March 8, 2026
1/3 of Men Think Wives Should “Obey” Their Husbands: Happy International Women’s Day!
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RSS Feed A new study just released in time for International Women’s Day reveals that Gen Z men think a wife should always obey her husband. What’s even more interesting, that’s double the number of what older generations think, with just 13 percent of baby boomers agreeing. What is going on with men under the age of 30?
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00:00:11
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Sunday, March eighth, I do believe, and happy International Women's Day. Now shut up and do what you're told. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Obviously, I am not TJ. Holmes telling anybody, any woman to shut up, but Robes, I think some might be surprised to think at just how many men these days actually do go along with that sentiment.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually think this is quite shocking.
00:00:41
Speaker 3: There is a new study that has been put out, actually in coordination with International Women's Day. But the interesting thing is for me, I'm curious where you fall on this, but as a woman, I am shocked that it is the younger generation of men in this world, according to this latest survey, who believes in the tradition or like the ageal traditional gender role type of scenario more so than the older generation. That was a shocking revelation to me.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess we need to dive into this a little more to kind of figure it out.
00:01:27
Speaker 3: I mean, it does vary from country to country. This was a survey done I think they I believe they surveyed men from twenty nine different countries around the world. The big headline that you'll see if you're jumping on line today or maybe even in the next day or two, is this headline thirty one percent.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: Or they say a third of gen.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: Z men believe that women should always obey the husband.
00:01:55
Speaker 1: And wish you was starting with that. What's gen z? I can't ever keep these people straight. Millennials, all this stuff.
00:02:01
Speaker 2: I get confused as well.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: But gen Z is determined as folks born between nineteen ninety six and twenty twelve. So both of my daughters fall in that age generation.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: So twenty twelve.
00:02:16
Speaker 3: Ava was born in two thousand and two and she's twenty three, So thirty three and then ninety six would put you in the category of being.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: Thirty, right or forty gen z.
00:02:34
Speaker 1: I'm so bad.
00:02:35
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety six is twenty twenty six, so that would be thirty thirty gen Z would be thirty No, forty, sheez.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: I am so bad with math. Nineteen ninety six to twenty twelve.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Please help me with somebody who has better sense about numbers than me.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: Those are the years that people are born. Is that correct? Correct? Okay? All right, so that's twenty twelve. That was was fourteen years ago. If you were born in twenty twelve, is that correct?
00:03:06
Speaker 2: Yes, you'd be fourteen.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: Okay, so then the raine you're going back to that is ninety six, two thousand and six, sixty and thirty. That's thirty to fourteen years old.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: Those are younger people, not forty, right, correct?
00:03:19
Speaker 2: So ages thirty to fourteen you now, and that is.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Do we have that number right?
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Yes? That's sad but true.
00:03:28
Speaker 3: Yes, because millennials are nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety five, and then gen X, which is you and me, is nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy nine, and then baby boom boomers are nineteen forty five to nineteen sixty five.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Everyone get that straight.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking gen Z gen Z younger folk, very young. What's a millennial? So I even not bring that up right now?
00:03:52
Speaker 3: No? I so I actually so a millennial nineteen ninety five, so that would be twenty nine would be the oldest millennial right now?
00:04:01
Speaker 2: Correct? Sorry, don't give me math problems at any point in my life. I'm terrible. If I was born in seventy three, seven years old, seven years younger than me.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: I don't even know where you're going with this a question anymore. So anyway point being gen Z, let's focus there, gen Z.
00:04:24
Speaker 3: So this is the generation that believes, at least a third of them around the world, that women should always obey the husband. And it was very interesting because even with all of those generations, the majority of men who were surveyed for this International Women's Day survey believe that men have gone so far in helping women achieve a quality that now those same men are being discriminated against. I am curious, as a gen xer yourself where you fall. I don't believe that you you believe that women should always obey the husband?
00:05:02
Speaker 2: Am I correct in that belief?
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I don't know how anyone could fill out a survey at what point ever in time? Obey is a weird thing. Positions, traditional roles track wives, you know that whole thing that is one thing. Obedience is a different word. So if the survey was conducted in that way and asked in that manner, that is peculiar to me. Obey is different, do what you're told, follow the man's lead. That's different than oby. That sounds like a more extremist scenario.
00:05:39
Speaker 3: So I would say when it comes to that, I have heard that referred to when it comes to men and women, but mostly in biblical terms, in religious terms.
