The first-of-its-kind Australian study, funded by the Office of National Intelligence, surveyed 1,122 young people aged 13-17 and 2,307 adults, to compare attitudes on women, gender equality, online influences and violent extremism. The study also surveyed more than 500 Australian school teachers about their experiences of misogyny and extremism in classrooms.
Study author Dr Sara Meger, from the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts, said the findings were concerning.
“These attitudes were far more prevalent among the young people surveyed, and of everything we measured, these hostile views were the single strongest predictor of support for violent extremism,” Dr Meger said.
Among boys aged 13-17 the study found:
- 31.8 per cent believed that attempts to give equal opportunities to women in Australia have gone too far
- 30.1 per cent believed men have more of a right to a job than women when jobs are scarce
- 24.7 per cent believed feminism is damaging to our society and should be resisted with violence if necessary.
On several measures, teenage girls shared similar views to adult men surveyed. Gen Z women were twice as likely as Millennial women, and four times as likely as Gen X women, to agree that marriage entitles a husband to sex with his wife, even if she does not want to.
The study found these attitudes were associated with the online content young people were consuming.
“Engagement with ‘manosphere’ content, pornography and online dating showed the strongest links to misogynistic views,” Dr Meger, said.
The one time cringe comps could have been used for good, and lo and behold, very few were made.
“I’m sexist because that’s what badasses do! I’m a macho hardass!”
You’re a 12 year old in the suburbs, you’re not tuff lil bro.
Now do this study in China and compare the results. Can you imagine living in a country where there’s nobody funding the manosphere?
The first-of-its-kind Australian study
That’s kind of the problem here, I would imagine about a third of teenage boys of any generation would have very negative attitudes towards women. This article seems to really be trying to make this an ageist thing, where the “kids today” are all bad and horrible, but a lot of empathy and understanding of others comes from experience, I’m not surprised that younger men and women, and literal teenagers, have more simplistic and sexist attitudes. Really feels like yet another nothingburger. Turns out when the only role models teenage boys have are sexist creeps, they behave like sexist creeps! Who knew?!
i could believe that manosphere shit is worse and more pervasive than whatever you’d pick up from tv and divorced uncles
In pure scale of hatred I think you are right, but just asking if men should take precedence over women in the workplace is something probably 80% of men believe nowadays and that’s probably less than in the past. Asking men to self-report their misogyny isn’t going to yield useful data tho lol
Australian study, disregard.
