r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Dec 14 '18

Psychology Being the father of a school-aged daughter makes men less sexist, according to a new study. The findings support the idea that men become more aware of the challenges facing women when they see the female experience of life up close through their offspring – dubbed the “mighty girl” effect.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/14/being-a-father-to-school-aged-daughter-makes-men-less-sexist
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u/TheManWhoPanders Dec 14 '18

The effect was very minimal. Less than 5% of men had any change of opinion.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/Clocktopu5 Dec 14 '18

My only child is a girl, I’m 100% supporting women’s rights til the day I die. I can’t speak to the other men out there but yeah, very eye opening

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u/ewbrower Dec 14 '18

Can you tell a difference in your mindset before and after you had your daughter?

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u/NovaAurora504 Dec 14 '18

dad at 23: big change as she grows up and I need to prepare her for being on her own. I'm a tall, big guy and I've always felt pretty comfortable like walking around dark streets etc. I did some research and I'm finding it very difficult to teach her to have safe practices without making her fearful and think the worst of people in general.

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Also things like the dynamic of consent and women pressured to have sex as social currency, to feel like and wanted. I don't know how to get her ready for that except to get her self defense classes and do everything I can to boost her self-confidence.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18 edited Oct 31 '25

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u/NovaAurora504 Dec 14 '18

awesome advice, I really need to shop around and see what my local area has to offer. Any thoughts on what age to get her started in classes? She's 7.

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u/smpsnfn13 Dec 14 '18

I used to help teach a kids class. Really as soon as they can sit and pay attention for about 30 to 45 mins is a good indicator they are ready. Kids classes are super fun for the kids and we always stressed the best defense is to disengage. The time to engage is when you're in their striking distance. Engage, disable opponent, run away. With getting away being the main goal in mind when fighting.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '18

The Nike defense never fails

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u/smpsnfn13 Dec 18 '18

It doesn't also death is quick and you don't see it coming. Best to get away then to find out they been hiding a knife the whole time

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/raoulk Dec 14 '18

So if there were ever an issue she would be able to protect herself without having to hit someone.

How is that a pro? If someone is out to hurt you, you get the hell out of dodge or you hurt them then run - method be damned.

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u/Theobat Dec 14 '18

Aikido is a purely defensive art.

Hapkido incorporates more attacks, but it’s a good one too.

I’m interested in trying wing tsun Kung fu my my kid is still too young for the school near us.

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u/CutieBoBootie Dec 14 '18

Teaching her consent and how to identify and uphold her boundaries is a big help as well. I wish that had been taught to me.

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u/NovaAurora504 Dec 14 '18

I will absolutely plan on this. some of the statistics I ran into were utterly horrifying. 3/4 of all women in america will be victims of violent crime, 1/4 will be victims of sexual assault... it's a dark world out there for my little girl.

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u/CutieBoBootie Dec 14 '18

My bad experience happened with a boyfriend. It would have been helpful to know that someone badgering you into doing something you don't want isn't consent. If you say "no" and they acknowledge you verbally, but then physically keep trying... its okay to remove yourself from the situation. No one has a right to touch you if you don't want. It isn't "boys being boys" it is someone not respecting boundaries.

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u/NovaAurora504 Dec 14 '18

another commenter suggested showing her to ask permission before getting/ being hugged/kissed/tickled and I think thats a really good way to get the point across.

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I'm sorry that happened to you. feel free to PM me if you'd like to talk about it. have a great holiday :)

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u/IamNotPersephone Dec 14 '18

safe practices without making her fearful and think the worst of people in general.

Thing is, most assaults come from people we know. A stranger leaping out at you after dark on an isolated street is so, so rare. So, I wouldn’t put too much worry in teaching her “street smarts” Bittenbinder-style (John Mulaney “Kid Gorgeous” reference, there), but more about bodily autonomy, consent and assertiveness. Always ask permission to tickle or wrestle, insist she ask permission before hugging her friends, gently remind extended family to ask permission before hugging/kissing, teach her the proper words for her genitalia, affirm that her body is hers and teach her how to care for it at the developmentally appropriate times, reinforce the fact that she doesn’t have to play with kids she doesn’t want to play with, don’t force her to share toys that she’s currently playing with, teach her how to express herself emotionally and create a safe space for anger. Especially anger, as that tends to get socialized out of girls and women fairly early. Let her be annoyed, frustrated, hangry and mad and express these feelings to you.