00:05:49
Speaker 2: And so obviously when I say.
00:05:50
Speaker 3: Biblical, when you're talking about the world, it isn't just about Christianity.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: It's all religions.
00:05:55
Speaker 3: But I do think there are folks who are of certain religionious beliefs that do think that there needs to be one person who ultimately is the leader, perhaps the moral leader, the family leader. And oftentimes when you look at religion history speaking, it is the man who is deemed to be closer to God.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: If you go back to Adam and Eve, Adam was.
00:06:21
Speaker 3: The original it was one of his ribs that, according to the Bible, that created Eve, and so by default, the man might be closer to being godlike. Therefore, the woman believes the man might have a better or a stronger or a closer connection to God. That was always the way it was described to me. And so maybe perhaps I'm putting this out there. I can't get in the mind of a gen Z man around the world, but there are historic religious foundations for this belief that women should obey their husbands, and that used to be in marital vows.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Did it not?
00:06:58
Speaker 1: But does this go coincide then with the has there been I guess more of an emphasis on religion in recent years? Has there been more? And again this was done in so many countries, it was not just in the United States. But has there been more of a call to God from a younger generation, then this would maybe go in line with that.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting and there are a lot of different philosophies or people trying to figure out why we're where we are now. Because I think this is so interesting that if you have thirty one percent of gen Z men around the world, we should point out this is not here in the United States.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: This also includes.
00:07:38
Speaker 3: All twenty eight other countries that a wife should always obey her husband. But if you think about that, only thirteen percent of men who are baby boomers believe that this is something that I would have thought intellectually as a woman.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: Given all the access we have to.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: Just the way people think and just international internet connections to how everyone is, that there would be a reckoning of source where people recognize equality and recognize that we all bring different things to the table, and that there should be a sense of equality, the idea that baby boomers only thirteen percent of men who were baby boomers believe that.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: Thirty one percent of Gen Z men think that, how do you? I don't know how to explain that.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: They get it. They've lived life, they've seen the world change, they've evolved, and they've evolved with it. I'm that actually, I older folks aren't as stubborn as as sometimes a society would, at least in pop culture, suggest they are. And I think it's the young'ins that would be more bull headed. I think, yeah, older folks have lived a lot of life ropes. How many times? How much have you changed in the past two years? Because you've lived enough life to understand, to see, and to and to know you could be wrong and that you were wrong at some point along the way. I think, Yeah, to that point, I kind of get it, and I'm kind of hopeful. That makes me hopeful to hear that number. It doesn't make me hopeful when I do talk to folks like your daughter. Sometimes when I talk to younger folks who they got it all figured out. We got it. Y'all ain't no, no, y'all ain't just y'all ain't hip to it. We got it now, Yeah, maybe that's the case.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: You know what you just made.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: I light bulb went off for me when you started speaking. Because the idea we so often we talk about, we read about the wisdom of older people, and yet do we actually listen to their advice. Do we actually take what they've experienced and recognize the value in that wisdom and then apply it to our own lives?
00:09:50
Speaker 2: Almost never, But that totally makes sense.
00:09:53
Speaker 3: You go out with this idea to protect yourself, to make yourself feel more virulent, more powerful, more or whatever, and then life teaches you a lot of different lessons. And maybe that is the disparity here because some folks who are trying to figure out why I mean, it is a fairly shocking thing to hear that a third of men gen z young men around the world think that it should be that women should be obeying their husbands. And some of the folks who are trying to dissect this and figure this out, say, look, a lot of men in this world now, as women have gotten more opportunities, have had the opportunity to be educated, have had the opportunity to go to college, and to make money, and in many in several scenarios in different countries actually become the breadwinners that maybe men are looking at women as responsible for their rejection, for their low self esteem, for their as they put economic insecurity, and so they're saying, now we have it backwards, that this is all messed up. We should go back to the way it was, the whole Make America gradient. I'm not saying that that movement is specifically responsible for any sort of response from this specific.
00:11:13
Speaker 2: Poll that's out there.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: But certainly there are a lot of folks who believe that there is this idea like men now feel rejected in a way that they need to point the finger at something, and maybe it is the Women's lib movement.
00:11:25
Speaker 1: This isn't accurate when you're saying, this isn't an actual pole, this is an emotional pole. This is guys maybe reacting. They don't necessarily believe this, but this is a reaction to what the world has presented them. It's a reaction to opportunity that women have gotten. It's a reaction to equality.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: That is what a lot of people are pointing to. But it is still shocking to hear.
00:11:48
Speaker 3: I am personally surprised at these numbers are you I'm curious, as a man who is a gen xer, are you surprised by this?
00:11:59
Speaker 1: The extentive male idiocy never surprises me. I'm serious. We hold on anytime anybody begins to get more rights, begin to evolve, to get more support, any class, any protected class, another class then feels like they're losing something. How can women gain? If women gain, that means men must be losing. That's the mindset we often have. I didn't I didn't you know, I did not do research on this topic. I'm thinking through this as we're talking here, and that's beginning to make sense to me. We have this thing that we if one group wins, another loses. That for if women are gaining, men are losing, and then attitudes start to change. So the numbers are starting to make sense to me. Okay, what I'm saying.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: That is very interesting.
00:12:53
Speaker 3: All Right, when we come back, I'm gonna ask you TJ, because I know you haven't done a deep dive on these numbers. If you think men should figure out problems on their own before asking help that answer when we come.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: Back, all right, we can do you here on Amy and DJ Cat. This is like the perfect Sunday right now, having a conversation with my with my love. I got a espresso martini in front of me. I got a great college basketball game going this Sabine has been great and hanging with her today is the weather has been nice. This is a wonderful, wonderful day. And then we ruin it by once again reminding the world that men are idiots.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: No, but you know what this is. But this is a fascinating conversation.
00:13:45
Speaker 3: And it's funny because we're watching just so everyone knows the Michigan Michigan State basketball game.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: I actually called my dad a few minutes ago. I was walking. It was beautiful. I thought, let me check in with my parents.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: My Dad's like, yeah, can I call you back? Michigan Michigan States on I need to go.
00:14:01
Speaker 1: Just if anybody wondered if we ever take these ahead of times as real time as.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: Against in full disclosure, I was born in Lansing, Michigan. My dad is a Michigan State grad, and he is heavily invested in this game. And it's extremely close right now, and I'm kind of also allured by this. This is a heated rivalry that has gone on for decades and will probably be so for Oh wow, the tension in the crowd is palpable. But we now talk again about what's going on on this.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: International Women's Day.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: By the way, Happy International Women's Day to all you fellow women out there.
00:14:38
Speaker 2: But yes, as.
00:14:40
Speaker 3: We thrive, you know, you get to this point where now there is a reaction and maybe an overcorrection. And some would say maybe men are feeling that overcorrection and wanting to reassert their dominance whatever it is.
00:14:54
Speaker 2: But I thought, look, the big headline is a third of men.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Around the world who are young, who are thirty years old and younger. Took us a while to figure out that math, but that is in fact what we're talking about. Believe that women should obey, wives should obey their husbands, that that is the way forward. Now there are a lot of they asked. I think there were thirteen questions in this poll. It was all very interesting. I thought this one was extra interesting for all of you wives or any women in relationships with men out there. There's a going joke always about men refusing to ask for directions. Yes, I guess in the era of Google Maps that maybe has all not even become something we even talk about anymore because we can all just ask Siri. But I am curious, babe. Do you think as a man, I'm just curious.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: Do you think you should figure.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: Out your problem before asking me or anyone else for help or guidance?
00:15:56
Speaker 1: Yes? Not as a man. That's anything I'm doing, anything any of us are doing. If I'm in the kitchen, if I am trying to figure out where something goes, if I'm in the theater room trying to figure out how to log into a particular streaming service, if I'm in the back trying to figure out it doesn't matter. I'm saying. In day to day life, every little thing you do, you try to figure it out and then you go, oh crap, I need help. But what's natural?
00:16:27
Speaker 3: What does it take for you to get to that point where you would actually ask me or someone else.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: I'll ask anybody. I don't have time to waste. Okay, that's just me, and I'm trying to leave room for somebody else feeling differently about it, but that is my mindset. The male female nothing robes. How many times you know this? How many times a day I can't figure something out? I say, by what does that mean, I've never heard of that. You'll say a word to me, I say, what does that word mean? I'll ask you. I ask you constantly if I don't know something, we don't have time to waste. The male female thing doesn't come into any kind anywhere in my mind as I'm doing that. That might be age, that might be experienced, that might be you're my best friend, that might be all kinds of things, But I just I just don't the male female part of that. It is not a part of the equation.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: I think when it's this is my perception of you problem solving. I think when you think it's reasonable to ask for help, when it's reasonable.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: That you wouldn't know it, you will. But if you think you should know it, you won't even let me in. You'll be like, I got this, I'm on it. What like you? Just you do?
