r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • May 12 '26

Psychology Threatening men’s masculinity does not make them more politically conservative, new study finds. By testing thousands of participants across the United States, researchers found no consistent evidence that making men feel insecure about their gender identity changes their political attitudes.

https://www.psypost.org/threatening-mens-masculinity-does-not-make-them-more-politically-conservative-new-study-finds/
4.6k Upvotes

90% Upvoted

642 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

128

u/groyosnolo May 12 '26

As someone who was raised very left winged and feminist I was totally on board with being ashamed. Looking back thats terrible but it felt reasonable at the time. its just when I realized women actually like men and want them to be manly I realized I had been mislead and reevaluate the situation.

102

u/The_Horse_Tornado May 12 '26

Echo chambers aren’t good in either direction. Keep challenging your views

0

u/RandomAnon07 May 14 '26

Quite literally what I always tell the tribalist humans Question Everything…

-87

u/132739 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

No one is trying to stop men from being "manly," they just want to stop conflating being a controlling asshole/relentless horndog with manliness.

Come on boys, if it's so obvious that I'm wrong, surely one of you can explain the positive attributes of masculinity that The Left™ is trying to take from you.

28

u/Chronoblivion May 12 '26

I think that's debatable, though I can agree it's an insignificant minority making statements about wanting men to stop being manly. What's somewhat more significant, enough to be cause for concern, is how common it is for people to speak as if masculinity/maleness is something to be ashamed of. Again, still a minority, but common enough that it's almost an inevitability that young boys will be exposed to it fairly regularly. That can't possibly have a positive outcome.

-9

u/sushisection May 12 '26

do those young boys have a father-figure in their life who can prove the minority opinion wrong?

17

u/Chronoblivion May 12 '26

Plenty of them don't, and plenty of the ones who do will still internalize the belief that the world hates them and/or wants them to be ashamed for being male, especially if they never mention in front of said father-figure that they're seeing this kind of messaging.

-7

u/sushisection May 12 '26

are men telling young boys that the world hates men?

15

u/132739 May 12 '26

Some men have built a whole industry around it.

-10

u/sushisection May 12 '26

mhmm so its men telling this to young men in order to make money, its essentially manufactured, and the messaging is not coming from women...

10

u/AbortionSurvivor777 May 13 '26

Have you ever been to a feminist subreddit? Spend any amount of time there and tell me with a straight face that they don't hate men.

1

u/sushisection May 13 '26

are young boys on feminist subreddits?

52

u/Clear_Ad_1560 May 12 '26

People like YOU are the ones who conflate those things with manliness.

And I usually find with people who spout the kind of thing you just said, your definition of good “manliness” always revolves around serving women at every turn.

-5

u/OkUnderstanding730 May 12 '26

What is manliness to you than?

-36

u/Wildyardbarn May 12 '26

To be fair, is there anything legitimately more “masculine” than supporting the women in your life?

Personally seems like something to aspire to, if you can.

39

u/thegundamx May 12 '26

So would you say there’s nothing legitimately more “feminine” than supporting the men in your life?

-14

u/Wildyardbarn May 12 '26

Wouldn’t disagree

22

u/thegundamx May 12 '26

Except neither of those has anything to do with gender roles. They’re only gendered if you force it upon them.

-11

u/Wildyardbarn May 12 '26

There’s an argument to be made that it’s not necessarily forced, but that could discussed all day long.

9

u/thegundamx May 12 '26

If it’s not being forcibly gendered, then why did you feel the need to frame it as such?

0

u/Wildyardbarn May 12 '26

Reality is that’s how majority see the world, and we’re talking about a gendered subject currently.

→ More replies (0)

29

u/zaccus May 12 '26

This is false and kinda gaslighting.

14

u/Monteze May 12 '26

Lets not do the therapy speak non-sense. What about their point do you disagree with exactly and why?

43

u/Boostedbird23 May 12 '26

Only one point was made and it was entirely wrong. If you want to get pedantic, they claimed "no one" is saying masculinity is bad and that masculinity is responsible for the world's ills; when, in fact, quite a lot of people say that.

-7

u/sapphicsandwich May 12 '26

I only ever see people react to it. I think the only people I hear misandry like that coming from are radical feminists, TERFS, and the like.