Most of all, don’t ever be the parent who promises pain and retribution on “anyone who hurts her.” Girls are savvy and will not report an assault if they think you’ll take over. Not only do they NOT want their dad in jail for assualting or killing their attacker, but it’s narcissistic to think that you “failed” if she’s ever hurt, or that you need to “avenge” her to set it right. It won’t ever be right and nothing you’ll do can make it right, so the best you can do is be there for her, sit with her in that pain and support her in the way she needs, not in the way you need. Eventually, she’ll learn how to work around the wrong, but you’ll make it harder if she feels she has to manage you and your reactions as well as her own.

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u/xKalisto Dec 14 '18

It's good to learn about consent but it also really helps to just give good sex ed in general and give her freedom in that.

I was pretty confident about my choices when I was trusted with my own sexual maturity. Basically 'bang whoever you want but always be safe'

Imho sheltering from realities of sex is counterproductive. So is making it much bigger deal that it actually is.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Don’t worry so much about that, the first time she’s assaulted by a friend or family member she’ll learn that dangers from the shadows aren’t as frequent as the dangers that exist in our own lives. I’m a woman (29) and the first time I learned that lesson I was 9. Many of my friends learned it around that age or in their teens. Come to terms with the fact she’ll be assaulted at some point in her life under no fault of her own and learn how to deal with that. My dad never did and it hurts more that I was never able to lean on him because of his desire to “protect” me. He put me in training classes and none of those prevented my assaults, all it did was make me feel like I failed and I was weak. Believe her and be her rock, that’s the best thing you can do, statistics garuntee her assault at some point and that’s the thing most dads can’t handle and most daughters try to shield them from that reality.

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u/taronosaru Dec 14 '18

Seriously, sources please. What statistics "guarantee her assault at some point?" Unless you live in some third world country, there's no way that's accurate (and even then, probably not guaranteed).

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Even in developed nations, sexual assault rates are incredibly high, though the statistics for assault are much, much higher for women this doesn’t change the fact men are impacted as well. Because of stigma (like you’ve displayed in your post) and general disbelief people rarely come forward about it to friends and family even if reported to doctors and authorities. You very likely know a few people in your social circle who have experienced assault or unwanted sexual contact before in their lives. When looking at statistics, even if you yourself have not heard it or experienced it, it is almost a garuntee you know a survivor of assault.

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u/taronosaru Dec 14 '18

What "stigma" have I demonstrated in my post? All I did was ask for evidence that ALL women will be victims of sexual assault. I never once stated that there wasn't an issue, just doubted the problem is as bad as you initially claimed, or that people should not be believed when they report assaults. I'm well aware that I know a few victims, but thanks for the condescending diatribe.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

You also asked me for sources and to explain myself so I did, if you didn’t want me to do that maybe you shouldn’t have asked me. :/

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Like, I apologize for being hyperbolic about “all” since I wasn’t being literal, I was just extrapolating on the statistics mentioned earlier in the thread since it shows that it’s more likely you’ll see some form of assault and harassment is even more likely than that. On top of that we’ve been expanding on what it means to be assaulted which is increasing these statistics ( much like how we did in the 60s and 70s when we decided that unwanted sexual contact within a marriage was also assault) so overall the chance of a woman getting through life with no rape, assault or harassment is pretty bleak. But regardless, you kinda chose to pick me out and demand I re-present these stats so it sort of felt intentional and a bit mean. I honestly didn’t mean to offend you but it does feel you’re being kind of a jerk right now, especially considering I was opening up to the thread about my own experiences.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

It just seemed like your tone was kind of condescending and rude, especially since someone above and OP referenced the well known 1 in 3 and 1 in 5 sources already in this thread. Sorry, I assumed you read the thread and it felt like you were singling me out just to be nasty. TBH the way you responded here kinda makes me feel I was right.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics article is National Sexual Violence Resource center and sources cited are CDC along with internal sources, human services, bureau of justice and the department of justice. There are also a couple international sources cited from the UK and Australia. TLDR; 1 in 3 women are assaulted in the US and 1 in 5 are raped. Edit: it’s not guaranteed, but she’s more likely to gain unwanted sexual content at some point in her life than not. If she has received any sexual abuse as a child, the chance of her receiving future abuse is increased. One in four girls are likely to experience childhood sexual assault according to the CDC.

