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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 31, 2023

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Why is it stated as self-evident even by supposed ideological dissidents like Hanania that romantically unsuccessful men are the only men holding so-called misogynistic views?

Because at least some scholars who study such men seem to think (e.g. William Costello) that they do tend to be more misogynistic (which, as pointed out, is different from them being the only misogynists)?

The linked study is based on scoring higher on scales for "Hostility Towards Women", "Rape Myth Acceptance", and "Sexual Objectification". Reading the appendix, these scales are sufficiently low-quality that it is difficult to conclude much from them, at least not without the data for how people responded to individual questions.

Some of the 10 items on the "hostility towards women" scale include "I feel that many times women flirt with men just to tease them or hurt them.", "I am sure I get a raw deal from the women in my life. ", and "I usually find myself agreeing with women. (Reverse coded)". It doesn't really provide novel information to learn that someone romantically unsuccessful has worse experiences with women and is less likely to have someone like a wife in his life that he is more likely to agree with than if the women he interacts with are strangers. (It's also a bit funny to imagine someone making a "hostility towards men" scale and making one of the items "I usually find myself agreeing with men. (Reverse coded).")

Meanwhile large sections of "Rape Myths" and "Sexual Objectification" are things the now-successful Hanania would presumably agree with. Questions like that are going to pick up on very broad demographic correlations with ideology. The ideological bias on display also makes me more skeptical about the people conducting these studies. Examples of the 11 "Rape Myths" include "To get custody for their children, women often falsely accuse their ex-husband of a tendency toward sexual violence.", "Many women tend to exaggerate the problem of male violence." and "It is a biological necessity for men to release sexual pressure from time to time.". (The last would naturally correlate with high sex drive and thus sexual dissatisfaction.) Examples of the 10 "Sex Objectification" items include "Being with an attractive woman gives a man prestige.", "Using her body and looks is the best way for a woman to attract a man.", and "Sexually active girls are more attractive partners.".

Also some of these seem sufficiently unarguable that it seems like it might be heavily influenced by the respondents' social desirability bias. For instance, if many of the men disagreeing that "Being with an attractive woman gives a man prestige." or "Sexually active girls are more attractive partners." believe otherwise but are the type to answer surveys with what they perceive as the most socially desirable answers, are they also more likely to misrepresent how sexually satisfied they are? And the second one would also measure sex drive.