Women’s equality has gone too far, say half of Britons

[IwantToRetire]

About half of Britons believe that society has gone too far in promoting women’s equality and that men are now discriminated against, a survey suggests.

According to the results of the survey, nearly one in two (47 per cent) agreed with the statement: “When it comes to giving women <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/womens-rights/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">equal rights with men, things have gone far enough in my country.”
This marks an increase on the 38 per cent who said the same last year, and a rise in the proportion who felt this way as recently as 2019 (29 per cent).

A total of 47 per cent also agreed with the statement: “We have gone so far in promoting women’s equality that we are <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/12/19/wanting-to-hire-fewer-white-men-not-discrimination/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">discriminating against men.”

For those who believe that society has gone too far in promoting women’s equality at the expense of men, 59 per cent of men agree with the statement, compared with 35 per cent of women.

Sixty-six per cent of Britons agreed that women will not achieve equality unless men take actions to support women’s rights too (including 65 per cent of men and 68 per cent of women). However, the term “feminist” remains challenging, with only two in five (43 per cent) identifying with the phrase – an increase of eight percentage points since 2019. This rises to 49 per cent among women.

From an article in the Telegraph https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/03/01/womens-equality-has-gone-too-far-say-half-of-britons/

Can be read at https://archive.ph/zzMH3

Is that an IPSOS survey?

They pay people in rewards to complete their surveys, I thought about signing up once because of this. The more you do, the more you get.

It’s not like their researcher went out onto the streets and surveyed random people going about their normal business. I don’t know if I would count it as qualitative market research tbh. That’s not to say that there isn’t a rise in misogyny though.

This.

Emotionalsupportviper · Today 13:27

It's like those adverts for face cream which say "97% of women consulted say this cream is better than any other they have ever used in their entire lives" with a tiny asterisk, and in brackets, and even tinier letters, at the bottom of the table (*Results based on a survey of 9 women)

If you do the percentage, you usually end up with something like 8.75 women.

they want they saw their fathers have in their childhoods: a woman who fed them, did all the kid stuff, did all the house stuff, did all the organising and sorting out, enabled them in all ways, and yet because of the new modern age, they want their female partner to do all this andwork full time too, or she's sponging off him

Yes Including saving for her own maternity leave like its the fucking Immaculate Conception. How the hell did that happe?! Because a lot of men are very eager to get on board with the bits of equality that benefit them.

I had a conversation recently with a man in which I was explaining about biological men being put in women's prisons. He started whingeing about golf clubs and gentlemen's clubs. That is - men losing their single sex spaces too/women wanting equality.
The level of stupidity and entitlement never fails to amaze. Absolutely clueless. He was probably the type who would answer a survey if asked.

I wouldnt be in a rush to dismiss this survey. It is ipsos, but it has trends in it going back years and 1000 is a pretty stabdard number for responses to be valid enough.

I personally would worry that increasing numbers of people/men are agree with the statement as it does reflect thd whole andrew tate effect etc.

Reminds me of a study Years ago that all media outlets jumped on;

’a third of women say they go on dates just to get free food’

the survey was of a few hundred Australian (?) women.. but the way it was reported was that 30% of womankind only date so they get free meals 🤦‍♀️

Like YouGov (who I've dealt with) IPSOS are commissioned to run polls through their panel.

I can't speak for IPSOS but I know that YouGov surveys are subject to the commissioning bodies oversight. So if whoever is commissioning the survey doesn't want a certain answer, they will make it so. (YouGov do advise and offer consultancy, but the customer is always right).

Always a good idea to see who paid the piper when it comes to surveys.

The finding in that survey that really cracked me up/made me lose hope was that 80% of respondents in Saudi Arabia think women's rights in their country have gone too far

the fact that bullshit surveys like this are being done and articles like this are being published demonstrates very clearly that we are very far from achieving 'equality' for women (anyway, I think from a post modern feminist viewpoint, equality is redundant as its equity we really need)

Well they would wouldn't they.

that just goes to show statistics without context is meaningless

@therealcookiemonster Isn't the point of the research to understand perceptions, not actual progress, for women's rights?

yes absolutely

but when papers like the telegraph publish such articles they are pandering to the right wing's tropes about feminism

its true of all statistics, right... that's why understanding the design of the study, its limitations and context helps understand the results in a meaningful way

when papers pick and choose results from such surveys (which are not objective research anyway and are not designed as such), they are doing so to pander to the beliefs of their target audience, not for the good of society

as proven by your point re saudia arabia. if someone knew nothing about saudi arabia, they would think they must be very progressive judging on that one piece of info. but any one with any knowledge re saudi would know they got that result because the country is deeply misogynistic

What you need to remember about these surveys is that they are a snapshot of opinion, normally in a specific place, and the wording of the question(s) is important. Asking "has something gone too far?" is a loaded question, it implies that that thing has gone too far. And how do we measure equality? In jobs, there are going to be jobs more popular to men and some more popular to women. It's not hard to guess that most car mechanics will be men, and most nurses will be women. What's important for equality is that there's nothing stopping you from doing those jobs simply because of your sex / gender.

Which 'half of Britons' think this?!!

The half with willies, probably

.....the male half, I presume.

I'd like to see a survey looking at why men are so shit these days. The women are adapting to rubbish men. Hopefully taking no nonsense, standing up for themselves and that's what's making the men irritated.

The article refers to Sir John Hayes, Tory MP and quotes him as saying
“The myth that every man is to a, lesser or greater degree, a villain, and all women are invariably virtuous is perpetuated with such vigour that many have come to see it as fact. Fortunately for most of us, common sense and this survey also shows that good and bad people of both sexes prevail.

He is a climate change sceptic, supporter of coal use, against same sex marriage, supporter of the death penalty, anti abortion and wrote a letter to The Telegraph criticising 'the woke' National Trust for highlighting the colonial past of many of its properties.

His inclusion in the article, including in the strap line tells you all you need to know about the agenda behind this article i.e. women know your place and don't get uppity about the pay gap.

women know your place and don't get uppity about the pay gap.

Couldn't resist . . .

Sometimes it would help if the whole article is read. Obviously the Telegraph reported it in line with their politics but the article makes it clear who originated it! ie

The research is being published as part of a global study carried out in 31 countries by the polling company, <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/02/22/yes-prime-minister-humphrey-appleby-ipsos-poll-questions/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Ipsos, in collaboration with the <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/03/09/womens-rights-have-gone-far-say-majority-gen-z-millennials-study/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/kings-college-london/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">King’s College London for <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.ph/o/zzMH3/www.telegraph.co.uk/international-womens-day/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">International Women’s Day, on 8 March.

Professor Rosie Campbell, director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London, said: “That virtually half the British population think efforts to promote women’s equality have gone far enough is a huge cause for concern – particularly given the trend is going in the wrong direction, with the public seemingly becoming more, rather than less, sceptical of the need to push for further progress.”

Kelly Beaver, chief executive of Ipsos UK and Ireland, said: “The findings of our research serve as a salutary reminder that the concept of gender equality in the workplace and its impact on our wider society is more complex than we sometimes think.”

I couldn't last night find the actual published results.

Personally I am not surprised whoever wierd the wording of the questions were. Its quite clear from the growth in incel culture and what is happening on line that many (mainly younger?) men feel they are being discriminated against.

But agree that both IPSOS and YouGov who select those who get the surveys are not without problems.

I have been with YouGov for years (and have now built up a little nest egg I am keeping for a rainy day) but I virtually never, ever get sent poltical surveys. And yet I regularly see a YouGov poll result about something current in UK politics. Or does that mean that YouGov basically has some idea of my views and it turns out they are very similar to a large majority of YouGov members, and so they manipulate it so that those questioned represent a balance of political positions? In which case it is flawed because it means that the majority voice is not accurately represented.

And without deviating from the topic, this is what a lot of people in retrospect said became a problem during the pre Brexist referendum. New companies were told there should be balance so to begin with their were only a few / extreme brexiteer but they appeared on tv as though they were equally representative of those who felt on the whole better to stick with Europe.

(sorry for the strange web links - I tried to edit that but couldn't - mumsnet forum software seems to have a lot of gliches.)

This is the write up by the survey originators:

Masculinity and women's equality: study finds emerging gender divide in young people's attitudes
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/masculinity-and-womens-equality-study-finds-emerging-gender-divide-in-young-peoples-attitudes

which seems to confirm part of the problem is younger men.

I think @TemporarilyAnotherName made a good point when she said "saturating society with the rights of ('trans') women detracts from the rights of the biological ones."

On another point, obviously if I had been surveyed I would not have said that "women's equality has gone too far" - but I do think a lot about how it must feel like to be a boy nowadays. I'm an old school feminist born 1960. When I took my O levels I remember some stats were released around the same time (c1976) and boys, as they always had, were well out performing girls academically. When my daughter took her GCSEs or whatever they were called at that point, c2002, girls were outperforming boys. Now - I'm looking and failing to find stats - I'd guess the disparity in academic attainment is even more heavily weighted in favour of girls.

Yes we know that doesn't necessarily translate into good jobs, and certainly not equal wages or a non-sexist society, but we do need to accept that educationally equality for women has had a win/overshoot within education, and we need to wonder about that, and recognise that those crucial first 16 years of life are vastly formative for boys as well as girls. My (very speedy) take away from that is that we are not educating boys well, just offering them a fast trans route into what in the classroom they may percieve as the ruling class.

The other thing I'm thinking about is how the present generation of girls, my granddaughters and to an extent my own daughter and daughter in law - and my son who should see it too - really don't understand the extent of women's oppression and how it has moved in my lifetime, a world with no safe contraception, only illegal abortion, not a househusband to be seen from horizon to horizon, an absolutely different world. They think they see a level playing field in front of them and have no inkling that it's being ripped from under their feet. See the collapse of Roe v Wade across parts of the US, not to mention trans athletes kicking women's sport back into non-existence and very many other things I could mention if I went on and on.

About half of Britons believe that society has gone too far in promoting women’s equality and that men are now discriminated against, a survey suggests.

According to the results of the survey, nearly one in two (47 per cent) agreed with the statement: “When it comes to giving women equal rights with men, things have gone far enough in my country.”

Which question was asked?

My son uses my computer to watch youtube videos - because he is a pre-teen boy these are all videos on roblox/child appropriate anime/skibidee toilet. Because of this the Youtube algorithms think I am a pre-teen/teenage boy and keep trying to make me watch videos about how awful women are, videos where a "feminist" says something like "HaHAhA, all men are useless" and the presenter is like "what about WAR, all the stuff in this room was made by men", the "feminist" goes "derp and looks stupid, also endless "you are not the father videos" where a man finds out that yet again the child he raised is not his because female hegomony etc etc. Oh yes and "coldest moment" shorts where a man does something weird and petty to a pretty girl and Patrick Bateman pulls an approving look. I could go on.

The point is, my son isn't searching or looking for those videos. I am not even watching them all the way through - I pretty much always just click away. But the algorithm is convinced that if you want to watch videos on roblux games or one-piece you should also be watching videos on how terrible women are. I know it sounds like a conspiracy theory but I really don't think its organic (anymore than the pushing of trans stuff online)