According to some radical feminist theorists (not all, but some) society inherently hates women and femininity and regards males as higher value than females. This is a theory I aim to debunk. According to all the studies I found, people actually hold a pro-female bias, rather than a male one.

Empathy

According to the theory of Patriarchy, people would be empathetic to men because they would be viewed as more likable/higher value/etc. and because women are hated, people would delight in our suffering, but a study conducted in 2016 showed the following results:

Participants of both genders were more empathetic to girls than boys, and while boys were more empathetic to other boys from ages 6 to 7, their same-sex empathy decreased and their empathy for girls increased (Stuijfzand et al. 2016)

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27909382/

Punishment

Once again, according to patriarchy theory, society would punish women more severely than men. Some Radical feminists even suggest the 'double punishment' theory, which states that women who commit crimes will be punished for 1) committing a crime and 2)breaking traditional gender roles, and that women will be 'made an example of'. This has never happened, even feminists have been persecuted much less than all other social revolutionists.

The following studies will show that women and girls are punished less than men and boys.

  1. Girls are punished less harshly than boys (Lytton and Romney, 1991)

" In other Western countries, physical punishment is applied significantly more to boys "

Source: https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1991-15054-001

2) According to a report by the Human Rights Watch, called "A violent education" boys were punished much more than girls, and even when girls were punished, they were punished less severely.

"Boys are subjected to corporal punishment at much higher rates than girls: nationwide, boys make up 78.3 percent of those paddled, while girls make up 21.7 percent.320 Boys are paddled more than girls in all states that use corporal punishment. For instance, in Mississippi, 74.2 percent of those paddled in schools are boys, while in Texas, 78.7 percent of those paddled are boys.321

One high school teacher suggested one possible reason for the gender disparity in paddling, noting that at her school it was common practice to “stay away from hitting the girls. I guess they’re more fragile, and a lot of them could be pregnant and we wouldn’t know it.”322 A father of two boys and a girl felt that it was more acceptable for boys to be paddled than girls. He explained, “My little girl—don’t you put your hands on her…. As far as my boys, I am super hard on them. For one, they are young black men and they are faced with different obstacles in life. I get on them every day, and I know they say, ‘Man, my dad is tough.’”323

Many interviewees reported that boys were beaten more harshly than girls. A middle school boy in Mississippi observed that one of his teachers “paddle the boys real hard and when he paddle the girls he don’t really hit them.”324 One student reported that there are smaller paddles for girls: “They use a short one for girls and a long one for the boys."

Source: https://www.hrw.org/reports/2008/us0808/8.htm#_Toc206220358

3) According to a study conducted by Sonja Starr, a researcher at the University of Michigan, found that men receive 63% longer sentences than women for the same crime, and were less likely to be let off without a warning, less likely to have all the charged against them dropped, less likely to be acquitted. Men were also twice less likely to avoid incarceration if convicted. Women who killed their husbands get shorter prison sentences, of about 10 years, than men who kill their wives

https://repository.law.umich.edu/law_econ_current/57/

Furthermore, some radical feminists also believe that women are viewed as less valuable and violence against us is almost legalized. This was not true throughout history, and isn't true today.

4) According to a study done by Beaulieu & Messner, 2008, Criminals who committed violence against women receive harsher sentencing than if their victim was a man.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1300/J134v03n01_03

Violence

According to some radical feminists, we are living in a patriarchal world where violence against women is often celebrated or accepted. But that is not the case.

  1. People are a third more likely to report violence when the victim is a woman, especially when the perpetrator is a male (Felson, 2009)

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-20005-004

2) In an experiment done by Harris in 1991, people were asked to rate a situation based on how bad or morally unjustifiable it was, and the situations included when a man hit a woman, another man or when a woman hit a man, another woman. And the situation rated worst was when a man hit a woman.

Source: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01548172

3) According to an experiment done in 1994 by Harris and Cook, people were tested on their view of domestic violence, and they viewed a male partner hitting a female partner as worse than a male partner hitting a male partner

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF01420802

4) Police were less likely to arrest a woman hitting her male partner than when a man was hitting his female partner (Felson and Pare, 2007)

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248571601_Gender_and_the_victim's_experience_with_the_criminal_justice_system

5) People rated violence against women much more serious than male-on-male violence (Felson & Feld, 2009)

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-20005-004

6) People are more likely to call the police when a man hits a woman, especially his wife, than when the genders are reversed (Felson & Feld, 2009)

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2009-20005-004

Life-saving

According to some radical feminists, the "women and children first" or the "Birkenhead Drill" infantilizes women and is a symptom of misogyny. I disagree, rather it is that people in general have a more empathetic view of women, and would want to save them first.

  1. In an experiment, people, especially male participants, were less likely to shocks to women than men (Taylor & Epstein, 1967)

https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1968-01636-001

2) According to an especially wide study called the Moral machine experiment, by Awad et al., people were asked who they would save from being crushed by a self-driving car. People in almost every country choose to save women over men.

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/231922494.pdf

Misc.

  1. Women have more social support than men https://bmcgeriatr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2318-13-122#:~:text=In%20general%2C%20women%20have%20larger,they%20care%20about%20%5B28%5D.
  2. 75%-80% of adoptive parents prefer girls (newbeginningsadoptions, 2016)

https://newbeginningsadoptions.org/why-do-adoptive-parents-prefer-girls/

3) Both men and women had a better perception of women https://archive.ph/cMmTn

This puts a hole in the theory of pervasive misogyny

4) Depictions of women sell more than depictions of men (Tarmy, 2016)

5) Women with atypical sexuality are less pathologized than men (Fuss, Briken, Klein 2018)

6) Women are 30% more likely to be chosen than men when looking for a house after emailing a landlord/agent (Flage, 2018)