00:17:40
Speaker 3: You? You do have a mindset where I would say, and maybe it annoys you, but I'll ask you for help while I'm trying to figure it out. I do think there's a difference and I and maybe it's gender based, maybe it's not. But this study showed that thirty two percent of men, So that's again around the same. A third of men think I should figure out my problem on my own before I ask for help, And I would say that I would ask for help while I'm trying to figure it out.
00:18:10
Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, that doesn't sound so I don't have the what's the language on that one? Again? Because that doesn't seem Yes, don't we all try to figure it out before we ask for help?
00:18:20
Speaker 2: No, I think I would ask for help while I'm trying to figure it out.
00:18:23
Speaker 3: Like I would be like, hey, if you got an answer while I'm trying to google this, or like, I don't know, put on my glasses and read the fine print if.
00:18:31
Speaker 2: You know, like I'll take that. Like I do think it is.
00:18:35
Speaker 3: A more male ego driven mode of operation to say I got this, and I'm not saying you don't have it, but I am.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: Actually And maybe it's call it, maybe.
00:18:47
Speaker 3: It's deferring to someone else, or maybe this maybe I'm on a foundation of how could I possibly know this on my own? And you're thinking, why wouldn't I know this on my own? There is a different sometimes a different place I think where we're coming from from a gender based expectation that I think I shouldn't know it, and you think you should know it, And so I'm like, hey.
00:19:14
Speaker 2: You know because I don't.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: And you might be like I should know this and I'll figure it out before asking for help.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: That's crazy. No, I just I give it just something that makes sense generally speaking. I'm just I'm forty eight. I just I'm running out of time to try to figure this out on my own. I could use some help. Let's save some time.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: So the interesting way that they put this, so this was an IPSO study. I found that so they put this all in one sentence. I'm curious what you think about this. Forty three percent of gen Z men believe men should.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: Try to be physically tough when necessary.
00:19:51
Speaker 3: Wait, say it again, it said forty three percent of gen Z men believe young men should try to besly.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Tough, should try to be physically tough.
00:20:00
Speaker 3: And when it came to more emotion centric prompts, thirty two percent of men agreed that men should figure out problems on their own before asking for help. That was where I was trying to get this idea of masculinity, like I got this, I can take care of this, I can figure this out.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: I don't need anyone else's help.
00:20:19
Speaker 3: And that's why I went to the whole I don't need to ask for directions thing because that was always kind of like the go to explanation where I felt like that was.
00:20:28
Speaker 2: The thing they were kind of referring to generally.
00:20:31
Speaker 1: Okay, is it masculine to not have to ask for help in changing a newborn's diaper? You see what I'm getting at?
00:20:45
Speaker 3: Yes?
00:20:45
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of the task or that me handling the task on my own? Right? You know what I'm saying. No one, you look at a man over there changing a diaper. You don't think that's manly. You don't think that's a stud I think you don't think that's looking over that. Yeah, it's sexy as hell, and I didn't have to ask for help in doing it. Right. What is it we we keep assigning these these things? What is masculine and what is being a man? Is it being a man to not ask for help? Is it being a man to not at it? That's manly? Okay, that's fine, some people can see it's that way. I know what we were getting at here, robes. But then the task that you don't ask for help in doing coleaning the dishes, handling the dishwasher. I didn't ask for help on that. I swept the floors, I made the bed, I sprayed downy wrinkle release on the damn thing. I did all these things and didn't have to ask for help. Are those not manly chores?
00:21:50
Speaker 2: I think they are?
00:21:51
Speaker 1: Okay? Then what are we doing?
00:21:52
Speaker 3: Then?
00:21:52
Speaker 1: What are we doing right? We we're just struggling with what is supposed to be manly behavior and not and we're just seeing I guess rogues generations kind of shift. The older generation that grew up with that thing has now grown up and grown old and figured out, Wow, we didn't get it right. And now the younger generation is trying to figure this ish out and they will.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: That's interesting and I guess that's hopeful the way you put it that, maybe we're just looking at a younger generation who hasn't lived enough life to understand that we don't. That you don't need to prove anything to be something. And in a world where women are becoming more relevant, in a world where women are more educated and am, in a world where women are earning more money, do you think men are struggling for their role their identity. Is that part of what is fueling some of this that we're seeing in these types of.
