of becoming a mother within the time frame they’d expect a candidate to stay in post.

I’m early 30s.

The issue is the so-called ‘wonderful life of equality and choice’ we are supposed to have through working, has actually lead to women doing it all, rather than ‘having it all’, and they’re burnt out. Probably watching programs like Call the Midwife and thinking how easy/simple life was back then (I know it wasn’t).

The long and short of it is that working full time and having children is the worst of both worlds. Very few mums who do this appear happy, they’re stressed and tired and feel like they’re doing a crappy job all round. And the money doesn’t even go as far as it did, so fewer ‘nice things’ to incentivise it. It’s all about paying the mortgage and childcare. ‘So make the man do 50/50!’ You say. Mine does - he possibly does a bit more than me - and we’re still a bit tired and low level stressed a lot of the time. Things get done but not to the standard I would like and that would bring me life satisfaction.

Spending your life doing things you don’t want to do doesn’t seem worth it simply as ‘insurance’.

I would also hazard a guess that the current school of feminist thought - that settling down ‘young’ (20s) is for suckers, that if you did things the right way you’d be partying and living your best feminist life until at least 30 before considering all that dull settly stuff - is actually making women quite unhappy. We can say it’s unfair all we want, but men don’t have a biological clock, they can do this then simply select a slightly younger woman to have the family he wants, as long as he’s of a good enough standard to attract one. So as a single 30 something woman what’s left of the single men are either unappealing or in no rush to get married and have kids, safe in the knowledge they can find a woman 7 or 8 years younger when they want to.

We’ve kind of played into men’s hands and also the government’s thanks to some knee jerk feminism in the 80s and 90s, and I think younger woman are disillusioned with it.

But this is really interesting (and odd):
"Younger generations are also the most likely to agree that a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man, with 30% each of Gen Z and Millennials agreeing with this statement compared to 22% of Gen X and just 14% of Baby Boomers."

I have a theory that social media makes people associate what you (man/woman/good/bad/kind) less with what you are and more with how you present on a superficial level. Almost like a category error.

I think this is probably one of those instances where the word woman includes trans woman.

Women's rights (when including trans women) has gone too far.
Women's rights (when excluding trans women) has not gone far enough.

And the results all seem to be around the 50/50% mark, which suggests, roughly, that boys are thinking like most men, and girls are thinking like most women.

I think this is true and have noticed a growing backlash amongst young people which goes against the narrative of young people being super liberal, progressive etc. I think there are number of reasons

1. Information on the internet is sort of global and without context. e.g. people frequently quote the fact that men have to sign the draft not women - this is true for America but not the UK. But everything is everywhere online
2. There's so much online that you can find anything you want to fit your point of view - if I want to make a montage of women saying horrible stuff about men I can find loads of examples. But I can also find lots of examples of men threatening to kill women, of people saying mean things about bus drivers etc. Algorithms make this worse so you aren't just dealing with cognitive bias but the fact that hate watching one video you end up hate watching others
3. Some complaints are justified - e.g. the situation with the Air force prioritising women pilots training despite the fact that there are less women pilots than men so men aren't able to get trained at all. The irony is that this was pushed by men like Air Chief Marshal Mike Wigston, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin. The Head of Recruitment who quit in protest at the discrimination against white men was a woman. But that's not the way its being portrayed at all - both "sides" ("woke" and "antiwoke") have a vested interest in saying this is feminism
4. Slogans - such as "the future is female", "girl boss" which are meaningless and exist for corporate promotion are taken completely literally by some. They don't actually help anyone though.
5. young women are less aware of the impact having children/not having children, growing old will have on their lives and careers. That would involve talking about biological reality and possibly women's limitations (hate that word but you know what I mean) which isn't fashionable
6. The only feminists likely to get platformed are those pushing a very shallow, quite meaningless line (and actually often being quite rude to men) so that's what people think feminism is. If everyone's blethering on about nonsense it makes sense to assume the wider problems are solved.