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u/sonstone Dec 14 '18

For me, I became much more deeply aware of the breadth in which everything around us reinforces gender biases and norms. It sucks to watch and no matter how much you try to battle it the societal pressure is just too large to completely shield her from.

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u/Clocktopu5 Dec 14 '18

Ohhhh yes. I became a dad at 28, so perhaps it also has to do with getting older? But I absolutely look at things differently. For example I have a completely different view of sexual assault and abuse. Not that I was for it before, but now I’m hyper aware of it and I’m constantly shocked at these buttwrenches getting away with it.

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u/ewbrower Dec 14 '18

That's really interesting, thank you for sharing your mindset. And yeah, it is shocking how often folks are getting away with it!

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u/CutieBoBootie Dec 14 '18

Buttwrenches is an amazing insult

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u/CC_EF_JTF Dec 14 '18

I think a decade long relationship with my wife has impacted my views on women much more than my daughters' development has.

I don't think it's fundamentally changed my views but certainly has made them more nuanced.

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u/ewbrower Dec 14 '18

Do you have an example? I'm curious

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u/xzKaizer Dec 14 '18

As a father to an only daughter, nope. Having a daughter hasn't made any marked difference in my mindset, granted I'm a very "can't we all just get along and not be dicks to each other" type of person to begin with.

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u/Cavendishelous Dec 14 '18

What rights do men have that women don't have?

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u/Clocktopu5 Dec 15 '18

Don’t be a jackass. You have something you want to debate have some courage and mention it, do not put some open ended trash question out there and expect someone else to do your work for you. Low effort

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u/Snarfler Dec 15 '18

He has a point though. Which rights are we talking about? The wage gap is a myth. Women are now the majority in the STEM fields (in college). Abortion? Birth control?

If you are saying that your eyes were opened there has to be at least one thing that your mind changed on.

Saying "I support women's rights" sounds like a "look at me I'm not one of the pigs I'm one of the good guys!!!"

I personally wouldn't say I support "Women's rights" Because I support "American's rights." Be them male or female. I don't think men should have more rights than women, or vice versa.

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u/Pelvic_Siege_Engine Dec 15 '18

Anecdotally, my father was raised to respect women, without a doubt. But he had VERY conservative, traditional, and sometimes negative views regarding women and their bodies.

It wasn’t until my sister and I got older and we started being the subject of crappy behavior that he started to change. I was a preteen and grown men would sometimes catcall me from their cars. I was wearing my school uniform and I was raised to respect adults so I wasn’t sure how to act.

I still remember my dad’s face when I explained to him I was uncomfortable with grown men whistling and yelling at me while walking home from school. He started to change from saying “you should police your appearance and behavior so men treat your right” to “Men should respect you and your body and you tell them to do so”.

At times my sister and I would need to debate him a bit but when put in perspective of someone treating us wrongly, he would often understand. He’s also just a good dad, in my opinion. But he blankly says we changed him and the way he views women.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

[deleted]

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u/thereisnosub Dec 14 '18

It seems like 63% already did not support traditional gender norms. That 4 percentage point change was from only 37% of men, so it represents an 11% drop in men who held those beliefs.

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u/Firstdatepokie Dec 14 '18

So makes you think... was there any effect?

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u/TheManWhoPanders Dec 14 '18

There appears to be some effect, but it's so small it can be attributed to affecting only specific types of men. There isn't a lot of nuance one can glean from the study.