00:22:53
Speaker 1: S's a mindset where if you are of an old mindset of what a man is supposed to be, then you have a problem with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton being the Democratic nominee. That means you also have a problem with your woman going out and making twice your salary and not realizing, Wow, that's awesome that I got a woman that can earn twice as much as me and still wants to be with my bum ass. Right, we're looking at it all the wrong way. What is manhood? What is it now? That's that's I'm okay with the evolution robes. I think it's kind of cool, and I think it's kind of cool for the younger they're going to figure it out like we did. Robes. There were people our generation look back to, some members of our own family, how they looked at our opposite races. Even like I've our families evolved from a time right and in their lifetime they changed in their own thinking because of the world changing around them. This is kind of I didn't know where this story was going, and this stat hopeful in seeing this. Wow, that's hopeful because it's cyclical. We all figure it out, and we all think at that age that we got to figure it out.
00:24:12
Speaker 3: I'm curious, and we'll wrap this up with your thoughts on this. But when you were I guess thirty and under, so when you were in your twenties, teens, twenties, would you have ever said, I'm just curious and I won't hold this against you, that a wife should obey her husband.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's insanity. That's obey. Oh my god. Okay, First of all, the word obey should be banished. Who obeys? For like, give me any scenario, any relationship? A dog obeys the bam okay, And if we start with that, that's the first one you can come up with, exactly.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: And that is why the obey?
00:24:55
Speaker 1: Give me human and human? Is there any obey? Maybe the the prisoner has to obey the warden. I don't know what else is there other than that.
00:25:05
Speaker 3: I think that verb is so offensive when it comes to a relationship.
00:25:09
Speaker 1: No, you never is it? Okay?
00:25:12
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, I appreciate that, and thank you.
00:25:15
Speaker 2: That makes me feel what you.
00:25:18
Speaker 1: Obey. But if you said I've obeyed you.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: You told me no, I've obeyed you.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: The point being is you and I have done that and given each other those moments when we know it's really important to the other person.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it obeying.
00:25:32
Speaker 3: I think it's deferring, maybe in moments where it makes sense, and I get that I've deferred a lot.
00:25:41
Speaker 2: Fair But I'm curious do you think that? Do you think that what the best way?
00:25:50
Speaker 3: I'm so curious from a man's perspective, was there ever a point in which, in modern times it was advantageous or better for a relationship or a family for there to be a head of household, for.
00:26:05
Speaker 2: Someone to ultimately have the final.
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Say okay, just my experience, no, to have the final say no. No, one in a couple, in a relationship gets veto power. We've done that jokingly. We can talk about that in a second, but there is nobody that is able to say, at the end of a debate, I'm putting my foot down, that is it, and you don't have any choice but to accept it. That is not a partnership. No relationship works like that. If somebody else in whatever world they live in, say that's the way we want our household to work, not yourselves out. I'm just saying, no, I don't subscribe to that. Even it's laughable.
00:26:50
Speaker 2: I just fell more in love with you. Is that possible?
00:26:57
Speaker 1: It shouldn't know, that's nothing. I didn't say anything there should have been, But I will say.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: That I do think this is this, so, this, this poll, this survey, this, these headlines that are out here on this International Women's Day certainly get people up in arms. But I do think it's worth a conversation. I do think that asking your partner or wondering what works, what makes sense. And I do think it is shocking to hear that the younger generations are like this. But I appreciate your perspective. I appreciate the fact that you say they'll figure it out.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did too. We thought we had it all figured out when we were in our teens twenties. Yes, we got it. You old folkies don't know what you're talking about. Yes, everybody did. Yes. Do you know they used to ride separate buses to school. That was still in our parents. Yeah, generation, they figured it out, they came around, It just happened. It's okay, they'll figure out. They'll be fine, I I.
00:27:59
Speaker 3: You know what, that is the best perspective I've heard on this entire story.
00:28:05
Speaker 2: And you know what, So when.
00:28:06
Speaker 3: You read these headlines, hopefully you've listened to this episode and you're like, you know what, it's gonna be.
00:28:11
Speaker 2: Okay, just give it some time. We appreciate that.
