Six in Ten Americans are Feminists, Three in Ten are Masculinists
- Carneades.org
- 18 hours ago
- 8 min read
Most Americans (60.3%) agree or strongly agree with the two central propositions at the heart of philosophical feminism (that men and women should be equal, but women are treated worse in some situations), whether or not they identify as feminists according to a March 2026 study by Carneades.org. Around half as many Americans (29.2%) identify with philosophical masculinism (that men and women should be equal, but men are treated worse in some situations).
Breaking this down into the specific statements, most Americans support the idea of gender equality. Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans agree (28.8%) or strongly agree (61.0%) with the statement "Women and men should have equal rights and access to roles in society." Of the remaining 10.2%, most (6.7%) neither agree or disagree with the statement, while only 2.2% disagree and 1.3% strongly disagree.
More people think that women are treated worse than think men are treated worse. Just under two-thirds of Americans agree (43.7%) or strongly agree (19.1%) with the statement "Women are treated worse than men by the law or society in some situations." Around one third of Americans agree (25.7%) or strongly agree (7.5%) with the statement "Men are treated worse than women by the law or society in some situations."
It should be noted that these two positions are not mutually exclusive as there may be some situations where men are treated worse and others where women are treated worse (see the note on categorical and hypothetical privilege below for more). Around one in five Americans think men and women should but equal but there are both some situations where men are treated worse, and there are some situations where women are treated worse.
Definitions of Feminism and Masculinism
The terms Feminism and Masculinism are polysemous, so we need to delineate exactly what we mean by each term. Feminism can be associated with a particular philosophical position, with various political movements (first wave, second wave, etc.), and with a methodological approach to doing philosophy. In the present study, we use feminism in the philosophical sense as assent to the two propositions:
The Moral Claim: "Women and men should have equal rights and access to roles in society."
The Empirical Claim: "Women are treated worse than men by the law or society in some situations."
Check out the video below for a further exploration of this position, as well as other kinds of feminism.
We can turn now to the definition of masculinism. The definition that is used in this analysis probably most closely corresponds to progressive masculinism. It is a simple inversion of philosophical feminism, acceptance of two propositions:
The Moral Claim: "Women and men should have equal rights and access to roles in society."
The Empirical Claim: "Men are treated worse than women by the law or society in some situations."
This is slightly distinct from other versions of masculinism like traditional masculinism, which argues that men and women should have different but equal roles in society. Virilist Masculinists argue that there needs to be a balance of feminine and masculine values in society and that masculine values have declined. For more on these viewpoints and more check out this video:
Political Party, Gender, and Religion Closely Related to views on Feminism and Masculinism
Unlike some of the other philosophical viewpoints, demographics have a much stronger interaction with one's views on feminism and masculinism. Specifically political party, gender, and religion are closely related.
Perhaps predictably, political party has the strongest relationship with Feminism. Using a linear probability model, being a Republican makes one 20.9%*** less likely to be a feminist and 6.2%** more likely to be a masculinist, while being a Democrat makes one 22.8%*** more likely to be a feminist. Overall Democrats are 7.1%*** more likely to agree with gender equality at all (the moral claim), and Republicans are 8.2%*** less likely to agree with gender equality.
Gender, also predictably, has an association with belief in feminism. Being male makes one 12.7%*** less likely to be a feminist and 11.2%*** more likely to be a masculinist. Interestingly, unlike with political party, there is no statistically significant relationship between gender and the claim of gender equality. In other words, while both men and women are both more likely to think that their gender has things worse in at least some situations, both groups have equally strong support for gender equality.
Being a Christian is associated with being 15%*** less likely to be a feminist, but not associated with masculinism. Not having any religion is related to a 17.5%*** increased chance of being a feminist but also not associated with masculinism. Christians are 10.4%* less likely to support the moral claim of gender equality at all (that men and women should be equal), while Nones are 18.1%*** more likely to support the moral claim.
Millennials More Likely to be Masculinists, Gen Z less likely to be Feminists
One interesting variable that comes out of this analysis is age. Younger folks overall (45 and under) have some unexpected relationships with masculinism and feminism. Younger Americans overall are slightly (by 11.0%***) less likely than others to be Feminists, which is concentrated in Gen Z who has a 15.0%*** lower chance of being a Feminist. This is driven both a by a slightly lower chance of believing in gender equality (by 4.9%**) and lower levels of agreement in the claim that women are treated worse in some situations (by 11.2%***). This drop in the empirical claim is driven primarily by Gen Z, who are 15.1%*** less likely to say that women are treated worse than men in some situations (the relationship for Millennials alone is not statistically significant.
