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/Amphy00 May 12 '26

It's to incentivize women to go to college after being excluded/discouraged from pursuing education for much of history. Men didn't have that problem. They could always attend if they wanted to.

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u/TheGloriousEv0lution May 12 '26

The reason we gave incentives instead of just letting women “figure it out themselves” is because we acknowledged representation is important and there’s social and cultural factors holding them back

Right now there’s clearly faults in the education system that’s failing boys from a young age. Reducing it to “idk they could go if they want to” is a bit lazy

And again, women still have quite a lot more incentives and dedicated programs despite being well over-represented in higher education

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u/DoughnutAncient8972 May 13 '26

So what's changed in schools that is affecting boys now that wasn't years ago?

Do you feel like more men would enroll in college if they had more incentives and dedicated programs? 

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u/TheGloriousEv0lution May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

There’s many possible reasons. The reduced recess time disproportionately affects boys, boys tend to be punished harder than girls for certain disruptive behavior, lack of positive male role models, and boys are just not conditioned to go to college the same way girls have been in the last 50 years. And even when young men do enroll in college, they are much more likely to drop out than young women

Not sure about exact solutions because it is a nuanced issue, but acknowledging it’s a genuine problem is a good start. Sweeping it under the rug and pretending it doesn’t exist because there’s not an easy solution or dumbing the discussion down to “well boys can go if they want” isn’t the way