00:28:14
Speaker 3: We appreciate you for listening to us on this Sunday and on this International Women's Day, I may be Roeboch alongside my lovely partner TJ.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, the folks, it is Sunday, March eighth, I do believe, and happy International Women's Day. Now shut up and do what you're told. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. Obviously, I am not TJ. Holmes telling anybody, any woman to shut up, but Robes, I think some might be surprised to think at just how many men these days actually do go along with that sentiment.
00:00:38
Speaker 2: Yes, I actually think this is quite shocking.
00:00:41
Speaker 3: There is a new study that has been put out, actually in coordination with International Women's Day. But the interesting thing is for me, I'm curious where you fall on this, but as a woman, I am shocked that it is the younger generation of men in this world, according to this latest survey, who believes in the tradition or like the ageal traditional gender role type of scenario more so than the older generation. That was a shocking revelation to me.
00:01:23
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess we need to dive into this a little more to kind of figure it out.
00:01:27
Speaker 3: I mean, it does vary from country to country. This was a survey done I think they I believe they surveyed men from twenty nine different countries around the world. The big headline that you'll see if you're jumping on line today or maybe even in the next day or two, is this headline thirty one percent.
00:01:47
Speaker 2: Or they say a third of gen.
00:01:49
Speaker 3: Z men believe that women should always obey the husband.
00:01:55
Speaker 1: And wish you was starting with that. What's gen z? I can't ever keep these people straight. Millennials, all this stuff.
00:02:01
Speaker 2: I get confused as well.
00:02:02
Speaker 3: But gen Z is determined as folks born between nineteen ninety six and twenty twelve. So both of my daughters fall in that age generation.
00:02:15
Speaker 2: So twenty twelve.
00:02:16
Speaker 3: Ava was born in two thousand and two and she's twenty three, So thirty three and then ninety six would put you in the category of being.
00:02:29
Speaker 2: Thirty, right or forty gen z.
00:02:34
Speaker 1: I'm so bad.
00:02:35
Speaker 3: Nineteen ninety six is twenty twenty six, so that would be thirty thirty gen Z would be thirty No, forty, sheez.
00:02:46
Speaker 2: I am so bad with math. Nineteen ninety six to twenty twelve.
00:02:51
Speaker 3: Please help me with somebody who has better sense about numbers than me.
00:02:57
Speaker 1: Those are the years that people are born. Is that correct? Correct? Okay? All right, so that's twenty twelve. That was was fourteen years ago. If you were born in twenty twelve, is that correct?
00:03:06
Speaker 2: Yes, you'd be fourteen.
00:03:08
Speaker 1: Okay, so then the raine you're going back to that is ninety six, two thousand and six, sixty and thirty. That's thirty to fourteen years old.
00:03:16
Speaker 2: Correct.
00:03:16
Speaker 1: Those are younger people, not forty, right, correct?
00:03:19
Speaker 2: So ages thirty to fourteen you now, and that is.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Do we have that number right?
00:03:25
Speaker 2: Yes? That's sad but true.
00:03:28
Speaker 3: Yes, because millennials are nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety five, and then gen X, which is you and me, is nineteen sixty six to nineteen seventy nine, and then baby boom boomers are nineteen forty five to nineteen sixty five.
00:03:42
Speaker 2: Everyone get that straight.
00:03:44
Speaker 1: Okay, we're talking gen Z gen Z younger folk, very young. What's a millennial? So I even not bring that up right now?
00:03:52
Speaker 3: No? I so I actually so a millennial nineteen ninety five, so that would be twenty nine would be the oldest millennial right now?
00:04:01
Speaker 2: Correct? Sorry, don't give me math problems at any point in my life. I'm terrible. If I was born in seventy three, seven years old, seven years younger than me.
00:04:17
Speaker 1: I don't even know where you're going with this a question anymore. So anyway point being gen Z, let's focus there, gen Z.
00:04:24
Speaker 3: So this is the generation that believes, at least a third of them around the world, that women should always obey the husband. And it was very interesting because even with all of those generations, the majority of men who were surveyed for this International Women's Day survey believe that men have gone so far in helping women achieve a quality that now those same men are being discriminated against. I am curious, as a gen xer yourself where you fall. I don't believe that you you believe that women should always obey the husband?
00:05:02
Speaker 2: Am I correct in that belief?