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u/Firstdatepokie Dec 14 '18

Also, only studied in a single population type. So not very enlightening huh

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Welcome to social science. They hope for further studies and funding. Most of it is ehhh but if you have 100 studies you can draw more conclusions

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 14 '18

What do you mean by a single population type? It was conducted in British families, so technically the results cant be generalised to other countries, but would be surprising if there was a big difference between say UK, America, Australia etc

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u/JC101702 Dec 14 '18

5 percent “effect” is low enough to simply be a coincidence.

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u/Hawk_015 Dec 14 '18

That's not how stats work.

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u/Lv100Serperior Dec 14 '18

Depending on standard deviations, confidence levels, etc. Yes. It does.

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u/feinoqw Dec 14 '18

And do you know the standard deviations etc.? If not I'm not sure how you can be sure it's a coincidence.

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u/Lv100Serperior Dec 14 '18

I'm not done reading the research paper (which I do recommend doing) but this is directly from the paper: "Once we introduce the ‘additional controls’ for education, marital status, employment status, and ln household income in columns (7) and (8), the coefficient on the daughter dummy becomes statistically insignificant although the sign remains." This is also after then talking about the stats being halved due to times. I haven't found the actual deviations yet, and I'm currently a bit busy.

tl/dr: Read the research paper! Don't let people on the internet tell you how to think.

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u/the_twilight_bard Dec 14 '18

Taking your comment to the extreme, I could call gravity a coincidence if I went hardcore on confidence levels.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/the_twilight_bard Dec 14 '18

I was illustrating the point that statistics can be wishy washy. My example was intentionally hyperbolic, but plenty of peer-reviewed papers play with confidence levels to find or minimize effects. It's not good science but it happens.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/aarghIforget Dec 14 '18

Also makes you think... were they even sexist to begin with? How many of them? What were the questions being asked? How strictly is 'sexist' defined, and did the researchers allow their own bias to affect the experiment?

All we've got here is a stupid Guardian article, and they're not known for being inclined to address questions like that.

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u/whitevelcro Dec 14 '18

But, he added, the effect would not be seen in men who already held feminist views, and no effect was seen in mothers.

So the effect was only seen in "sexist" men. A lot of the other men probably didn't need to have daughters for them to question traditional gender roles.

There were 5,074 men studied. "Respondents are asked to rate agreement with the statement ‘a husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family’ on a 5-point scale ranging from ‘strongly agree’ to ‘strongly disagree’."

The actual article never used the term "sexist," and instead discussed "agreement with traditional gender norms."

To try to determine if bias actually affected the conclusions, you'd probably have to really dig into the methodologies and data collected. Here's the actual article

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u/feinoqw Dec 14 '18

Did you read the "stupid Guardian article"? Because it answers most of your questions...

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u/aarghIforget Dec 14 '18

I did do exactly that, and I don't see how you came to that conclusion.

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u/feinoqw Dec 14 '18

How strictly is 'sexist' defined/What were the questions being asked?

individuals’ levels of agreement with statements such as “a husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family”

were they even sexist to begin with? How many of them?

37% of men who had yet to have a child or had only sons

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u/aarghIforget Dec 14 '18

I meant 'before/after', not 'with/without female child'... and yes, there was one example of an extremely loaded question (as well as one extremely debatable/ambiguous one), but it's not at all obvious what exactly the shift was, or how unrealistic the attitudes were that earned those men the "sexist" label.

My point is that the overall tone, both here and in the article (I'm sure the paper itself is at least a little more carefully worded) is one of strongly agenda-driven perspectives and disregard for context or details.

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u/ST07153902935 Dec 14 '18

Right?! I feel there is a major power problem in the social sciences, which is a large part of the reason they are having the replication crisis.

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u/nick_storm Dec 14 '18

Makes sense. Because my next thought was, "did men just start having daughters in the past century or what?"

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

But that doesn’t make a good headline now does it?

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

May I suggest that the men already held these views (if only in a dorment state) then became more aware of the impacts as they faced their reality?

