A new King’s Cross College London study, which surveyed almost 20,000 people across 31 countries, exposed Gen Z’s “woke” culture on gender equality as being less progressive than initially thought.
The study questioned adults, both male and female, who have access to the internet and were between the ages of 18 and 74.
While the majority of respondents, belonging to either the Baby-Boomer, Gen X, Millennial or Gen Z age group, recognised that male allyship is essential to achieve global equality between the sexes, just 39 per cent of the respondents said that they were feminists – up from 33 per cent recorded in 2019.
More than half, 52 per cent, of people said that they think men are expected to do too much to promote gender equality.
Despite researchers predicting a difference in opinion between the older and younger generations, when asked if they agreed with the statement “a man who stays home to look after his children is less of a man,” there was an 11 per cent gap in the opinion between Gen Z respondents.
Regarding the statement, linked to whether the respondents feel that women’s equality discriminates against men, a staggering 20 per cent of Gen Z females and 30 per cent of Gen Z males agreed with the statement.
Just 10 per cent of Baby-Boomer females and 11 per cent of Baby-Boomer males agreed, highlighting a similar mindset among those between 60 and 78 years old.
The report also revealed that, while Gen Z is considered one of the most “woke” generations since the New Left launched in the 1960s, a staggering 57 per cent of the youngsters said that their country had gone far enough with the fight for gender equality.
The study exposed another difference in opinion among Gen Z.
After being questioned on whether the call for gender equality has gone so far that it discriminates against men, 60 per cent of Gen Z males agreed, compared to 40 per cent of Gen Z females.
In response to the findings, Ipsos Researcher Corina Nawroth urged: “We’ve got a long road ahead to truly understand and accept gender equality.”
Nawroth noted that considering two in three people agreed that men need to step up for women to achieve absolute equality, there is a “silver lining” to the report.
“We’ve got a long road ahead to truly understand and accept gender equality across all generations,” the researcher explained, adding: “We need to keep the chat going, bust those stereotypes, and rally everyone for a more equitable world.”
“Let’s strive for a world where the gender of our leaders in both politics and business doesn’t matter, where men and women are equally good at defending national security, getting the economy back on track, and fighting crime.”
Regarding the respondents who felt that feminism discriminated against men, Nawroth said: “Let’s work towards a world where equality for one doesn’t feel like discrimination to another.”
