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

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www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/09/womens-rights-have-gone-far-say-majority-gen-z-millennials-study/

Well I personally didn't need time off for periods or menopause nor early retirement. What I needed was a shorter working week when the children were young. Your dream sounds like we are somehow disabled by our wombs and hormones which I wasn't. But if some are then that should be recognised perhaps

Wow. Yes please.

I have just bought a book, 'Brilliant Women' (present to myself for IWD), published by the National Gallery about 10 years ago (it's out of print, surprise, surprise). It's about how intellectual women in the eighteenth century got a good press - and then details how much this was disliked and trampled on later. The fight is always there because if women think they have arrived at equality SOME men will work very hard to end it and destroy it - TRAs spring immediately to mind - and others will not realise that this matters. We can never stop fighting for women's equality because immediately we do, the forces against us re-arm. Besides, what equality do they mean? Have these Millenials and Gen Z's seen the plight of the child brides of Afghanistan, the Yazidi sex slaves, the raped debt slaves in India and the rape culture of India, the fact of sex imbalance in e.g. China because of the One Child Policy that led to child femicide and sex-selective abortion and now leads to bride-napping? If not, what do they think they are talking about when they say women's equality has gone too far? Or are they only concerned with Western women?

This. Exactly.

I was particularly struck by this from the Telegraph article:

"The survey conducted for International Women’s Day also found that people in Britain are increasingly afraid of promoting women’s rights for fear of reprisals.

The share of the British public who say they are scared to speak out and advocate for the equal rights of women has doubled since 2017, rising from 14 per cent to 29 per cent. The majority (71 per cent), however, continue to say this does not apply to them.

Younger generations tend to be be most fearful, with Gen Z (38 per cent) around twice as likely as baby boomers (19 per cent) to feel this way."

"Fear of reprisals". "Scared to speak out". "Fearful". Scared and fearful to advocate for women's rights. In an environment where a supposed majority feel that women's rights have 'gone too far'. These two things together, the fear and the gone-too-far, suggests a bullying environment where those who bray about it all having gone too far are putting the fear of reprisal into those who would speak out to say no it hasn't.

Not a good picture of Britain, is it?

I find it ironic that men now have it all but women think they're equal and men tend to think it's a womans world.

When the reality is we have been WFT, doing the majority of the housework and the mental load for a husband and children.

Women still lose years of their life when married compared to men who gain extra time.

It's easier to be a single working mother than have a husband imo.

I'm late millennial (35) and the men in my generation (and women) are quick to want 50/50 on all financials but not mental load or housework or child rearing. Even sick days still usually fall to women. So many 'pick me women' and lib fems that start talking about the poor menz.

Oh and I have a son that I absolutely adore. I don't hate individual men. Men as a sex class, have definitely got it better than us!

You can see the whole study at the Ipsos site. All the summary results are averages over a large number of countries, including several where women's rights are poor.

So we should be careful about interpreting the global averages as applying to Britain or to US etc.

To give one example, the fourth assertion which states that "When it comes to women's rights, things have gone far enough in my country" has people agreeing to this assertion ranging from 80% in Indonesia and 79% in China (both countries where women are certainly nowhere near equality) to 17% in Portugal and 21% in Japan. The UK percentage here is 38% and the US percentage 37%.

Likewise the sixth assertion "We have gone so far in promoting women's equality that we are discriminating against men" has agreement ranging from high of 78% in Thailand and 74% in India to low of 28% in Hungary and 24% in Portugal. The UK figure of 43% (and the US figure of 40%) are in the lower half of the country range. Interestingly enough, a country where equality of the sexes is pretty high, Sweden, has 36% agreement on this question.

So the opinions should NOT be interpreted as referring to actual facts on the ground, because if we do that, when we would assume that Thailand is a matriarchy already etc. They also reflect underlying biases about what rights are deemed proper for women.

It’s ridiculous that the Telegraph published this article when it’s not just British respondents. Other cultures have different views on gender roles etc.

"Too far" can mean a lot of things. In my experience people can read almost anything into it. I find that when someone says somthing has gone too far what they really mean is that some part of it is being done in the wrong way, or is not being understood correctly.

So, you could look specifically at something like making misogyny a hate crime. Sometimes people will say something like that is "too far" but what they mean is that it interferes with other rights, that it will be counterproductive, or they don't think it will be effective.

Women's issues can be promoted in much the same way as other identity issues, and when that happens, I'm not really surprised people are not buying into those formulations. Hierarchy of oppression arguments, for example, or equality of outcome arguments. A lot of young people are quietly getting quite turned off that kind of thinking, and it may come as a surprise to some when that begins to manifest politically.

I wonder what they mean by reprisals?

It makes me think of my daughter, who is 19. ABout a year or so ago there was a new masking mandate at her school that she and her friends were ticked off about. I suggested maybe they should have a protest, or do a petition, or something. Anything rather than just passivly accept it, not be be dicks but to show they had an opinion.

Her comment was, "Oh, we couldn't do that, they might think we are anti-vaxxers."

I was flabbergasted. They seem to be incredibly delicate about going against certain types of moral authority, I've noticed this in a lot of other kids too.

The generations that have grown up with women having the right to be treated equally to men (if not the reality), now see equity of access for women as discrimination against men.

No wonder some women find it so easy to give our spaces to men.

Perhaps you don't value something if you did not pay for it.

@JellySaurus is right but I think a lot of it boils down to the immaturity of youth, a phase we all go through & see everything in black & white think we're right & older people are wrong.

Also if you haven't experienced or seen the inequality & discrimination that women have had to deal & seen the fight & struggles of the 60s/70s/80s/90s/early 00s then unless you make the effort to find out about it all & explore then you won't have a clue.

Then as we grow older & mature we see all the various shades of grey in the world & realise how daft & virtue signalling we were as young adults.
Though I know some people never grow out of it!

Plus I really think the skill of critical thinking seems to be now lacking or non existent in education.
During my education in the 80s & 90s we were highly encouraged to use our brains & debate all aspects of things to get to an informed view.
We were expected to find out stuff for ourselves & were not spoonfed the facts unlike in my DC's education or unless it's just the school.
All information is acquired instantly from the internet & no fact checking is done & social media has a hell of a lot to play in pushing false narratives.

I think referring to these generations with stupid names, confuses what is at hand... For example...

''Gen z thinks....'
''Millenials think....'

But then take away the stupid names and what you actually have is -

''Teenagers think.....''

And ''20 year olds think....''

And then you realise it doesn't matter what they think because they will get educated by the university of LIFE and their opinions and views will mature.

This quote is somehow hilarious.

The old white men that are part of the baby boomers and who are so evil are the ones who are the most progressive when it comes to this and the self-proclaimed progressive young ones are the most regressive.

DysonSpheres post has crystallised something I've batted around, half-formed in my noggin. I don't think sex equality in work can be built around male working patterns. Male working patterns aren't that good for males really.

Overlying this, as pointed out above, is the sheer cost of everything which forces couple to both work full time while looking after children.

The system (government and society) sees children as a burden in a "If you must have the things, on your own head be it" sort of way, however gooey the cooing over new arrivals.

I haven't got a Scooby on how to solve this but I know that work and society would have to look radically different for both sexes.