Do you think feminism has been a net positive or net negative for relationships?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:True feminism has been a positive.
The " feminism" of the last decade is a negative.

What do you mean by "the feminism of the last decade"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL, the person saying SAHPs are net negative to society is living in lalaland. Without them, the vast majority of powerful men would not accomplish a fraction of what they do. Powerful women often have to forgo having kids to fulfill their ambitions.

...so?

I don't consider having fully grown, capable adults, treated like dependents as a "net positive". Sorry you think infantilizing women is somehow a positive feature of society.

WTF does that mean?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how "feminism" is still an issue in 2025. I think everyone agrees that people should be treated equally in the professional world and you rise and fall according to your talents. I think that's pretty settled. And in personal life, a good man likes spending time with their kids, and is usually very happy to take them to practice and whatnot. Huge bonus points if he's a foodie and likes to cook.

Looking at my friend group, most met in grad school. They are very much partnerships among equals who have the same values and goals. Sure, the man may take on more traditional gender roles - fixing things, mowing the lawn, dealing with car maintenance etc. And I think men as a species are inclined to do laundry only as needed and will happily pull clothes out of the dryer. But with time in a relationship, everyone settles into their responsibilities in a way that works for both partners.

The trick is to marry the right person. In my little friend group, it's not uncommon for the woman to have the bigger, more stressful, and demanding job. So these couples adapt and make it work. Childhood and all the demands that go with it is temporary. So you roll with that situation for those few years and adjust - because you have larger goals and prioritize a happy relationship and a happy family.

I think it's generally understood that women have careers and ambition. And our society is not ideally suited to two working professionals with kids. But that's a "system" problem, and not a relationship problem. In the meantime, people adapt and make the best of it.

Values and goals is something that should be very settled before you marry someone. It's not that difficult to avoid marrying a useless man.

It's not an issue for the vast, vast majority of people in 2025. It is just a stupid false dichotomy argument by a trolling OP that allows other trolls to be openly sexist, allows a platform for more mommy wars (WOHM v SAHM), and allows anonymous know-it-alls to assert statistics and facts with no actual citations. It is a dumb post that shouldn't have gotten any responses, let alone 27 pages and counting.

100%

Jeff should have deleted this trash tread full of blatant misogyny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how "feminism" is still an issue in 2025. I think everyone agrees that people should be treated equally in the professional world and you rise and fall according to your talents. I think that's pretty settled. And in personal life, a good man likes spending time with their kids, and is usually very happy to take them to practice and whatnot. Huge bonus points if he's a foodie and likes to cook.

Looking at my friend group, most met in grad school. They are very much partnerships among equals who have the same values and goals. Sure, the man may take on more traditional gender roles - fixing things, mowing the lawn, dealing with car maintenance etc. And I think men as a species are inclined to do laundry only as needed and will happily pull clothes out of the dryer. But with time in a relationship, everyone settles into their responsibilities in a way that works for both partners.

The trick is to marry the right person. In my little friend group, it's not uncommon for the woman to have the bigger, more stressful, and demanding job. So these couples adapt and make it work. Childhood and all the demands that go with it is temporary. So you roll with that situation for those few years and adjust - because you have larger goals and prioritize a happy relationship and a happy family.

I think it's generally understood that women have careers and ambition. And our society is not ideally suited to two working professionals with kids. But that's a "system" problem, and not a relationship problem. In the meantime, people adapt and make the best of it.

Values and goals is something that should be very settled before you marry someone. It's not that difficult to avoid marrying a useless man.

It's not an issue for the vast, vast majority of people in 2025. It is just a stupid false dichotomy argument by a trolling OP that allows other trolls to be openly sexist, allows a platform for more mommy wars (WOHM v SAHM), and allows anonymous know-it-alls to assert statistics and facts with no actual citations. It is a dumb post that shouldn't have gotten any responses, let alone 27 pages and counting.

100%

Jeff should have deleted this trash tread full of blatant misogyny.

You mean misandry right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't understand how "feminism" is still an issue in 2025. I think everyone agrees that people should be treated equally in the professional world and you rise and fall according to your talents. I think that's pretty settled. And in personal life, a good man likes spending time with their kids, and is usually very happy to take them to practice and whatnot. Huge bonus points if he's a foodie and likes to cook.

Looking at my friend group, most met in grad school. They are very much partnerships among equals who have the same values and goals. Sure, the man may take on more traditional gender roles - fixing things, mowing the lawn, dealing with car maintenance etc. And I think men as a species are inclined to do laundry only as needed and will happily pull clothes out of the dryer. But with time in a relationship, everyone settles into their responsibilities in a way that works for both partners.