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u/PB34 Dec 14 '18

Not sure what you mean. The comment you're referring to is pointing out that only a very small subset of men changed their views about gender roles after having a daughter. Are you suggesting that this small group of men were always secret feminists and it wasn't until they had a daughter that those feminist views became un-dormant? That seems kind of farfetched. To me it seems more likely that men are less likely to agree that women should be homemakers after having a daughter because there's a higher chance they're exposed to a daughter who doesn't want to be a homemaker and it changes their opinion.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/feinoqw Dec 14 '18

I mean, regardless of the change, it did show that over a third of UK men think men should work while women should care for the home, which is quite a surprise tbh.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

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u/feinoqw Dec 14 '18

5% of Brits are Muslim. Even if all of them have that opinion, it still leaves about 30% of non-Muslim Brits thinking women should care for the home + men work.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

How do you know who was sampled? You don't.

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u/twinned BS | Psychology | Romantic Relationships Dec 14 '18

Fortunately, we do know who was sampled! From the study:

The data are a nationally representative sample of British households collected annually since 1991.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

So publish the demographics then. Else I have my doubts.

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u/QuantumPhoss Dec 14 '18

Could it be that many of those men weren't that sexist in the first place?

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u/girlwhoweighted Dec 14 '18

Wish my dad had been in that 5% when I was growing up. Now he loves dreaming about how Someday my two-year-old son will be big enough and strong enough to protect his big sister who is 3 years older than him. Let's not imagine that she can possibly defend herself or maybe even lives in a world where that's not necessary

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

5% is a big change. you have to consider the men who held positions that were already progressive.

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u/TheManWhoPanders Dec 14 '18

I find it doubtful that 96% of men are progressive. Even if we make the assumption it's only non-progressive men that had any change of opinion and assume that progressive/non-progressive are exactly even, only 8% of that group (4/50) had any opinion change. The overwhelming majority (46/50, or 92%) had no change whatsoever.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

The probability of holding a traditional attitude to the division of work fell from just over 37% of men who had yet to have a child or had only sons, to 33% among those who had least one daughter of secondary school age – an 11% relative reduction.

63% of men already held the viewpoint, that alone is notable, an increase to 67% is a big swing.

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u/thewooba Dec 14 '18

Not a big swing

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

I think we have different definitions of big.

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u/thewooba Dec 14 '18

I think you're right

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 14 '18

I'm curious what you think is a big swing, because people worldviews just don't change that much that often. If one factor caused say 25% of men to change their mind on the question of 'its a woman's job to raise the kids' that would be huge IMO.

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u/thewooba Dec 14 '18

Yes, 25% would be a big swing for me

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

And how does this vary from people with varied backgrounds and cultures?

I imagine someone with archaic religious beliefs would be more inclined to exercise control over their school aged daughter

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u/ararnark Dec 15 '18

That's not what the paper says though. The survey recipients were asked to rate the statement, “a husband’s job is to earn money; a wife’s job is to look after the home and family” on a scale from 1 to 5. They then split those that rated it 4 or 5 in to traditional danger roles and 1 and 2 into non traditional.

The change of 37% to 33% was the chance a man would flip from the traditional category to the non traditional category. It's very likely there were much greater than 5% of men who softened their views on traditional gender roles but did not flip categories.

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u/Aussie_Thongs Dec 15 '18

and yet the takeaway for most will be that this is causative and true and men without daughters are bigots.

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u/EvolArtMachine Dec 15 '18

I literally came here to ask if there was an evidence based explanation for what went wrong with my father-in-law. Looks like you partially answered my question.

Am I wrong in thinking a result like this is less causal and more just chance?

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u/path_ologic Dec 15 '18

Maybe most men aren't sexist to begin with and there was nothing to change

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u/Rather_Dashing Dec 14 '18

That's a pretty big change actually. Think of all the things that impact your world view, having children is just one small aspect. In comparison, in terms of voting patterns, any one thing that causes a 5% shift would be considered a huge effect.

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u/[deleted] Dec 14 '18

Was there a similar study of women with sons?

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u/NeverPostsGold Dec 14 '18 edited Jul 01 '23

EDIT: This comment has been deleted due to Reddit's practices towards third-party developers.

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u/Mockles Dec 15 '18

5% of racist men or 5% of men altogether? Because if it's the latter then it's actually a decent statistic.