Mick Hartley

From the Times:

A growing online trend encourages women to quit their jobs, run the home and defer to their husbands. This “tradwife” movement urges a return to traditional roles and, when researchers in the US recently set out to examine what kind of men support it, they expected to find a cohort fond of old-fashioned chivalry.

The reality, they say, was rather different.

Among young American men, the strongest predictor of support for the tradwife lifestyle was not gallantry but hostility towards women.

“We were taken aback,” said Dr Rachael Robnett, a psychologist at the University of Nevada, in Las Vegas, and lead author of the study. Her team had thought that men drawn to the tradwife idea would display what academics call “benevolent sexism” — a belief that men should protect and provide for women...

Instead, statistical tests found that the strongest predictor of male support for tradwife lifestyles was “hostile sexism”. This involves overtly negative beliefs about women, including that they manipulate men, exaggerate discrimination and should not expect equal power.

Taken aback? Why on earth? I’d have thought this was the obvious conclusion – now backed by the evidence. Men who want good little wives in the kitchen are men who have a contemptuous view of women. What did they expect?