The trick is to marry the right person. In my little friend group, it's not uncommon for the woman to have the bigger, more stressful, and demanding job. So these couples adapt and make it work. Childhood and all the demands that go with it is temporary. So you roll with that situation for those few years and adjust - because you have larger goals and prioritize a happy relationship and a happy family.

I think it's generally understood that women have careers and ambition. And our society is not ideally suited to two working professionals with kids. But that's a "system" problem, and not a relationship problem. In the meantime, people adapt and make the best of it.

Values and goals is something that should be very settled before you marry someone. It's not that difficult to avoid marrying a useless man.

It's not an issue for the vast, vast majority of people in 2025. It is just a stupid false dichotomy argument by a trolling OP that allows other trolls to be openly sexist, allows a platform for more mommy wars (WOHM v SAHM), and allows anonymous know-it-alls to assert statistics and facts with no actual citations. It is a dumb post that shouldn't have gotten any responses, let alone 27 pages and counting.

100%

Jeff should have deleted this trash tread full of blatant misogyny.

You mean misandry right?

DP. NO!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re have been studies that the unhappiest people in society are moms and wives, which is probably why people don’t rush to do it.
Also, it’s why when a relationship breaks up, women are normally happier and most don’t want to get married again.

False. Recent research consistently finds married mothers happier than single women

https://ifstudies.org/press-release/married-moms-twice-as-likely-to-be-very-happy-than-single-or-childless-women

https://slate.com/life/2025/08/happiness-marriage-rates-women-taylor-swift-engagement.html

DP. I am a social scientist whose research focuses on this area, namely the impact of marriage, gestation, childbirth, and fecundity on various measures of women's quality of life. The two studies you have presented are not remotely representative of what research shows in this area. Perhaps the tide is turning and I do hope that things are changing, but the overwhelming wealth of evidence across dozens of nations over multiple decades (even before the feminist revolution and in societies that have not had a feminist revolution) shows that marriage is corrosive to women's subjective happiness and has a marked negative impact on numerous objective measures of mental health, physical health, productivity, life expectancy, and longevity.

Child bearing is actually positively correlated to increased life expectancy and longevity when teased apart from marriage (although it's not clear if this might be because healthier women are also more likely to be fertile, as opposed to fertility making women healthier), but child bearing has long been the single biggest predictor of poverty in old age for women.

I have no horse in this race, so please don't attack me. It's worth noting that virtually all of this research was done by male researchers who actually wanted to prove that marriage and child bearing are best for women and whose funding invariably comes from governments and nonprofits that seek to promote marriage and childbearing. But the data has been unambiguous no matter how researchers have tinkered with variables.
Researchers have continued finding that marriage and child bearing--especially marriage--have significant and persistent negative ramifications for women, even as men benefit tremendously when rates of marriage and child bearing are high.

Isn't this type of bias attributable to so much of social science research?

PP here. Yes, that is true. The public is increasingly aware of this, but perhaps not aware enough. To be clear, it's not that researchers are actually paid to find certain conclusions or that grants are expressly tied to certain findings. It's more that they are given funding and during informal discussions, the leaning of the grantor/grantor-entity is made clear, as is the likelihood that continued funding might dry up if their findings undermine the grantor's leaning. The pressure is more implicit and tied to a desire to continue receiving funding because your entire career rises and falls on funding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re have been studies that the unhappiest people in society are moms and wives, which is probably why people don’t rush to do it.
Also, it’s why when a relationship breaks up, women are normally happier and most don’t want to get married again.

False. Recent research consistently finds married mothers happier than single women

https://ifstudies.org/press-release/married-moms-twice-as-likely-to-be-very-happy-than-single-or-childless-women

https://slate.com/life/2025/08/happiness-marriage-rates-women-taylor-swift-engagement.html

DP. I am a social scientist whose research focuses on this area, namely the impact of marriage, gestation, childbirth, and fecundity on various measures of women's quality of life. The two studies you have presented are not remotely representative of what research shows in this area. Perhaps the tide is turning and I do hope that things are changing, but the overwhelming wealth of evidence across dozens of nations over multiple decades (even before the feminist revolution and in societies that have not had a feminist revolution) shows that marriage is corrosive to women's subjective happiness and has a marked negative impact on numerous objective measures of mental health, physical health, productivity, life expectancy, and longevity.

Child bearing is actually positively correlated to increased life expectancy and longevity when teased apart from marriage (although it's not clear if this might be because healthier women are also more likely to be fertile, as opposed to fertility making women healthier), but child bearing has long been the single biggest predictor of poverty in old age for women.

I have no horse in this race, so please don't attack me. It's worth noting that virtually all of this research was done by male researchers who actually wanted to prove that marriage and child bearing are best for women and whose funding invariably comes from governments and nonprofits that seek to promote marriage and childbearing. But the data has been unambiguous no matter how researchers have tinkered with variables.
Researchers have continued finding that marriage and child bearing--especially marriage--have significant and persistent negative ramifications for women, even as men benefit tremendously when rates of marriage and child bearing are high.

Isn't this type of bias attributable to so much of social science research?

PP here. Yes, that is true. The public is increasingly aware of this, but perhaps not aware enough. To be clear, it's not that researchers are actually paid to find certain conclusions or that grants are expressly tied to certain findings. It's more that they are given funding and during informal discussions, the leaning of the grantor/grantor-entity is made clear, as is the likelihood that continued funding might dry up if their findings undermine the grantor's leaning. The pressure is more implicit and tied to a desire to continue receiving funding because your entire career rises and falls on funding.

Interesting. Thanks for sharing your insights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think there are some positives, but I worry it’s pushed women to prioritize careers over marriage and children.

That's what society is pushing them to do. Companies need workers, men need earning partners and ultra feminist want to party so women are getting pulled in all directions.

It is obvious that the capitalist society benefits from having women in the workforce in greater numbers. It increases the number of workers, which pushes down wages and increases output. It increases household income, which gives both the means and motive to consume more. It disproportionately helps highly educated women from wealthy families. Companies realized that this would be a huge boost to the bottom line during WW2, and the societal changes started shortly thereafter. It is good that women got more agency over their own lives, but nothing was done to make sure that families didn't suffer from less parental involvement in children's lives, fewer people caring for their own elderly relatives, and fewer people involved in local community efforts. We might argue that this is a net good to society, but to ignore the downsides is really dumb.

That’s not true in families where fathers expected to play an equal role in their children’s lives. You’re also forgetting that the era of intense parenting is recent— modern parents spend more time with their children, not less. As a result of feminism, men spent more than twice as much time with their children in 2010 than 1965. Sounds like feminism may have helped fatherhood quite a bit.

I do think it is helped fatherhood in that sense--men (who are present in a family) do spend more time with their children. That's probably a good thing, although somewhat at odds with the increase in divorce, which has meant that some men spend much less time with their children. But it is true that parents overall spend less time with their children from infancy into early childhood. I don't know that all of the driving to travel soccer makes up for that early deficit.

This isn’t true and it’s been studied extensively. WaPo has the graphic if you search, in 1965 women averaged weekly 10.5 hours with their kids, men 2.6. By 2010 women spent on average 13.7 hours with their kids and men 7.2. Feminism has increased parental attention on kids, not eroded it.

I can't find it searching for that. Is it the Pew study? Regardless, that doesn't make sense. How would a woman who is home with a infant or preschool aged child only spend 10.5 hours with the kid? And it is clear that the percentage of stay at home parents (mothers, really) went from about half in the 1960s to about a quarter by the end of the 1990s. So how would the hours spent on childcare by women also go up significantly during that period. I know a lot of those time studies are self-reported, and I would highly question the results. (I also know, for example, that the same Pew study says that men work more hours than women when counting both work in the home and at outside jobs.)

DP. Time use studies are self reported, but they're usually considered reliable because you actually have to account for every hour in the day. I'm not sure why the fact that men report working more hours than women would contradict that.

Anyway the answer to your question is at least partially that the time use data is for your primary activity. A lot of the stay at home mom time is probably spent doing housework as a primary activity with childcare as a secondary activity. Kids are much more closely supervised today so more time is spent with childcare being the primary activity.

I'm not exactly sure how much of the change of "feminism" exactly though. If you look at the numbers women were spending less time on childcare until the late 90s when it spiked upwards again. That shift towards intensive parenting, which I think is at the root of a lot of dissatisfaction with work/life balance, seems independent of feminism.

I'm not sure the change is feminism either, but it seems like a lot of the change would be the steep decline in the number of households with a stay at home parent. I'm not sure feminism as such is the cause of that, and I think it is obviously a very good thing that women have equal access to employment outside of the house. I just don't think the decline of stay at home parenting (of whatever gender) is a net good for society.

If we reimbursed SAHP’s to prevent their abuse I’d agree. But since they’re dependents, I consider SAHP’s (of either gender) a net negative for society. If we started a federal program to support them, and/or when SAHP’s have wealth independent of the marriage, they can play a positive role.

SAHPs do important work. Not only do they provide work that would otherwise need to be paid for, but a good SAHP can provide all sorts of other important things for children that is not traditionally paid labor (socialization, moral guidance, love). So bizarre that you'd consider SAHPs a net negative. But yes, agree that some support for SAHPs would be great. And to be clear, I'm not one, but I think society would be better off with more of them.