00:05:04
Speaker 1: I don't know how anyone could fill out a survey at what point ever in time? Obey is a weird thing. Positions, traditional roles track wives, you know that whole thing that is one thing. Obedience is a different word. So if the survey was conducted in that way and asked in that manner, that is peculiar to me. Obey is different, do what you're told, follow the man's lead. That's different than oby. That sounds like a more extremist scenario.
00:05:39
Speaker 3: So I would say when it comes to that, I have heard that referred to when it comes to men and women, but mostly in biblical terms, in religious terms.
00:05:49
Speaker 2: And so obviously when I say.
00:05:50
Speaker 3: Biblical, when you're talking about the world, it isn't just about Christianity.
00:05:53
Speaker 2: It's all religions.
00:05:55
Speaker 3: But I do think there are folks who are of certain religionious beliefs that do think that there needs to be one person who ultimately is the leader, perhaps the moral leader, the family leader. And oftentimes when you look at religion history speaking, it is the man who is deemed to be closer to God.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: If you go back to Adam and Eve, Adam was.
00:06:21
Speaker 3: The original it was one of his ribs that, according to the Bible, that created Eve, and so by default, the man might be closer to being godlike. Therefore, the woman believes the man might have a better or a stronger or a closer connection to God. That was always the way it was described to me. And so maybe perhaps I'm putting this out there. I can't get in the mind of a gen Z man around the world, but there are historic religious foundations for this belief that women should obey their husbands, and that used to be in marital vows.
00:06:57
Speaker 2: Did it not?
00:06:58
Speaker 1: But does this go coincide then with the has there been I guess more of an emphasis on religion in recent years? Has there been more? And again this was done in so many countries, it was not just in the United States. But has there been more of a call to God from a younger generation, then this would maybe go in line with that.
00:07:20
Speaker 3: You know, it's interesting and there are a lot of different philosophies or people trying to figure out why we're where we are now. Because I think this is so interesting that if you have thirty one percent of gen Z men around the world, we should point out this is not here in the United States.
00:07:37
Speaker 2: This also includes.
00:07:38
Speaker 3: All twenty eight other countries that a wife should always obey her husband. But if you think about that, only thirteen percent of men who are baby boomers believe that this is something that I would have thought intellectually as a woman.
00:07:53
Speaker 2: Given all the access we have to.
00:07:56
Speaker 3: Just the way people think and just international internet connections to how everyone is, that there would be a reckoning of source where people recognize equality and recognize that we all bring different things to the table, and that there should be a sense of equality, the idea that baby boomers only thirteen percent of men who were baby boomers believe that.
00:08:20
Speaker 2: Thirty one percent of Gen Z men think that, how do you? I don't know how to explain that.
00:08:25
Speaker 1: They get it. They've lived life, they've seen the world change, they've evolved, and they've evolved with it. I'm that actually, I older folks aren't as stubborn as as sometimes a society would, at least in pop culture, suggest they are. And I think it's the young'ins that would be more bull headed. I think, yeah, older folks have lived a lot of life ropes. How many times? How much have you changed in the past two years? Because you've lived enough life to understand, to see, and to and to know you could be wrong and that you were wrong at some point along the way. I think, Yeah, to that point, I kind of get it, and I'm kind of hopeful. That makes me hopeful to hear that number. It doesn't make me hopeful when I do talk to folks like your daughter. Sometimes when I talk to younger folks who they got it all figured out. We got it. Y'all ain't no, no, y'all ain't just y'all ain't hip to it. We got it now, Yeah, maybe that's the case.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: You know what you just made.
00:09:28
Speaker 3: I light bulb went off for me when you started speaking. Because the idea we so often we talk about, we read about the wisdom of older people, and yet do we actually listen to their advice. Do we actually take what they've experienced and recognize the value in that wisdom and then apply it to our own lives?
00:09:50
Speaker 2: Almost never, But that totally makes sense.
00:09:53
Speaker 3: You go out with this idea to protect yourself, to make yourself feel more virulent, more powerful, more or whatever, and then life teaches you a lot of different lessons. And maybe that is the disparity here because some folks who are trying to figure out why I mean, it is a fairly shocking thing to hear that a third of men gen z young men around the world think that it should be that women should be obeying their husbands. And some of the folks who are trying to dissect this and figure this out, say, look, a lot of men in this world now, as women have gotten more opportunities, have had the opportunity to be educated, have had the opportunity to go to college, and to make money, and in many in several scenarios in different countries actually become the breadwinners that maybe men are looking at women as responsible for their rejection, for their low self esteem, for their as they put economic insecurity, and so they're saying, now we have it backwards, that this is all messed up. We should go back to the way it was, the whole Make America gradient. I'm not saying that that movement is specifically responsible for any sort of response from this specific.