Younger Americans are also more likely to be masculinists (by 5.2%*). This is driven by higher chances of thinking that there are some situations in which men have it worse (by 6.4%**), primarily in Millennials (who have a 7%** greater chance of thinking men have things worse), than by Gen Z who does not have any statistically significant relationship with that statement.
Feminism Predicted by views about Nationalism
As noted above, demographics and other views on gender are the strongest predictors of feminism and masculinism. However after these, using a dominance analysis, we can see that views on nationalism are some of the strongest predictors of feminism. Specifically, civic nationalists (those who believe that countries should be multiple cultures bound by civic ideals) are 12.8%*** more likely to be feminists. Communitarian nationalists (those who think that countries should be bound together by common culture and heritage) one the other hand are 22.7%*** less likely to be feminists.
This is backed up by an analysis of feminists and non feminists views on the statement "Countries should be built around a shared ethnicity and culture." Agreeing with this statement makes one 15.2%*** less likely to be a feminist. Masculinism is not statistically significantly correlated with this statement, though it is weakly correlated (7.8%**) with communitarian nationalism.
As can be seen from the dominance analysis below masculinism is not as well predicted as feminism by the variables in this dataset. There is some relationship between views like belief in AI consciousness and skeptical scenarios. However, interestingly, the strongest predictors of being a masculinist are being male and being a feminist. In other words, the best predictors of masculinism are being a male feminist.
Overall, the predictors of feminism are not particularly surprising (democrats, non-religious, female), though the predictors of masculinism seem more amorphous and difficult to understand. This may indicate that this group cuts across political and religious groups in a way that feminism does not.
A Note on Categorical and Hypothetical Privilege
A brief aside on the use of "some" vs "all" or "most" situations. There is a tendency for those interested in justice for the oppressed to subscribe to a notion of "categorical privilege," which claims that some groups are oppressed/disadvantaged in all situations, or at least are not advantaged in any situations. This is distinct from a given demographic group having privilege in a particular situation, or some situations, called "hypothetical privilege".
While the claim of categorical privilege is easy shorthand, and it allows for less nuanced statements like "white people have privilege and non-white people do not" or "men have privilege and women do not" it is not only very difficult to justify, it seems to be outright inaccurate. While there are certainly some situations in which given demographic groups have an unfair advantage, to claim that they have an advantage in all situations does not seem to match reality. Check out the video below for more on this argument.
For these reasons, we don't make the categorical statement that: to be a feminist you must believe that women are less privileged in all situations or most situations, but rather in at least some situations. This makes the view more defensible, and importantly for the present discussion it means that it is not mutually exclusive of masculinism. If someone believes that men and women should be equal but there are both some situations where men have an advantage over women, and some situations where women have an advantage over men, they are both a masculinist and a feminist.
Methodology Specifics
Before leaving, here are the specifics of how the question we have been focusing on was asked. This study was conducted in March of 2026 on a representative sample of Americans. For more on the overall methodology of this survey consult this blog post. As we publish more blogs on this survey the information on the questions for the other philosophical positions will come out. The analysis in this blog was based on the responses to three Likert statements:
Indicate if you agree or disagree with the following statements (5 part Likert scale: Strongly agree, agree, neither agree nor disagree, disagree, strongly disagree)
Women and men should have equal rights and access to roles in society.
Women are treated worse than men by the law or society in some situations.
Men are treated worse than women by the law or society in some situations
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Notes:
In the graphs above which split out by demographic groups, the data is split first by the demographic group, and then into feminism or masculinism. So when the graph shows 75% for democrat and feminist, it is saying that 75% of democrats are feminists, not 75% of feminists are democrats. This should be made clear by the stacked bar nature of these graphs, but we include this note for additional clarity.
Dominance analysis is run with all of the views in the study converted to binary or Likert scales. All likelihood estimates are created using a linear probability model with both dependent and independent variable treated as binaries.
*Significant at the p < 0.1 level
**Significant at the p < 0.05 level
*** Significant at the p < 0.01 level
How to cite this report:
Carneades (2026). Six in Ten Americans are Feminists, Three in Ten are Masculinists. Experimental Philosophy. https://www.carneades.org/post/six-in-ten-americans-are-feminists-three-in-ten-are-masculinists
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