The misogyny myth

Consider a new study that is one of the most sophisticated efforts to analyze implicit bias. Previous researchers typically looked for it by measuring split-second reactions to photos of faces: how long it takes to associate each face with a positive or negative attribute. Some studies reported that whites are quicker to associate black faces with negative attributes, but those experiments often involved small samples of college students. For this study, a team of psychologists led by Paul Connor of Columbia University recruited a nationally representative sample of adults and showed them more than just faces. The participants saw full-body photos of men and women of different races and ages, dressed in outfits ranging from well-tailored suits and blazers to scruffy hoodies, T-shirts, and tank tops.

Advertisement

Who was biased against whom? The researchers found no consistent patterns by race or by age. The participants were quicker to associate negative attributes with people in scruffier clothes, but that bias was fairly small. Only one strong and consistent bias emerged. Participants in every category—men and women of all races, ages, and social classes—were quicker to associate positive attributes with women and negative attributes with men.

The participants were guilty not of misogyny but of its opposite: misandry, a bias against men. This study merely measured unconscious reactions, so it doesn’t prove that they’d discriminate against men. The many critics of implicit-bias research maintain that measures of people’s “unconscious racism” bear scant relation to their conscious behavior. But when it comes to detecting misandry, we don’t need to probe the unconscious to find it. There is overwhelming evidence of conscious, blatant, and widespread discrimination against boys and men in modern societies.

[Want to find real misogyny? Try drag shows and men that use transgenderism to compete in women’s sports. Drag shows used to be a kind of vaudeville, a niche minstrelsy that mocked women for comic effect, but its expansion has turned that into a bitter attack on femininity itself. The trans-athletic activists seek to destroy any effective opportunities for women to compete in sports so that men can dominate, and the same is true for their safe spaces. It may not be the “patriarchy” that progressives like to hype, but unlike that hype, this one’s real and it’s coming for women in every space. — Ed]

Advertisement

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Trending on HotAir Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement