Sadly, I see this in university classes year after year. My male students often report feeling bewildered and silenced by their female peers' relative intolerance, but only in confidence to me (their female professor).
It might be a hot take but I feel like a lot of left leaning or even slightly liberal guys are more in favour of free speech at college campuses than they might lead on in public to not upset girlfriends, wives or potential romantic partners.
In private? I’ve see a ton of guys admit they might agree with more controversial takes on political issues but they don’t want to say it in public. I’m a dude in college right now and I’ve felt the same and seen other young guys my age do it too.
Also, curious, what subject do you teach in? Is it a humanities subject?
Not to make assumptions based on your name, but some of the most disillusioned, confused guys willing to talk this way are non-white/not of European ancestry. I teach in health sciences—and one where these conversations are relevant.
It’s interesting to see that men who identify as being liberal or just even slightly democrat are still as in favour or just as likely to be free speech advocates as much as conservative women. It seems like democrat men appear to be more progressive to appease democrat women, not because they actually believe it. Like in these studies when these guys are asked in private what they actually think with no judgement, they tend to be more free speech absolutist than they lead on in public.
Also, it should be super concerning that women are more censorious of their own side, a lot of the purity testing you see on both sides of the political aisle are what’s destroying American politics.
My dad used to say his dad told him that men were better at getting along with each other than women were because they grew up having to be able to get together enough guys for a pickup baseball game, while women in that era didn't have that formative experience. At this point, though, I don't know how many kids of any gender are playing pickup sports games.
In terms of women feeling compelled to suppress offensive speech, I think women have a nurturing instinct, and sometimes we don't know when or how to turn it off. It can be painful for us when we believe, rightly or wrongly, that controversial speech is somehow putting a vulnerable victim in peril.
A more sparse explanation that doesn’t need theories of gendered minds is that hostility to or tolerance of counter-zeitgeist speech follows from wherever a particular demographic is positioned wrt a culture’s power dynamics. Since the left generally, and females in particular, have been in charge of western culture -
publishing, academia, education generally, showbiz, msm, the electorate, dei - for 30 or 40 years, it makes sense for left and female to be more pro-conformism than right and male.
Theories of gendered minds are well-substantiated and should not be avoided. As James Damore correctly explained in his infamous memo… for which he was of course canceled, thereby proving his point and the point articulated in this article.
That may or may not be true. There may, or may not, be gendered minds. I may believe there are, or not believe there are. But my comment was not about any of that: it was simply the remark that the observed left/right male/female attitudes to conformism can also be explained prosaically just by noticing who is in charge: left/right, and male/female.
Needs fewer priors, more available to observation, and is more illuminating. Hence, I think, more useful, and persuasive to others, than theory of mind explanations.
James Damore being cancelled is not evidence against it, of course.
Education. Single parent families. The welfare state. Mass media. Abortion law. Divorce law. Alimony law. Employment law. The dating market. Priority of breast/cervical cancer research over say testicular/prostate cancer research. Indifference to male MH and socialisation issues.
In every one of these domains, for 50 years, the direction of travel has been away from satisfying male wants and towards satisfying female wants.
I am not arguing here it’s gone too far, or wasn’t addressing prior imbalances, or these aren’t Good Things, or they
shouldn’t have happened. I’m just positing that this is the direction a society run by and for women would move, and not how a society run by and for men would move.
Really interesting read! I do think the “3.5 times more tolerant” stat sounds bigger than it is since both numbers are pretty small. Seems like the bigger takeaway is that most people aren’t very tolerant overall, no matter the group.
Yes, I wish the males were more tolerant, but since the numbers aren’t all down in the sub 15% range, “3.5 times more tolerant” is a pretty f-ing big deal.
It is sexist of you to publish this piece claiming that women are more censorious than men!
You don’t have the lived experience of women, especially LGBTQ++ women or women of color, to be able to make a truthful claim here.