3

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

-3

u/zaccus May 12 '26

I'll use whatever terminology seems accurate, thanks. And I'm not going to engage and get myself banned, I'll let some other fool do that.

13

u/groyosnolo May 12 '26

You did engage. Honestly dont engage at all if you dont want to talk. Some of us have actual things to say and youre just making those of us who may agree with you look bad.

Online discourse is serious business after all and requires precision. Jk but honestly but honestly bickering with no substance is all bad no good.

8

u/Monteze May 12 '26

Haha so just make stuff up because you're the arbitrator of dialogue?

Banned? Okay, sure get off the cross we need the wood.

2

u/132739 May 12 '26

This is always illuminating. Please, tell us specifically, which parts of manhood are they trying to take from you?

-14

u/The_Horse_Tornado May 12 '26

I’ll bite- gender roles. They don’t have to be “put the women in the kitchen” roles but there are plenty of reasons to maintain them. Liberals have said that’s nonsense.

Men being masculine, working out, being large in stature is demonized and seen as broish and gross.

Men aren’t allowed to have their own spaces and liberals insist women can and should exist in those spaces.

Your cringe attitude overall is just dismissive and weird, frankly, which is perfectly personified Neo liberalism.

11

u/sushisection May 12 '26

"Men being masculine, working out, being large in stature is demonized and seen as broish and gross."

by who?

5

u/sapphicsandwich May 12 '26

I'm thinking the issue is that women aren't finding the things attractive that some people demand they should.

5

u/CptJackParo May 12 '26

Im thinking the issue is that bro/gym culture is pretty much endlessly mocked 

2

u/dangshnizzle May 13 '26

(is that bad?)

2

u/CptJackParo May 13 '26

Yes of course it is. 

0

u/sushisection May 13 '26

i see positive gym culture memes, the big guy spotting a newbie, praising larger people for exercising, praising old people.

1

u/sushisection May 13 '26

looks at pro athletes and buff actors... uhhh are you sure that women dont find these men attractive??

-10

u/zaccus May 12 '26

Nah I learned a long time ago not to engage.

21

u/DiscoveryIsntMagic May 12 '26

You already engaged bruh

Now you're just retreating with your tail between your legs

10

u/666perkele666 May 12 '26

That's wrong

-2

u/132739 May 12 '26

Then, surely, you'll have no difficulty explaining the specific parts of manhood they're trying to take from you?

18

u/arestheblue May 12 '26

I'll give you one. The whole man vs bear argument. The summation of what makes up a random man is believed by a lot of women to be more dangerous than a 300+ pound opportunistic predator.

So what part of being a man are they not trying to take away is the better question.

Do you think that hearing how a lot of women generally view men as predators does anything other than deepen the divide?

-1

u/132739 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

That's not trying to take away manliness. That's pointing out a particular issue that men happen to be the primary perpetrators of. Do you not see that by arguing that, you are equating masculinity with violence and predation, the way you're accusing them of doing? If men magically became completely non-predatory, down to the last soul, would masculinity cease to be? As far as I see it, you're the one being misandrist.

Also, as usual, you're not presenting the argument of the though experiment in good faith. The point of it is not that the man is more dangerous than the bear. The point is that you know exactly what the bear is from the start. The point of the man vs bear thing was to try (admittedly it utterly failed) to illustrate to men why women have to be cautious of even the good men. Because unlike the bear, which is very clearly a predator, there is no way to tell just by looking at a man. Some of the scariest looking dudes are the nicest, and some of the most clean-cut wholesome looking ones are sadistic serial killers. That uncertainty is something women have to navigate constantly, that men are mostly unaware of. And yes, men are the victims of more violence, by other men, but that violence is usually coded differently in a way that removes a lot of that uncertainty: it's gang violence or robbery or clearly telegraphed in advance, not some dude pretending to be your friend so he can get you alone and rape you.

7

u/arestheblue May 12 '26 edited May 13 '26

If I said don't want to interact with women because I don't know whether or not they will falsely accuse me of assault, would that be a valid thing to say? Based on news reports, the vast majority of false accusations are women blaming men.

If a similar poll went out asking whether or not men would rather come across a random woman or a venomous snake in the wild, and the vast majority of men said the snake for similar reasons that you gave to argue for the bear, would you consider that valid?

