Feminists don't hate men, scientists say as they debunk the long-standing stereotype

Man-hating feminists are a myth, as those who support women's rights do not have more negative views of men. 

Jane Fonda has said she was late to feminism because she assumed being a feminist meant being 'angry with men'.

But a study of almost 10,000 people, including women who identify as feminists and those who do not, found both have a positive view of men on average.

People in nine countries, including the UK, US, Italy and Japan, were asked how warm and favourable they felt towards men, how much they liked and trusted them, and felt positive emotions like fondness towards them, or negative ones like disdain.

Feminists and non-feminists were, in largely equal measure, positive towards men, with little evidence of any difference between their views.

In fact the study, which questioned people of both sexes about their feelings towards men, found feminists were no more 'man-haters' than men themselves.

Feminists saw men as more of a threat than non-feminists did, based on their agreement with statements like 'many women live in fear of male aggression'.

But this may be balanced out by feminists being more likely to see men and women as broadly similar - hence their call for equal rights.

Seeing men as similar may make them feel more warmly towards the opposite sex.

The study, led by Dr Aífe Hopkins-Doyle, a psychologist at the University of Surrey, states: 'Feminism has achieved many impressive advances for women and girls as well as men and boys.

'At the same time, it has been dogged, since at least the 19th century, by the perception that it is motivated by anti-male sentiment, or misandry.

This is a 'damaging stereotype' which is 'false and widespread', according to the study authors, who add: 'Feminists' overall warmth toward men implies that a general antipathy is not necessary for this politicised identification— and is not even substantially associated with it.'

The research, published in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly, describes previous evidence showing feminists have often been perceived as 'unfeminine, man-haters, and lesbians'.

This view is said to have deterred women from becoming feminists, and encouraged men to oppose feminism.

The study looked at feminists' unconscious views of men, as well as those they explicitly reported.

Researchers did this by assessing how quickly and accurately participants could associate male words like 'mister' and 'Kevin' with positive and negative words like 'wonderful' and 'terrible'.

If people were quicker at categorising male words with positive words, it indicated more positive attitudes.

Both feminists and non-feminists had positive unconscious views of men, and there were no differences between them.

Dr Hopkins-Doyle said: 'Compared to non-feminists, feminists did see men as representing more of a threat to women's dignity and welfare.

'This was associated, in turn, with less positive attitudes to men.

'However, counteracting this tendency, they also perceived that men and women were more similar, and this led in turn to more positive attitudes.

'We found people, including feminists, wrongly thought feminists had negative views of men.

'Feminists can dislike the mistreatment of women by the patriarchy, without disliking men.'