New survey reveals Gen Z men think wives should be subservient to their husbands

Colour me both depressed and unsurprised.

I'd blame Gen Z but they're just horrendously warped by what previous generations put online for them to stumble across as children/young teens. It's not entirely their fault.

The internet is a poisoned chalice. Society was beginning to improve, and the internet just ground it back down into the dirt.

Rare moment of the Graun verging on self awareness after every other day having a fricking Gen Z article

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2026/mar/07/why-is-everyone-so-obsessed-with-gen-z

Ah always read thread before posting. So it's not a cultural thing. Is just a misogyny thing. Lovely.

We should, yes. But we shouldn't jump to the assumption that is the driver of this. I would also be interested to know the country of origin for the voters.

There is a definite move in the UK towards the view that white men are disadvantaged by EDI. Similar to that in America.

It must be difficult to go from the assumption that you always come first and are the most special important one. To having to earn your place.

This is no different from survey's over the past year or more.

Most commonly cited is Japan where young men seem to have fallen for the incel culture. Similarly in the US.

Haven't got time to find links at the moment.

But some of the treatment of young women in Japan has been horrific.

Lets face it most of the "super hereos" of the internat phase are the men's rights propogators like Musk etc..

Very much a modern phenomenon. As many of us have experienced on twitter etc., given the opportunity men are happy to be revealed to have no respect for women and girls.

Possibly they are or at least the generation that would have been exposed to it from a young age. I may be wrong but I'm sure I read an article that more than a quarter had been exposed online porn by age 11. Sure as millennials we had seen some porn or porno mags but what's "normal" in porn nowadays was definitely considered extreme previously.

And then Emerald Fennell brings out her stupid film that features this and calls it art.

And some people argue that men need to be told explicitly that watching videos where women are crying while a man has sex with them isn’t normal sex. Imagine not knowing that rape and gang rape videos aren’t normal sex never mind that no woman gets excited when they receive an unsolicited dick pic.

Too many men see women as someone who is there to take care of him practically and sexually.

Is this generation the first who have grown up solely with Internet porn? My guess is that millennials might still be the age where they stole their dad’s porn which would have been extremely tame by Internet standards. Internet porn has really ruined sex for men and women.

Totally agree. Mostly everything catered to men's fantasies has us humiliated, degraded or hurt and most things catered to women's fantasies is mostly men who are emotionally mature and kind and treat us well. It's so sad.

However, solid belief things would be better with more women in charge. Six in ten (60%) agree that things would work better if more women held positions with responsibilities in government and companies. Only 27% disagree. On average 68% of women and 53% feel this way.

However this was also a finding. I suspect some of negative findings will be around lack of employment for young people..and working class men are struggling with education and employment.

Think about how much porn is based on women being humiliated or hurt. Too many men get aroused by this and this shows what they really think of women imo.

Beyond the gap between the sexes, it is interesting that both Gen z men and women seem more comfortable with gender stereotypes than older generations. Interesting and depressing.

This is in relation to the question "When it comes to giving women equal rights with men, things have gone far enough in my country"? Yes I would say yes to that, in fact almost half of the aussie women who were surveyed agreed with it too, so it aint just me.

Thank you, that's really useful, and I'm sure PeachyDaisy will appreciate it too.

Australia comes out at 46% of men compared to, for example, 45% of Turkish men.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/almost-a-third-of-gen-z-men-agree-a-wife-should-obey-her-husband
Link to the actual research document is in this article. Gives a country by country breakdown.

If only there were some way of finding out which countries they were.

Australia still has a gender pay gap,.it still has rampant male violence against women and girls that isn't addressed properly, police give sexist advice for women to avoid parks after a woman's murder rather than highlighting the real problem which is male violence, and women are still woefully underrepresented in business...but sure there's no patriarchy in Australia.

I don't live in a patriarchal country, but I do ķnow there are many patriarchal countries out there and I thinķ it is oķto acķowledge it. I never said it was one culture nor one religion (although I do thinķ some religions and cultures are more sexist than others)

Yeah I know I just don't think blanket statements about laws in countries that span different cultures and religions (Islam, Judaism and Christianity) referred to as "one culture" is helpful. While we may not have some of these same laws, we still have horrific levels of misogyny and VAWG despite the law supposedly allowing us to be equal. There's a much more nuanced argument to be had about patriarchy globally that wasn't present in PPs post.

Of course misogyny still exists in every country and culture. But some countries literally still have male guardianship laws. Others have laws which mean women inherit less, their evidence is worth half a man’s in court and it’s much harder to divorce (than it is for the man). It’s no surprise many people from countries who have those laws are going to think men should have the overriding say.

It’s because other men go along with it.

Boys grow up seeing women abused, raped, murdered, degraded, used for sex, the butt of jokes and it’s seen as absolutely normal to them so they accept it as what men are like to women.
We can’t change this only men can but we can stop respecting men and if women treated men badly and other women accepted it was the way it should be it would become normal but we won’t because we know other women would call us out on our behaviour.

Men have each others backs and women also have men’s backs.

For instance, the report shows that the 'Global Average' response to
"Men are being expected to do too much to support equality"

was 60% of 'Gen Z' men, as opposed to 44% of 'Baby Boomer' men.

For Europe [note not EU so probably includes UK], so excluding countries you say cannot be mentioned in left wing circles:

55% of 'Gen Z men', as opposed to 38% of 'Baby Boomer' men
agreed that
"Men are being expected to do too much to support equality" .

A closer look at the Ipsos report will probably provide more details on methodology.

I haven't read the 2026 report, but the 2025 report breaks some of the results down by location:
Generation Z - Ipsos Generations Report 2025
You might find that helpful.