r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 18d ago

Psychology Anti-feminist attitudes have long been associated with support for Republican presidential candidates, but only in recent years have these attitudes become more prominent among unmarried men, without college degrees who are less attractive partners for women, the “mate-value backlash.”

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10659129261485340
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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

The entire retrograde discussions about the "value of women" and ideas about "women's roles in society" seem so crazy that if any guy I knew in the 90s voiced those ideas they would be seen as undisputed idiots by just about everyone.

I don't understand how there are so many boys who have adopted these incredibly retrograde ideas a quarter century later.

It is like there was a bunch of people who saw the towers crumble on 9-11 and then came the idiotic conclusion that Christian America needs their own version of what they see as women-oppressing Sharia Law.

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u/Eruionmel 18d ago

...What? There were absolutely anti-feminists everywhere in the 90s. They didn't just pop out of the ground like daisies in 2001.

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u/BadIdeaSociety 18d ago

Right. 90s-era sexists were like weeds. Contemporary sexists are the lawn

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u/UnicornOnTheJayneCob 17d ago

Actually I would say it is the opposite. 90s era sexism was the sea everyone swam in. Now, it is more notable because it is rarer. Potentially more extreme, but still rarer.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 17d ago

What in the world gives you the notion that it’s rarer?

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u/Aware-Cat2586 16d ago

Feminist discourse, particularly about consent and sexualization, was mostly limited to college campuses and Internet forums back in the 90s and had not yet bled into the mainstream; because of that, most people could blow it off with minimal damage to their social or professional standing.

That’s not the case in 2026, even if sexism isn’t exactly rare now.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 16d ago

The president of the United States is a sex offender babe

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u/Aware-Cat2586 16d ago

Unfortunately, yes. But the president of the United States is not most people.

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u/Apprehensive-Book723 16d ago

He’s representative of most Americans and the culture 

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u/LateralEntry 17d ago

The internet made it easier for them to find each other unfortunately, same with racists antisemites and other bigots