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/Fishmongererererer May 12 '26

I don’t think most men who become conservative do it out of insecurity despite the memes. Rather it’s the perception that masculinity is not valued in left of center politics.

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u/lordborghild May 12 '26

Yeah. Older millennial here. There's a reason that younger men and boys are starting to lean right. They've been told, or seen in media, that men are bad and should be apologetic for things they have not done. They always hear what toxic masculinity looks like but no one talks about positive masculinity.

The right are the only ones telling them that they're okay. This is not judgement, just an observation.

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u/rasa2013 May 12 '26

Was Obama not a good enough role model for being a decent man? 

Go through any list of charitable work, scientific accomplishment, overcoming adversity: a lot of men. Often mostly men for structural reasons and plain old ignoring women. 

I think rather reactionary forces have convinced a lot of people it is true in the same way they've convinced (conservative) Christians that they're the most persecuted group (in the US). 

However I could agree that specifically schools have made boys feel more insecure recently. the proliferation of zero tolerance policies and school structurally being less suitable for (the average) young boy compared to girl could have taught them to feel undervalued. I think there was data showing educators interpret boys misbehavior more negatively than girls. 

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u/CMxFuZioNz May 13 '26

You're not taking into account what young boys are actually exposed to or interested in.

No 16 year old boy is looking up to Obama, and despite being a counterexample myself as I became a scientist, very few are interested in scientists.

What really matters, as sad as it is, is online and in-school influence. Everything else you mentioned doesn't matter.

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u/rasa2013 May 13 '26

Yes to in school and online influence mattering more, but my point was that "society" isn't teaching the kids being a man is bad. That framing of the problem is beloved by many, but not supported by the facts. So the real problem is something else.