Women’s rights called a historic event
It was only in 1964 that women in Quebec were accorded the rights we now expect as adult humans in society: they could not sign a contract, practice a profession or initiate legal proceedings unless their husband gave his assent.
The change in the law, led by Marie‑Claire Kirkland, is being hailed as a historic moment in Quebec history.
Tangentially, a worldwide study shows that one third of Generation Z* men feel that women should obey their husbands.
* men born roughly from 1997 to 2012
saintlaurent 11:36 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
It might be somewhat more instructive to look at the more granular survey data, rather than the somewhat clickbait-y headline.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/assets/news/iwd-2026-global-charts-final.pdf
That one-third figure represents a 29-country average, that includes such notable bastions of feminism such ask Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and Turkey. And that one-third number also includes people who ‘somewhat’ agree with that statement. (See page 52 and 53). That Gen-Z figure isn’t broken out by country, so there’s no telling what the actual % is of Gen-Zs in Canada. And the survey, as far as I can tell, includes women as well as men.
Chris 12:25 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
Also you’d want to know how many men think they should obey their wives. If the result is similar, then it may just be an expression of marital solidarity.
JP 14:01 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
“Obey” is a strong word. People listen or hear out their husbands and wives or partners. Taking them into account doesn’t mean there are commands or requests of obedience. Obedience implies a different kind of relationship and maybe some marriages are like that but I honestly don’t think it’s the norm anywhere anymore in an educated middle class strata.
For the sarcastic comment about some countries being”bastions of feminism” I assure you there are a lot of backwards ass views held by white men here in Quebec and in North America and it’s increasing at an alarming rate. I’ve encountered these types of men myself. Don’t think yourself better than other people.
Kate 14:21 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
JP, that’s what I was thinking. I had just read this Guardian interview with Louis Theroux, who’s made a documentary about the manosphere, so the proliferation of red‑pilling and so forth was in my head.
Women can never relax and assume that their rights have been won for good, and attitudes permanently adjusted. Men have too much to win from keeping women down.
maggie rose 14:47 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
The story about this survey was written up in The Guardian this past Thursday. (not that it’s a race) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/mar/05/gen-z-men-baby-boomers-wives-should-obey-husbands
Chris 14:49 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
>…I assure you there are a lot of backwards ass views held by white men…
Sure, but there’s such a thing as looking in the aggregate. Some places have more believers in “backwards ass views” (as you put it) than others. Just look at the Pew polling of Muslim countries, scroll down to the “Women’s Rights” section and tell me the opinions of “white men here in Quebec”, overall, are *anywhere* near that.
JP 15:20 on 2026-03-07 Permalink
See this is part of the issue…some of the male commenters here seem really intent on ensuring that we (readers of this blog) know that elsewhere in the world men’s views are horrid (indeed they are/could be in some places) and implying we should all just be happy men’s views here are not anywhere near that.
In general, maybe stop mansplaining/defending men here/trying to tell women (implicitly) that they should be happy with the status quo here because some might have it worse, and that some survey results are skewed because you noticed countries and people you consider beneath you were included. That was part of what stood out to me in Saintlaurent’s comment…the obvious racism. I know men and women from all of those countries and don’t feel the same way as you. And as a woman of colour, I’m disgusted by your tone.
The latest rise/wave in anti-women rhetoric is linked to white supremacy and Christian nationalism. Please don’t counter with but in so and so country and in so and so religion….
saintlaurent 12:54 on 2026-03-08 Permalink
> The latest rise/wave in anti-women rhetoric is linked to white supremacy and Christian nationalism. Please don’t counter with but in so and so country and in so and so religion….
One might say that both of those things can be true at the same time. I 100% agree that your first assertion above is accurate. It is also accurate to say that there are *many* other countries/societies where the status of women is far less advanced that it currently is in places such as, for example, Canada. And Sweden. And Iceland. And Portugal. And even (for the time being), the U.S.
And despite your breezy assertion that “hey, I have [insert country here] friends that are really enlightened about the status of women,” that neither reflects, nor negates, the *overall* outlook in that particular country, which is what the survey results reflected.
Joey 17:34 on 2026-03-08 Permalink
Our former education minister (and one of two candidates who will become premier next month) thinks it’s great that the government he seeks to lead just fired a handful of women who refuse to let the state tell them whether they can or cannot wear a veil at work. This same government is looking to implement a constitution that will nullify most of the Canadian and Quebec charters of rights and make it illegal for large groups of citizens to contest its laws. But tell me again that the problem is men overseas…
saintlaurent 18:29 on 2026-03-08 Permalink
> But tell me again that the problem is men overseas…
The problem is *math.” I know this is tough to wrap one’s head around. If a survey samples countries that have a well-documented and societal inclination towards male dominance (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan), and then aggregate up an *average* with countries that don’t (e.g., Sweden, Iceland, Portugal), then *of course* you are going to get a clickbait-y headline that one-third of Gen Z’ers (which may, or may not include women – the survey doesn’t specify), agree or *somewhat* agree with the statement in the survey question.
Are there shitty political parties domestically? Of course there are. They pander to men who drop out of school before Secondary V and then, once they get into their late-20’s, piss and moan that women who went to CEGEP and university don’t want to have anything to do with them. (Nor, in my personal opinion, should they.) Not to mention their pandering to unilingual francophones in the regions with ginned-up, scary imagery of immigrants and Muslims.
But my problem is with the survey; more specifically, the stupid use of aggregation across multiple and very, very diverse countries to come up with some meaningless figure, and then the news just latches on to that. To be frank, I think Kate got sucked into it by posting the link without performing any critical examination or analysis of the misapplication of data that “informs” the headline.