Irish Mens' Attitude to Women?

Mistymaud

I'm not trying to flame, honestly!

But I would appreciate a little insight from those of you who have either formal statistics or just general observations of the attitude of Irish men toward women.

There is a genuine reason for my asking, and as a woman of a 'certain age' I have noticed distinct differences toward women in different regions.

Sorry, I know the question appears vague if not loaded, but it honestly isn't.

krd

What do you want to know in particular?

There are interesting statistics for Ireland. I can't find it now but things like Ireland has the lowest proportion people being in relationships in the OECD.

Everyone has general observations - what have you observed?

You, or I, or most people could write a book on general observations.

There are parts of the country that are more conservative or more liberal than other parts. There isn't a single uniform subject like the typical "Irish man" or typical "Irish woman".

Mistymaud

Maybe it would be a little more helpful if I explained my observations.

I have both noticed and experienced different attitudes (although it must be noted these are generalisations) between regions.

In some, and I'm treading carefully here, there seems to be a general level of animosity between the genders and they are stereotyped i.e. Men are women chasers and women only want men for their money.

In others there seems to be a more respectful attitude, particularly within the relationship itself and genders are appreciated for their individual input, whether or not that be outside the norms of whatever actions that gender is seen to perform (i.e. men decorating or women cooking)
It's more of a team effort.

I also tend to find that this attitude affects me as a single women. Men in certain regions will 'talk down' to me, yet in others they treat me as an equal.

Not only my observations I might add - another woman I know mentioned this to me, unprompted, only very recently.

Hope I'm making a little more sense now (quite possibly not though!)

Interesting to note though that you seem to be able to distinguish between more liberal and conservative regions.

Thought I should add - that although I haven't searched on this board for particular examples of gender animosity - I haven't noticed any.

this should give you some insight
http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055234770

Ostrom

There have been a few studies over the years, the ISSP coordinates international comparative studies on different modules from year to year, they ran a third wave of 'Family and Gender roles' in 2002. Section B of the questionnaire deals with gender.

http://www.gesis.org/en/services/data/survey-data/issp/modules-study-overview/family-changing-gender-roles/2002/

The European values survey has a few questions regarding women in work and family life, the most recent wave was 2008. There have been a few other questionnaires over the years that have included questions on gender roles and attitudes, such as the ESRI's social and politcal attitudes survey

You can view the field questionnaire from the following link;

http://www.europeanvaluesstudy.eu/evs/surveys/survey-2008/participatingcountries/

The CSO runs a number of special social modules with the quarterly national household survey (list at http://www.cso.ie/qnhs/social_mod_qnhs.htm). They haven't run one specifically on gender, but there are a few on equality, work and childcare that give some indication.

If you want data on the above, let me know! (The CSO results should be archived somewhere under database direct, and the ESRI usually publish summary reports on their website)

krd

Mistymaud wrote: »

Maybe it would be a little more helpful if I explained my observations.

I have both noticed and experienced different attitudes (although it must be noted these are generalisations) between regions.

In some, and I'm treading carefully here, there seems to be a general level of animosity between the genders and they are stereotyped i.e. Men are women chasers and women only want men for their money.

In others there seems to be a more respectful attitude, particularly within the relationship itself and genders are appreciated for their individual input, whether or not that be outside the norms of whatever actions that gender is seen to perform (i.e. men decorating or women cooking)
It's more of a team effort.

I also tend to find that this attitude affects me as a single women. Men in certain regions will 'talk down' to me, yet in others they treat me as an equal.

Not only my observations I might add - another woman I know mentioned this to me, unprompted, only very recently.

Hope I'm making a little more sense now (quite possibly not though!)

Interesting to note though that you seem to be able to distinguish between more liberal and conservative regions.

Thought I should add - that although I haven't searched on this board for particular examples of gender animosity - I haven't noticed any.

It's something that confuses me too. I grew up in a small country town. Women and men of an older generation were virtually segregated. But you would have similar attitudes in larger urban areas. Small country towns tend to be more conservative and backward. There isn't much of a choice in how you behave.

