The 5th grade year was a day trip to a laboratory. Upon entering and seeing the people in white coats in front of the test tubes, a child exclaimed, Ah, but do men also investigate? Someone must have explained to her that yes, it is above all men who do research and the teacher was able to think proudly that so many years dedicated at school to making female scientists visible were finally giving results. We do not know if boys and girls experience a similar clash between the school ecosystem and what is outside when they realize that the exercise of authority, mastery of the subject, order, partying and hugs does not work in everything. of the feminine universe. But at least we trust that so many years of socialization in values, equality, respect and social justice will help future generations build a better society.
That is why we are so perplexed when all recent surveys on politics, gender and feminism seem to point to a majority rejection of feminism by young men and the recognition of inequality between the sexes, which is also linked to a growing ideological gap between and the young ones, with the former increasingly leaning to the right. Is this evidence relevant? Without a doubt, yes. They measure distrust, resentment and denial of the most important advance in democratic societies of the entire 20th century. Modern sexism seems to be a widespread and rising trend and we care about it as it becomes ammunition skillfully wielded by far-right forces. It is also a significant component of the
backlash
risk
of liberal democracies. But precisely for this reason, simplified readings and hasty conclusions are dangerous, something that frequently happens when the topic quickly becomes part of a certain media and political discursive artillery without it being entirely easy to glimpse its purpose beyond the noise that generate.
In my opinion, three important considerations can be made. Firstly, if we want to understand where younger generations stand in relation to equality, we need to look at attitudes as well as discourses. Egalitarian values are clearly dominant among young men. In the recent CIS survey, only 19% think that motherhood is the greatest satisfaction a woman can have, while half of those over 65 think it is. Almost all of the young people surveyed (97%) approve of a man taking 16 weeks paternity leave. That is, they accept what has been one of the most important social policies in recent years. Other questions related to equality in employment or opportunities in other areas of life give similar answers. Ours is a society that has left behind in a very short space of time the acceptance of gender stereotypes typical of a traditional society.
Secondly, precisely because younger generations have grown up in a more egalitarian environment, they perceive less inequality. More than a denial, it is the confirmation of progress. Thirdly, and this is the most difficult to recognize insofar as it challenges us as a society, the growing discontent with feminist discourse could be an expression of a broader failure, a more general anger. It is contradictory to concentrate so many expectations of change on youth and then not be able to offer a minimum horizon of emancipation. The age of leaving the parental home in Spain exceeds 30 years. This is 4 years later than the average of the 27 EU countries and 7 years after countries like Germany or France. We may think that this has nothing to do with feminism, but distrust in institutions, including their discourses and policies, does not always have such linear manifestations. Dropping out of school, another social problem that we lead in Europe, affects 16.5% of children and has a direct impact on their most immediate life opportunities. For some time now we have had empirical evidence that points to important biases in education that especially harm boys and especially if they are of migrant and working class origin.
It is very difficult to establish a causal relationship between these phenomena, but we should make an effort to connect the dots. The gap between how much we ask and how little we give is considerable. That a pensioner understands the usefulness of paying taxes more than a 20-year-old kid, rather than a sign of the latter's right-wing attitude, seems a logical consequence of how we have set up our Welfare State. We want young people who believe in and practice equality from the most intimate relationships; We want them to not normalize or reproduce spaces of male privilege and for that we have to start early, but the true political will for change requires perseverance and coherence.
Margarita León
is a professor of Political Science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Keep reading
I am already a subscriber
_