Gender War Myths

debunking 4 feminist and 4 anti-feminist 'facts'

Across the world, from the United States to Tunisia to South Korea, young men and women are increasingly diverging politically, leading them to inhabit distinct media echo chambers where entirely different sets of "facts" are incessantly discussed. Social media often amplifies the most radical perspectives thus causing content that portrays men and women negatively to go viral. But what if many of these narratives are false and lack essential context? This post aims to debunk and contextualize eight viral "facts"—four popular among feminists and four among anti-feminists—thereby challenging the polarized narratives that shape around them.

Feminist myth 1 : ‘Only 2% of rape accusations are false.’

That merely 2% of rape accusations are false is a ‘fact’ that was constantly brandied about in the #metoo era and continues to be brought up to this day. While when it comes to the percent of reported rapes that are proved false the number does appear to be between 2% and 10% (depending on the study) this figure does not include unsubstantiated accusations where an investigation was unable to prove the rape occurred but also unable to prove it didn’t. For the same reasons its hard to prove a rape or sexual assault happened its also hard to prove it did not. Indeed, most reported rapes and sexual assaults don’t lead to convictions. Additionally, the % of false accusations is no doubt much higher when it comes to unreported public accusations which made a good bulk of #metoo cases. Moreover, accusations against public figures, especially polarizing political ones, are more likely to be false than accusations against private people. And those are precisely the kind of accusations that go viral and elicit the ‘only 2% of accusations are false’ response if you vocalize doubt about the veracity of any one of them.

Feminist myth 2 : ‘A woman is six times more likely to be separated or divorced following a cancer diagnosis than when a man is the cancer patient.’

A 2009 study, published in the journal Cancer, found that "the rate (of divorce or separation) when the woman was the (cancer) patient was 20.8 percent compared to 2.9 percent when the man was the patient." This statistic, sometimes even metamorphizing to the claim that 70% of men leave their wives when they have cancer, is frequently cited on Twitter (and occasionally in mainstream media) as evidence of how supposedly terrible men are. Another similar study along these lines that went viral at the time, though for reasons that will soon become clear is less cited now, is a 2015 paper published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, that found a 6% higher likelihood of  divorce when wives fell ill compared to when husbands fell ill(the four illnesses that were tested were cancer, heart problems, lung disease and strokes). However, researchers from Bowling Green State University discovered a mistake in the data analysis, prompting the authors, Amelia Karraker and Kenzie Latham, to retract the original paper and publish a corrected version. The corrected analysis found that the elevated risk of divorce for ill wives was only significant in cases of heart problems, not the three other illnesses (including cancer) tested. The updated finding of a 1% statistically insignificant difference is not in the same ballpark as the 2009 study which claimed an 18% difference in divorce (20.8 vs 2.9 percent) when wives vs husbands get cancer. The finding that men are 6 times more likely than wives to leave their cancer patient partner simply does not seem to replicate.

Feminist myth 3 : ‘The Pink Tax’

The existence of a ‘pink tax’ is such a widespread belief that New York and California passed laws prohibiting charging different prices for similar goods and services marketed to women vs men. While isolated cases of gender price discrimination exist, such as gender-based pricing at hair salons (favoring men) or nightclubs (favoring women), the evidence does not suggest retailers are exploiting women through differential pricing. A 2021 comprehensive study for the Federal Trade Commission (an independent US agency whose primary goal is to enforce antitrust law and the promotion of consumer protection) found that when controlling for ingredients and assessing products that were substantially similar, the price gap between men's and women's personal care products disappeared. In fact, the study found that in apple-to-apple comparisons, women's variants are less expensive in three out of five product categories examined.

Feminist myth 4 : ‘Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns for doing the same work.’

There is a gap in earnings between full time male and female workers in almost all countries. The gap is about 20% in US and averages at 12% in Europe. Every year in many countries around the world Equal Pay Day is observed (in the US its now in march) to symbolize ‘how far into the year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year.’ The wage gap reflects the average earnings disparity between all full-time male and female workers, but doesn’t account for variations in occupations, positions, education, job tenure, or weekly working hours. Accounting for these relevant factors significantly diminishes the wage gap, in the US for example it drops to  $0.99 for every $1 a man earns. This figure is surprisingly close to perfect parity. Contrary to what some conservatives say, this does not mean that the wage gap doesn’t exist. The controls merely explain the mechanism through which it does. And its possible to posit that some of the causes (such as women having more familial responsibilities and thus doing less overtime or female dominated professions having lower average salaries) are due to structural sexism. However, it does debunk the claim that sexist discrimination is the main cause of this gap which is the implication of the popular slogan (invoked by the likes of Hilary Clinton and Joe Biden) demanding "Equal pay for equal work’ as if that is not already (in vast majority of cases) a reality in the modern west. 

 graph from here

Anti-Feminist myth 1 : ‘Young men have higher rates of sexlessness than young women.’

A  graph from a 2019 Washington Post article, based on the 2018 General Social Survey (GSS), reported that 23% of adults aged 18-29 did not have sex in the past year, with 28% of men and 18% of women reporting abstinence. This graph went (and continues to go) viral not only among the manosphere as evidence of female ‘hypergamy’ (women are apparently all having sex with the same top % of men thus leading to asymmetrical rates of sexlessness between the sexes) but even in mainstream media as evidence supporting a popular “young men in crisis” narrative. There was comparatively very little coverage of subsequent GSS report that showed that the 2018 data does not seem to be representative of a long lasting trend. Indeed, despite the 2018 stat still being frequently brought up to this day, male sexlessness rates fell in subsequent years and female sexlessness increased to the point that in 2021 the GSS started reporting that rates of female sexlessness were higher than those of males. Moreover, after 2021 rates of sexlessness seem to have dropped substantially for both sexes thus also putting into question the broader ‘sex recession’ narrative.

graph from here

Anti-Feminist myth 2 : ‘Women initiate divorce 80% of the time.’