Ireland is a small country - but different parts can be very different. This can be due to history and economics. Large parts of Ireland were horse drawn and turf powered up to the end of the 60s. In my experience the social attitudes can be patchy. But it's also a reason many young women abandoned rural Ireland - some parts of Kerry, men seriously out number women. If you want to live there, you have to put up with the dominant local attitude.

I'm not sure about surveys. People may say what they feel they should and not what they actually believe. I've known enough people who would be extremely racist and sexist. Yet, they'd never admit to it - occasionally they'd give the game away. But I imagine these people doing surveys wouldn't give truthful answers. I have a feeling attitudes have become worse. Just from what I've noticed and what people have been telling me of their recent experiences. People have been saying, things seem to be worse since the whole recession thing started.

Misogny and misandry are also common all over Ireland. I think it's very complicated. And I think you'd need to travel very far to get away from it. If you can.

Ostrom

The trick is to tap the attitude without asking 'are you a racist / sexist'

Some of the above questions ask about responsibility for childcare, past experiences of discrimination, general measures of conservatism etc. The assumption with most of these questions is that individual level errors will be distributed around both extremes (I'm not so sure either).

I suppose the case could be made for comparison across states - assuming tendencies to understate attitudes are similar across nationalities

krd

I'm thinking of a manager I had the agony of working under for a while.

He was incredibly racist and sexist and a complete snob. But I believe he wouldn't think of himself in that way. It was more in the way he dealt with people. He would speak down to women. Be incredibly condescending. The thing is, I believe he believed that he was acting completely appropriately. He would not be the only person I've come across who acted like that.

GREWO

It seems to me your describing a particular facet of the Irish male & his mental makeup in regards to one been in a relationship and 2 been single.Now when we Irish men find ourselves with the Irish woman of our dreams ,Of course we use our ability to transform that singular predominantly masculine mentality.In other words we bring the masculine and feminine together,
both in mind and body :)It is such a soulful journey because its reality effecting consciousness in both men and woman we have traits of each and ones more predominant than the other and if things are equal there going to better right? So that maybe just a brief account of the inner workings of the whole thing which i prefer to discuss than any-other aspect of the thing.
Also though you brought up conservative and liberal also the whole class divide or county and way of life divide thing where one group are living more the old way and the others are living on all this new age information an example is the "how to be ready for a relationship with girls e-book" some give advise on been more feminine and what ever so its true depends on what information the man has been fed his whole life this generally will decide the bloke.
But behind the scenes the makeup distinct from all other nationalities will decide who he feels comfortable dating or like krd says hiring because no matter what new information he has been absorbing and trying his hardest to cope with its the old ways that just keep sneaking in every now and again.
So one man maybe the one who only shares his heart felt emotions with the woman his with and the other maybe forcing it out his backside:eek: just to gratify some new age perception on how a man should be.But if you've lived and traveled these lands long enough none of this should be getting you or i down because Irish men love there counterparts otherwise why is there so many of us.

JupiterKid

I think generational and age differences play a major part in terms of men's attitudes to women and vice versa. Older men can be very sexist and bigoted in most ways. My own father, who is in his late 60s, would see himself as open minded and fair but it is clear in talking with him that he has serious issues with women in power, especially politics.

Old, ingrained prejudices die hard. Older men tend to be more racist, xenophobic and homophobic too.

Younger Irish men tend to see women of their own age more as equals but view older women in the "mammy" mode. It's clear from my own experiences that younger Irish men moan and give out a lot about young Irish women - things like "they play mind games, they are ugly and overweight, their standards are too high, they are only after your money" etc. But when it comes to foreign girls, especially Scandinavian blondes or East European women, they seem to have nothing but praise for these ladies.

It works both ways though - young Irish women also rant about thier male counterparts and heap praise on foreign guys. I suppose it's a "grass is always greener on the other side" attitude. Just take a look on After Hours here to see what I'm talking about in terms if the attitude of the young Irish male to his female counterparts.