Based on the numbers, it seems pretty obvious that gender inequality is a problem in the U.S. Fewer than one in five Congress members and one in 15 Fortune 500 CEOs are female, and women are still making just around 80 percent of what men do (and that's a best-case scenario). But whether or not Americans believe in gender inequality is another story entirely. According to a new Pew Research Center report, people's opinion on this matter depends largely on their political affiliation.
The women surveyed were far more likely to say they'd experienced gender-based discrimination (43 percent) than men (18 percent). Yet over half of the country's Republicans—54 percent—said that the state of affairs in the U.S. is currently "about right," and a minority of 26 percent said we still have a ways to go before we've achieved equality. An alarming 18 percent said we've actually swung too far in the opposite direction and granted women excessive privileges, and only 19 percent believed men have it easier than women.
Democrats' views painted a very different picture of women's rights in the U.S. Sixty-nine percent said we haven't made enough progress toward giving women equal rights, and only 4 percent thought feminism had gone too far. Democrats were also more likely to say that changing gender roles had benefited Americans' careers, marriages, and overall quality of life. Still, only 49 percent believed men have it easier than women.
There was also a gap between men's and women's responses: 57 percent of women but just 42 percent of men thought we haven't made enough headway. In addition, the more educated people were, the more they felt that fighting for gender equality was still necessary.
When asked to explain why they answered the survey questions the way they did, Republicans who believed women have advantages gave responses like "lower standards for the same positions in order to get more women for those positions," "They can choose to be taken care of by getting married," and "If they ‘feel’ slighted or decide to be vindictive, they scream sexual harassment, whether true or not, with no consequence to themselves for a false claim."
Democrats, on the other hand, explained male privilege with statements like "They on average make more money than women for the same job," "Women are most often the primary caregiver for children, even when working full time," and "Men are not second-guessed like women are in the workplace."
Perhaps the silver lining in these results is that people appear to be growing more aware of gender inequality. The younger people were, the more likely they were to feel men had easier lives than women. A 2016 Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation poll even found that 63 percent of American women ages 18 to 34 are feminists. And overall, a full half of respondents to the Pew survey believed there's still more that needs to be done to achieve gender equality. The political party currently in charge of the government may have outdated views about gender, but the good news is that these views don't reflect the majority of the country.