The assertion that 80% of divorces are initiated by women has been brandied about in anti feminist circles as evidence of anything from divorce courts being biased in favor of women to women being heartless harpies incapable of loyalty. While there is variation in divorce initiation rates among genders, with most studies finding women initiate around 60% of divorces, the 80 % figure appears to stem from misrepresentation of an outlier study. The study published as a chapter in the 2018 book “Social Networks and the Life Course” found that in the US in divorces with college educated women the woman files in 90% of cases (encompassing cases of mutual and unilateral divorce). However, the same study also finds that the overall number of divorces initiated by women is 69%. This includes college-educated women and non college educated women. As Actual Justice Warrior hypothesized, the claim that 80% of divorce are initiated by women most likely comes from anti-feminist commentators blending the 69% figure with the 90% from college-educated women. By doing this they are disregarding the inclusion of college educated women in the 69% stat.

It's also important to contextualize the “in divorces with college educated women the woman files in 90% of cases” stat. Though it's true that in divorces involving a college educated woman there’s a bigger gender gap in who initiates divorce compared to divorces involving a non college educated woman college educated women are still much less likely to initiate divorce than non college educated women. Their husbands are just even less likely to initiate divorce creating a wide gender gap. American government estimates suggest about half of first marriages in the US last at least 20 years with college-educated women having a 78% chance of still being married after 20 years, compared to 40% for women with a high school education or less. 

Furthermore, who initiates the filing for divorce doesn’t necessarily reflect who desired and instigated the separation and even less who is at fault. Recent prominent cases, such as the infamous Steven Crowder and Hilary Crowder divorce, highlight instances where women initiate divorce proceedings (often no fault ones to make the process easier) despite their husbands effectively instigating the separation by abandoning their familial responsibilities.

Anti-Feminist myth 3 : ‘Lesbian relationships have the highest rates of domestic violence.’

The claim that lesbian relationships have the highest rates of domestic violence is one I see repeated not only in manosphere circles to demonize women but also in more mainstream spaces to combat the perceived gender essentialism inherent in the way domestic violence is often discussed. As far as I can tell this ‘fact’ originates from a 2010 CDC report, which found that 43.8% of lesbians report being victims of abuse. This is compared to 35% of straight women and 61% of bisexual women. However, 1/3 of the domestic violence reported by lesbians includes past heterosexual relationships, not just lesbian partnerships. Therefore, only 29% of lesbians report domestic violence exclusively by female partners. This contrasts with the 35% reported by straight women, with 97.8% reporting the perpetrator(s) being exclusively men, and 61% for bisexuals, with 89.5% reporting the perpetrator(s) being either solely men or men and women. Since the CDC report doesn't specify what percentage of the 1/3 of victimized lesbians and of the 89.5 % of victimized bisexual women report their abuser(s) being both men and women vs only men we can’t make any definitive statement as to whether straight or lesbian relationships are more prone to domestic violence from this data. 

However, even if the CDC had definitively reported higher rates of domestic violence in lesbian relationships that alone would not give us a full picture. The way the CDC defines domestic violence is very broad, ranging from emotional abuse (for ex yelling or belittling) to physical fights to coercive control to deadly outbursts. While there’s not specific data on % of lesbians who are perpetrators of domestic violence that leads to hospitalization or death considering males are responsible for vast majority of  IPV deaths it’s highly unlikely lesbians are equally let alone over-represented relative to straight men in that regard. Our conceptualization of domestic violence emerged because of strength and aggression differences between men and women and the risk of escalation within that context. A woman slapping a female (or a male) partner out of anger is much less likely to lead to more serious and dangerous forms of violence in the future.

Anti-Feminist myth 4 : ‘Hormonal birth control changes who women are attracted to by making them into feminine men .’

The claim that hormonal birth control changes female sexual preferences and makes women go from liking masculine men to liking feminine men is one I have seen a lot recently and is part of a broader anti birth control push. Claims, mostly anonymous ones on reddit so the veracity of them is your guess as much as mine, of women supposedly losing attraction to their male partner when they get off birth control regularly go viral. Although there has been some research indicating women using oral contraceptives exhibit a weaker preference for masculine men compared to women who do not use oral contraceptives all those studies show women on birth control still preferring men they rate higher on masculinity. Indeed, most of those studies find a small barely statistically significant difference in mate preference between women on vs off hormonal birth control. Moreover, large-scale longitudinal studies have found no evidence connecting hormonal birth control to shifts in preferences for masculinity. And the study with the largest sample size found no evidence that women using oral contraceptives had weaker preferences for male facial masculinity than women not using oral contraceptives. 

This post is nowhere close to an exhaustive debunking of misleading feminist and anti-feminist talking points. I chose to focus on 8 ‘facts’ mostly for the sake of brevity. I don’t want to undermine men or women’s legitimate concerns, but I do want to encourage more informed and nuanced dialogue. Misleading data entering the public discourse is not unique to gender but is endemic to the discourse surrounding almost all hot button issues. As the famous saying Mark Twain attributed to Benjamin Disraeli goes, 'There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.' I would however contend that a careful and nuanced public discourse is especially important when it comes to issues related to gender. For better or worst, fostering positive relationships with the opposite sex is essential for the happiness of most of us. And misleading antagonistic narratives about men and women can only make forming and navigating those relationships more difficult.