I agree with you about the potential benefits, but I do not believe those outweigh having adults be dependent, and therefore so vulnerable to abuse. If the US woke up and did some sort of support, socially for SAHP, I would feel differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:True feminism has been a positive.
The " feminism" of the last decade is a negative.

What do you mean by "the feminism of the last decade"?

The everything is mens fault brand of feminism,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:True feminism has been a positive.
The " feminism" of the last decade is a negative.

What do you mean by "the feminism of the last decade"?

The everything is mens fault brand of feminism,

For example?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They’re have been studies that the unhappiest people in society are moms and wives, which is probably why people don’t rush to do it.
Also, it’s why when a relationship breaks up, women are normally happier and most don’t want to get married again.

False. Recent research consistently finds married mothers happier than single women

https://ifstudies.org/press-release/married-moms-twice-as-likely-to-be-very-happy-than-single-or-childless-women

https://slate.com/life/2025/08/happiness-marriage-rates-women-taylor-swift-engagement.html

DP. I am a social scientist whose research focuses on this area, namely the impact of marriage, gestation, childbirth, and fecundity on various measures of women's quality of life. The two studies you have presented are not remotely representative of what research shows in this area. Perhaps the tide is turning and I do hope that things are changing, but the overwhelming wealth of evidence across dozens of nations over multiple decades (even before the feminist revolution and in societies that have not had a feminist revolution) shows that marriage is corrosive to women's subjective happiness and has a marked negative impact on numerous objective measures of mental health, physical health, productivity, life expectancy, and longevity.

Child bearing is actually positively correlated to increased life expectancy and longevity when teased apart from marriage (although it's not clear if this might be because healthier women are also more likely to be fertile, as opposed to fertility making women healthier), but child bearing has long been the single biggest predictor of poverty in old age for women.

I have no horse in this race, so please don't attack me. It's worth noting that virtually all of this research was done by male researchers who actually wanted to prove that marriage and child bearing are best for women and whose funding invariably comes from governments and nonprofits that seek to promote marriage and childbearing. But the data has been unambiguous no matter how researchers have tinkered with variables.
Researchers have continued finding that marriage and child bearing--especially marriage--have significant and persistent negative ramifications for women, even as men benefit tremendously when rates of marriage and child bearing are high.

Isn't this type of bias attributable to so much of social science research?

PP here. Yes, that is true. The public is increasingly aware of this, but perhaps not aware enough. To be clear, it's not that researchers are actually paid to find certain conclusions or that grants are expressly tied to certain findings. It's more that they are given funding and during informal discussions, the leaning of the grantor/grantor-entity is made clear, as is the likelihood that continued funding might dry up if their findings undermine the grantor's leaning. The pressure is more implicit and tied to a desire to continue receiving funding because your entire career rises and falls on funding.

Yep. Just one of the reasons why all studies in the last two decades are suspect at best and downright propaganda for big-government fascist-socialists usually.

PP here. It has been the reality for much more than two decades that the grantor exerts significant influence over the research (in terms of, for instance, methodology, which findings are explored versus tabled, which potential explanations make it to the discussion section versus remain unstated etc.). Until America institutes a public funding approach, which will never happen, it will remain the case that he who pays the piper will not so much dictate the tune, but rather will find that the piper's tastes "organically" and "unconsciously" begin to resemble his own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think there are some positives, but I worry it’s pushed women to prioritize careers over marriage and children.

Net positive.

In my life I have prioritized whatever I needed to or felt like prioritizing. Kids, husband, parents/ILs, career, education, health, money, stability - all of this was possible because I had choices and I had free will. Thanks to feminism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL, the person saying SAHPs are net negative to society is living in lalaland. Without them, the vast majority of powerful men would not accomplish a fraction of what they do. Powerful women often have to forgo having kids to fulfill their ambitions.

...so?

I don't consider having fully grown, capable adults, treated like dependents as a "net positive". Sorry you think infantilizing women is somehow a positive feature of society.

NP here. I am absolutely ok not working for pay, and I am more than ok for getting years of college education and using it only to guide my own kids and create/find opportunities for them, and I freely pay for other people's time to outsorce domestic work.

- SAHM in high HHI family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:True feminism has been a positive.
The " feminism" of the last decade is a negative.

What do you mean by "the feminism of the last decade"?

The everything is mens fault brand of feminism,

I fault the influence of postmodernist thought for a lot of this. It leads away from a quest for equality and toward a focus on power struggles. Less collaboration, more antagonism among everyone concerned.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:True feminism has been a positive.
The " feminism" of the last decade is a negative.

What do you mean by "the feminism of the last decade"?

The everything is mens fault brand of feminism,

Come back when your gripes make into policy or law.