The fact that you consider gender a *binary* and only plot two choices confirms your unacceptable bias here (and you did indeed refer to these as genders, not sexes. For shame, for shame…).
.
.
.
[But I guess for those of us curious about reality and supportive of free speech that it’s a good thing that FIRE was founded by and led by men…]
If a child is abandoned by a parent it is most likely to be by the father.
Perhaps females of every species are more attuned to danger than males are for this reason. And people with views that challenge us are innately perceived as more "dangerous."
Not surprising. I, a lifelong liberal, now find myself quite distrustful of liberals overall. I find them disloyal. That's a blanket statement, because it's the wokes that drove this, but the mindvirus induced good liberals to succumb. I have ex-friends I've known for years who are exes not because I defriended them, but because they defriended me. I'm looking for a long-term partner and have begun to think maybe I would be better off with a conservative man (not *too conservative, I would not be compatible with a Trump fan) because they'll be less likely to blow off a budding relationship over some stupid political point.
I suspect it depends in part on what you mean by other side. Men against men, no problem, you know what you are up against. Anybody against women, totally terrifying.
This doesn't surprise me. Perhaps for the same reasons that I tend to gravitate toward males in conversation (and friendship) over women — men tend to not engage in drama and let things go.
I’m not clear on whether this was intentional or not, but this reads as biased to me. Your interpretation seems to focus heavily on making a moral judgment about women when the study itself frames intolerance and free speech issues in a much broader context, with gender being a small factor to overall scores. There’s evidence in both your chart and sources that the main instances where women opposed free speech is when that speech was harmful and hateful towards a certain oppressed group. The top three most controversial topics were: abortion should be illegal, trans people are mentally ill and Black Lives Matter is a hate group. The gap is wider in these categories than other controversial topics. I’m not disputing that the gender gap is factual, but it doesn’t seem like a balanced analysis to claim that women blankety resort to censorship and you’re applying these conclusions broadly outside the article. Your own source states: “Factor analysis showed that most of the variance could be explained by a cluster that we have labeled “Politically Correct Puritanism”: support for censoring racist and sexist materials and depictions of sexual violence.. “ - aka women are more likely to support censorship surrounding racist and gender based violence not every form of free speech.
Another glaring oversight in your analysis is claiming we can “rule out” the fact that women’s proximity to certain issues isn’t a factor, just because abortion didn’t have the widest gap. Race and sexual identity are always intertwined with the women’s issues, because women are disproportionately affected by prejudice in those groups. I’m not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that women’s opposition to hate speech can’t be tied to their own oppression, maybe this is easier to miss if you haven’t been part of a group whose rights are regularly debated by politicians.
In a very roundabout way, this reads like being more censorial is a kind of personality failing and not a moral response to speech that argues against the dignity of the oppressed, especially in today’s climate where the temperature of these speeches are becoming more and more extreme. As a result, this article is being completely misrepresented on social media, which is how I got here, men are using it as more evidence that “women are too emotional”, because the context of what women are reacting to is being downplayed. It seems that a few of your commenters interpreted it that way as well. Obviously you aren’t 100% responsible for other people’s interpretations and you do very briefly allude to women wanting to protect others from emotional discomfort at the end, but the prejudice really comes through in the last few paragraphs.
Not all discourse is equal, and what you’re calling intolerance is actually context specific moral issues. Asking questions like “what can these universities do to help these misguided women who hate free speech?”, is very shortsighted and seems intentionally vague. The intolerance score was based on much more than the gender gap and did not make conclusions about which gender has better critical thinking skills or who is more virtuous.
A truer statement is really that women are more likely to disallow harmful hate speech and your own sources support that. Many people would argue that tolerance has limits, and allowing hate speech is counterintuitive to an actual tolerant society. Saying not allowing certain speakers on campus is equal censorship to others forms of speech implies that- all forms of speech carry equal weight and there is no difference between protecting people and suppressing harmful ideas. Clearly an issue of divergent philosophies, but certainty not evidence women are the least tolerant gender politically, I think we’d need a few more inputs to make that claim. Titling this “Men are more tolerant of the other side than women are of their own”- is hyperbolic disguised as astute. Thats why it’s being picked up by misogynistic influencers and half your comments are just tired old stereotypes about women. Again, not sure if that was the goal. But if it was, great job.
