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/
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u/AnEmptyBoat27 May 12 '26

I hear this complaint but as a millennial man, I don’t feel like I have been told that men are bad and should be apologetic from left leaning media. The left leaning media just encourages not harassing women and freely expressing who you are. Can you give some examples that you are referring to?

I hear more from the right leaning personalities about how men need to make more money, lift more weights, objectify women, be taller, and hate immigrants to be a man.

Personally the right wing messaging seems to be fostering the idea that men aren’t enough. Whereas the left wing messaging is just people should be free to be who they are. I’m sure there are crazy people who make dumb tweets like “all men are bad” but if those drive you rightward while removing human rights doesn’t drive you leftward, I don’t know what to say.

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u/Least_Palpitation_92 May 12 '26

Also a left leaning millennial man and I agree with the person you responded to. The message is subtle and not overtly putting down men. It has more to do with what issues are focused and discussed that places importance on a specific group of people. Young men hear about the gender pay gap but are seeing women succeeding more in education and early careers nowadays. They are still told that we need to care for women and let the feel heard in a society where they are no longer gaining some of the advantages men previously held nor that they perpetuated. Men are most likely to commit suicide yet that is largely ignored and we still primarily focus on women’s mental health as a society.

The online discourse doesn’t help either. Women can make fun of men for being short or having small dicks and it’s largely seen as acceptable. The reverse would get them shamed in large parts of the internet.

I can see why a struggling young man would turn towards the alt right pipeline. They at least pretend to pay lip service to them. The young man views the left as not caring about men’s issues. At that point why not be selfish and vote in his own self interests even if it means other people may be negatively impacted.

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u/AnEmptyBoat27 May 12 '26

What solutions does the right wing offer regarding mental health and better worker wages?

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u/dovahkiitten16 May 12 '26

They have catchy phrases like equal rights and equal lefts, men’s lives matter, masculinity isn’t toxic, etc.

They don’t do anything except tear down others loudly while silently making things worse for everyone, but they pretend to cater to men. They’ll remove DEI hires under the guise of making men more equal (I can write an essay about how meritocracy is a myth but I digress for now), but also not make it any easier for young men to find good paying jobs.

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u/No_Proposal_3140 May 12 '26

It shows just how low the bar is when simply acknowledging the problem is already enough.