Older Adults's Attitudes Toward Feminism

People of different generations experienced things differently and each of them had their own thinking; because of the difference in experiences, one might view things differently based on their own knowledge and experiences. A study was done in the United States, comparing older and younger adults’ attitudes toward feminism found that individuals of different generations perceived feminism differently even though they were from a similar cultural background (Bettencourt, Vacha-Haase, & Byrne, 2011). The study showed that the young adults had a significantly more lenient attitudes toward feminism as compared to the older adults. One of the reason that contributed to the finding was that the young adults were born in the time where they grew up learning that both men and women were equal whilst the older adults went through stages where gender inequality were supposed to be a norm and equality was just a dream (Bettencourt, Vacha-Haase, & Byrne, 2011).

In addition, Huddy and his colleagues (2000) also found that the young generations had the almost same rate as the older generation in identifying feminists because of the misconceptions of feminists were equivalent to tomboy or man-haters. Even though third wave feminism is still continuing in the western countries, many are reluctant to see themselves as a feminist as the term “feminist” is equivalent to “man hater”; it is believe that individuals that are perceived as feminist tend to act aggressively towards men (The Telegraph,