“And while left-wing women are stereotypically seen as being uniquely censorial, the reality is that this tendency applies to all groups of women, regardless of ideology.”
*Very* interesting piece.
I’m curious whether you have data for your “all groups of women” strong claim made above, or if in fact you only mean college women.
I.e. have you confirmed that married women are much more censorial?
Or have you merely shown that young unmarried women who choose to go to college are?
In particular, the implicit claim that married women would be more censorial than single liberal men I find dubious. Possible, but dubious.
A thought experiment: Does this piece rise to the level of what James Damore did in his famous treatise that got him cancelled? Absolutely not saying anyone should be cancelled, but is this article as (perceivedly) biased as Damore was claimed to have been. I know it has lots of stats, but people say stats can be used to prove anything. Are its conclusions as toxic as Damore's were claimed to be?
One interesting question is whether women censor more than men, or if genders have different styles of censorship. For example, when it comes to other forms of censorship, such as shouting down speakers or using violence to stop a speaker, are men more likely to censor than women? It's possible that men prefer to censor you personally by punching you in the face, and women prefer to have the government censor you. What does the data show?
Without intending to be too simplistic, because the answer is likely complex, I think the reason for the difference may be grounded in physical differences. Historically, men being physically stronger, have enjoyed greater freedom of movement (or less need to be fearful), which translates into a greater desire for liberty, whereas for women, physical safety was paramount, which translates into a preference for security over liberty. I know this is rough, but it’s a starting point for thinking this through.
Sadly, I see this in university classes year after year. My male students often report feeling bewildered and silenced by their female peers' relative intolerance, but only in confidence to me (their female professor).
It might be a hot take but I feel like a lot of left leaning or even slightly liberal guys are more in favour of free speech at college campuses than they might lead on in public to not upset girlfriends, wives or potential romantic partners.
In private? I’ve see a ton of guys admit they might agree with more controversial takes on political issues but they don’t want to say it in public. I’m a dude in college right now and I’ve felt the same and seen other young guys my age do it too.
Also, curious, what subject do you teach in? Is it a humanities subject?
100% agree with you.
Not to make assumptions based on your name, but some of the most disillusioned, confused guys willing to talk this way are non-white/not of European ancestry. I teach in health sciences—and one where these conversations are relevant.
It’s interesting to see that men who identify as being liberal or just even slightly democrat are still as in favour or just as likely to be free speech advocates as much as conservative women. It seems like democrat men appear to be more progressive to appease democrat women, not because they actually believe it. Like in these studies when these guys are asked in private what they actually think with no judgement, they tend to be more free speech absolutist than they lead on in public.
Also, it should be super concerning that women are more censorious of their own side, a lot of the purity testing you see on both sides of the political aisle are what’s destroying American politics.
My dad used to say his dad told him that men were better at getting along with each other than women were because they grew up having to be able to get together enough guys for a pickup baseball game, while women in that era didn't have that formative experience. At this point, though, I don't know how many kids of any gender are playing pickup sports games.
In terms of women feeling compelled to suppress offensive speech, I think women have a nurturing instinct, and sometimes we don't know when or how to turn it off. It can be painful for us when we believe, rightly or wrongly, that controversial speech is somehow putting a vulnerable victim in peril.
A more sparse explanation that doesn’t need theories of gendered minds is that hostility to or tolerance of counter-zeitgeist speech follows from wherever a particular demographic is positioned wrt a culture’s power dynamics. Since the left generally, and females in particular, have been in charge of western culture -
publishing, academia, education generally, showbiz, msm, the electorate, dei - for 30 or 40 years, it makes sense for left and female to be more pro-conformism than right and male.
