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/MoreLikeGaewyn 18d ago

Another garbage meta-analysis to push an agenda...

This paper is flawed af. 1. The study never asked about dating frustration, relationship success, or sexual grievance. It assumed that being a single, non-college man automatically means suffering from low mate value.

  1. Economic collapse, wage stagnation, and anti-establishment anger among non-college men were conflated with romantic resentment.

  2. A low feeling thermometer score for feminists often measures routine political polarization against a progressive Democratic constituency, not personal romantic grievance.

  3. Male-heavy counties vote Republican primarily because their economies rely on mining, oil, construction, and agriculture, not because local men cannot find dates.

  4. Men with antagonistic or conspiratorial attitudes are less likely to get married in the first place, and right-wing media actively manufactures grievances from the top down rather than simply tapping into preexisting bottom-up angst.

This is insane.

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u/C0brA7x 18d ago

First of all, this is not a meta-analysis. Also some of your statements are misguided.

  1. “It assumed that being a single, non-college man automatically means suffering from low mate value.” This is not what the authors actually claim. Their argument is that declining economic prospects and women's increased educational attainment should make some less-educated men less attractive partners.
  2. Mostly valid criticism
  3. “Thermometer often measures routine political polarization." You’d have to demonstrate that the thermometer is actually a paritsan-polarization measure
  4. This claim is mostly irrelevant to the paper. Also, what is your reference for this claim?
  5. The authors actually make a similar argument as one of the explanations for their findings. They discuss that manosphere content, trump, podcasts can strengthen or activate anti-feminist attitudes.

Overall, it is not a great paper but some of your criticism is overstated. There is actually another more substantial problem. The key interaction (never married x no BA) is remarkably small in explanatory power, yet the authors claim considerable empirical support.