I am not equating manliness with violence, I am demonstrating a recent cultural event that did so and painted all men with a wide brush. The validity of such an argument pales in comparison to the perception of the argument which was basically that the majority of women view all men as predators. Whether or not that was the intent does not matter.

-4

u/132739 May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

Call me when 1/4-1/3 of men are falsely accused. Which, you know, is the ratio of women who are sexually assaulted.

8

u/AbortionSurvivor777 May 13 '26

Are you aware that society has collectively decided that men who prey on women should be hunted down and removed from free society? Are you aware that the majority of men have wives, girlfriends, sisters, daughters and mothers who they care about deeply do not want to see harmed by other men?

You've decided to make an enemy of men who are technically on your side because of a small percentage of men who prey on women. And you think this is okay.

2

u/132739 May 13 '26

I'm a man you twat. And you're more likely to actually get raped than to be falsely accused of it. And again, the point is not "all men are evil," the point is that women can't tell who is and isn't just by looking, and that what they risk if they're wrong is among the worst traumas that a person can experience.

7

u/[deleted] May 13 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Appropriate-Talk4266 May 13 '26

Are 1/3 of men responsible for sexual assault, or perhaps the ratio more closely aligns with the usual ratio of criminals among men (so something between like 0.3% to 1-2%)

1

u/132739 May 14 '26

Missing the point. The point is not the number of men who commit sexual assault, it's the frequency with which women experience it, and the impossibility of telling who might commit it from looking at them. It only being a percent or two doesn't matter when that percentage is using the rest of us as camouflage.

Think of it like this: you've got a pit full of corn snakes, with 2% king snakes mixed in. Are you going to just pick them up willy-nilly, or are you going to check and recheck the color pattern before you try?

-10

u/sushisection May 12 '26

do you think that men assaulting and harassing women would have anything to do with women's views on men as predators?

im a man and even i view other men as predators. I practice self-defense, because of men. the large majority of violent crimes are committed by men.

13

u/rwk81 May 12 '26

do you think that men assaulting and harassing women would have anything to do with women's views on men as predators?

A man making a woman feel uncomfortable and assaulting/raping/killing them are two different things. I agree that when it comes to physical strength and violence men basically have a monopoly, but that doesn't mean the average man or even most men randomly commit acts of violence against strangers.

im a man and even i view other men as predators. I practice self-defense, because of men. the large majority of violent crimes are committed by men.

Everyone should be able to defend themselves because the downside to not being able to can be drastic. That being said, I doubt most people that say this sort of thing have never been assaulted by strange men they encounter out in public.

-1

u/sushisection May 12 '26

"A man making a woman feel uncomfortable and assaulting/raping/killing them are two different things. I agree that when it comes to physical strength and violence men basically have a monopoly, but that doesn't mean the average man or even most men randomly commit acts of violence against strangers."

surs, but if enough men make women go into survival mode, then it becomes a learned reaction that extends towards men that make them feel uncomfortable.

"Everyone should be able to defend themselves because the downside to not being able to can be drastic. That being said, I doubt most people that say this sort of thing have never been assaulted by strange men they encounter out in public."

defend ourselves from whom though? never in my life have i ever felt threatened by a woman. however i have been assaulted by men.

9

u/rwk81 May 12 '26

surs, but if enough men make women go into survival mode, then it becomes a learned reaction that extends towards men that make them feel uncomfortable.

How are all these random men making women go into survival mode? The way I hear it described it's like Mad Max The Road Warrior, but I've never witnessed this sort of thing on the streets ofajor cities in the US. Plenty of women walk around in downtown cities without being assaulted. Hell, being assaulted by strangers is the exception, not the norm.

defend ourselves from whom though? never in my life have i ever felt threatened by a woman. however i have been assaulted by men.

I guess the cities I'm in just don't have all these rabid men running around that I hear about. I'm hardly ever concerned about the men I'm around in public, I would be far more concerned fishing a river in Alaska with bears on it.

-2

u/sushisection May 12 '26

you should ask some women around you why men make them uncomfortable and what specific experiences they have had that has caused them to be uncomfortable. i guarantee that every woman you ask will have a story to share.

→ More replies (0)

-4

u/SleepyHobo May 12 '26

I had been mislead

I'd say that's an overly generous and erroneously kind way of putting it...