Theories of gendered minds are well-substantiated and should not be avoided. As James Damore correctly explained in his infamous memo… for which he was of course canceled, thereby proving his point and the point articulated in this article.
That may or may not be true. There may, or may not, be gendered minds. I may believe there are, or not believe there are. But my comment was not about any of that: it was simply the remark that the observed left/right male/female attitudes to conformism can also be explained prosaically just by noticing who is in charge: left/right, and male/female.
Needs fewer priors, more available to observation, and is more illuminating. Hence, I think, more useful, and persuasive to others, than theory of mind explanations.
James Damore being cancelled is not evidence against it, of course.
Education. Single parent families. The welfare state. Mass media. Abortion law. Divorce law. Alimony law. Employment law. The dating market. Priority of breast/cervical cancer research over say testicular/prostate cancer research. Indifference to male MH and socialisation issues.
In every one of these domains, for 50 years, the direction of travel has been away from satisfying male wants and towards satisfying female wants.
I am not arguing here it’s gone too far, or wasn’t addressing prior imbalances, or these aren’t Good Things, or they
shouldn’t have happened. I’m just positing that this is the direction a society run by and for women would move, and not how a society run by and for men would move.
And in what factual way are women in charge of society?
lol how is protesting bigots and getting suspended from school pro conforming?
Really interesting read! I do think the “3.5 times more tolerant” stat sounds bigger than it is since both numbers are pretty small. Seems like the bigger takeaway is that most people aren’t very tolerant overall, no matter the group.
They are at least equal takeaways.
Yes, I wish the males were more tolerant, but since the numbers aren’t all down in the sub 15% range, “3.5 times more tolerant” is a pretty f-ing big deal.
Even 2x is a pretty big deal.
It is sexist of you to publish this piece claiming that women are more censorious than men!
You don’t have the lived experience of women, especially LGBTQ++ women or women of color, to be able to make a truthful claim here.
The fact that you consider gender a *binary* and only plot two choices confirms your unacceptable bias here (and you did indeed refer to these as genders, not sexes. For shame, for shame…).
.
.
.
[But I guess for those of us curious about reality and supportive of free speech that it’s a good thing that FIRE was founded by and led by men…]
Why women more than men?
Maybe look to biology and other animals.
Mama Bears.
If a child is abandoned by a parent it is most likely to be by the father.
Perhaps females of every species are more attuned to danger than males are for this reason. And people with views that challenge us are innately perceived as more "dangerous."
It's instinctual.
Social instinct? Uh-oh...
Not surprising. I, a lifelong liberal, now find myself quite distrustful of liberals overall. I find them disloyal. That's a blanket statement, because it's the wokes that drove this, but the mindvirus induced good liberals to succumb. I have ex-friends I've known for years who are exes not because I defriended them, but because they defriended me. I'm looking for a long-term partner and have begun to think maybe I would be better off with a conservative man (not *too conservative, I would not be compatible with a Trump fan) because they'll be less likely to blow off a budding relationship over some stupid political point.
I suspect it depends in part on what you mean by other side. Men against men, no problem, you know what you are up against. Anybody against women, totally terrifying.
This doesn't surprise me. Perhaps for the same reasons that I tend to gravitate toward males in conversation (and friendship) over women — men tend to not engage in drama and let things go.
I’m not clear on whether this was intentional or not, but this reads as biased to me. Your interpretation seems to focus heavily on making a moral judgment about women when the study itself frames intolerance and free speech issues in a much broader context, with gender being a small factor to overall scores. There’s evidence in both your chart and sources that the main instances where women opposed free speech is when that speech was harmful and hateful towards a certain oppressed group. The top three most controversial topics were: abortion should be illegal, trans people are mentally ill and Black Lives Matter is a hate group. The gap is wider in these categories than other controversial topics. I’m not disputing that the gender gap is factual, but it doesn’t seem like a balanced analysis to claim that women blankety resort to censorship and you’re applying these conclusions broadly outside the article. Your own source states: “Factor analysis showed that most of the variance could be explained by a cluster that we have labeled “Politically Correct Puritanism”: support for censoring racist and sexist materials and depictions of sexual violence.. “ - aka women are more likely to support censorship surrounding racist and gender based violence not every form of free speech.
Another glaring oversight in your analysis is claiming we can “rule out” the fact that women’s proximity to certain issues isn’t a factor, just because abortion didn’t have the widest gap. Race and sexual identity are always intertwined with the women’s issues, because women are disproportionately affected by prejudice in those groups. I’m not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that women’s opposition to hate speech can’t be tied to their own oppression, maybe this is easier to miss if you haven’t been part of a group whose rights are regularly debated by politicians.
In a very roundabout way, this reads like being more censorial is a kind of personality failing and not a moral response to speech that argues against the dignity of the oppressed, especially in today’s climate where the temperature of these speeches are becoming more and more extreme. As a result, this article is being completely misrepresented on social media, which is how I got here, men are using it as more evidence that “women are too emotional”, because the context of what women are reacting to is being downplayed. It seems that a few of your commenters interpreted it that way as well. Obviously you aren’t 100% responsible for other people’s interpretations and you do very briefly allude to women wanting to protect others from emotional discomfort at the end, but the prejudice really comes through in the last few paragraphs.
Not all discourse is equal, and what you’re calling intolerance is actually context specific moral issues. Asking questions like “what can these universities do to help these misguided women who hate free speech?”, is very shortsighted and seems intentionally vague. The intolerance score was based on much more than the gender gap and did not make conclusions about which gender has better critical thinking skills or who is more virtuous.
A truer statement is really that women are more likely to disallow harmful hate speech and your own sources support that. Many people would argue that tolerance has limits, and allowing hate speech is counterintuitive to an actual tolerant society. Saying not allowing certain speakers on campus is equal censorship to others forms of speech implies that- all forms of speech carry equal weight and there is no difference between protecting people and suppressing harmful ideas. Clearly an issue of divergent philosophies, but certainty not evidence women are the least tolerant gender politically, I think we’d need a few more inputs to make that claim. Titling this “Men are more tolerant of the other side than women are of their own”- is hyperbolic disguised as astute. Thats why it’s being picked up by misogynistic influencers and half your comments are just tired old stereotypes about women. Again, not sure if that was the goal. But if it was, great job.
Men’s professed tolerance of each other means nothing in the face of history.
“And while left-wing women are stereotypically seen as being uniquely censorial, the reality is that this tendency applies to all groups of women, regardless of ideology.”
*Very* interesting piece.
I’m curious whether you have data for your “all groups of women” strong claim made above, or if in fact you only mean college women.
I.e. have you confirmed that married women are much more censorial?
Or have you merely shown that young unmarried women who choose to go to college are?
In particular, the implicit claim that married women would be more censorial than single liberal men I find dubious. Possible, but dubious.
A thought experiment: Does this piece rise to the level of what James Damore did in his famous treatise that got him cancelled? Absolutely not saying anyone should be cancelled, but is this article as (perceivedly) biased as Damore was claimed to have been. I know it has lots of stats, but people say stats can be used to prove anything. Are its conclusions as toxic as Damore's were claimed to be?
One interesting question is whether women censor more than men, or if genders have different styles of censorship. For example, when it comes to other forms of censorship, such as shouting down speakers or using violence to stop a speaker, are men more likely to censor than women? It's possible that men prefer to censor you personally by punching you in the face, and women prefer to have the government censor you. What does the data show?
Without intending to be too simplistic, because the answer is likely complex, I think the reason for the difference may be grounded in physical differences. Historically, men being physically stronger, have enjoyed greater freedom of movement (or less need to be fearful), which translates into a greater desire for liberty, whereas for women, physical safety was paramount, which translates into a preference for security over liberty. I know this is rough, but it’s a starting point for thinking this through.
Simpler than that. Cheap sperm, expensive eggs. Basics, always the basics.