00:11:13
Speaker 2: Poll that's out there.
00:11:14
Speaker 3: But certainly there are a lot of folks who believe that there is this idea like men now feel rejected in a way that they need to point the finger at something, and maybe it is the Women's lib movement.
00:11:25
Speaker 1: This isn't accurate when you're saying, this isn't an actual pole, this is an emotional pole. This is guys maybe reacting. They don't necessarily believe this, but this is a reaction to what the world has presented them. It's a reaction to opportunity that women have gotten. It's a reaction to equality.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: That is what a lot of people are pointing to. But it is still shocking to hear.
00:11:48
Speaker 3: I am personally surprised at these numbers are you I'm curious, as a man who is a gen xer, are you surprised by this?
00:11:59
Speaker 1: The extentive male idiocy never surprises me. I'm serious. We hold on anytime anybody begins to get more rights, begin to evolve, to get more support, any class, any protected class, another class then feels like they're losing something. How can women gain? If women gain, that means men must be losing. That's the mindset we often have. I didn't I didn't you know, I did not do research on this topic. I'm thinking through this as we're talking here, and that's beginning to make sense to me. We have this thing that we if one group wins, another loses. That for if women are gaining, men are losing, and then attitudes start to change. So the numbers are starting to make sense to me. Okay, what I'm saying.
00:12:52
Speaker 2: That is very interesting.
00:12:53
Speaker 3: All Right, when we come back, I'm gonna ask you TJ, because I know you haven't done a deep dive on these numbers. If you think men should figure out problems on their own before asking help that answer when we come.
00:13:06
Speaker 1: Back, all right, we can do you here on Amy and DJ Cat. This is like the perfect Sunday right now, having a conversation with my with my love. I got a espresso martini in front of me. I got a great college basketball game going this Sabine has been great and hanging with her today is the weather has been nice. This is a wonderful, wonderful day. And then we ruin it by once again reminding the world that men are idiots.
00:13:42
Speaker 2: No, but you know what this is. But this is a fascinating conversation.
00:13:45
Speaker 3: And it's funny because we're watching just so everyone knows the Michigan Michigan State basketball game.
00:13:50
Speaker 2: I actually called my dad a few minutes ago. I was walking. It was beautiful. I thought, let me check in with my parents.
00:13:56
Speaker 3: My Dad's like, yeah, can I call you back? Michigan Michigan States on I need to go.
00:14:01
Speaker 1: Just if anybody wondered if we ever take these ahead of times as real time as.
00:14:05
Speaker 3: Against in full disclosure, I was born in Lansing, Michigan. My dad is a Michigan State grad, and he is heavily invested in this game. And it's extremely close right now, and I'm kind of also allured by this. This is a heated rivalry that has gone on for decades and will probably be so for Oh wow, the tension in the crowd is palpable. But we now talk again about what's going on on this.
00:14:33
Speaker 2: International Women's Day.
00:14:34
Speaker 3: By the way, Happy International Women's Day to all you fellow women out there.
00:14:38
Speaker 2: But yes, as.
00:14:40
Speaker 3: We thrive, you know, you get to this point where now there is a reaction and maybe an overcorrection. And some would say maybe men are feeling that overcorrection and wanting to reassert their dominance whatever it is.
00:14:54
Speaker 2: But I thought, look, the big headline is a third of men.
00:14:58
Speaker 3: Around the world who are young, who are thirty years old and younger. Took us a while to figure out that math, but that is in fact what we're talking about. Believe that women should obey, wives should obey their husbands, that that is the way forward. Now there are a lot of they asked. I think there were thirteen questions in this poll. It was all very interesting. I thought this one was extra interesting for all of you wives or any women in relationships with men out there. There's a going joke always about men refusing to ask for directions. Yes, I guess in the era of Google Maps that maybe has all not even become something we even talk about anymore because we can all just ask Siri. But I am curious, babe. Do you think as a man, I'm just curious.
00:15:47
Speaker 2: Do you think you should figure.
00:15:49
Speaker 3: Out your problem before asking me or anyone else for help or guidance?
00:15:56
Speaker 1: Yes? Not as a man. That's anything I'm doing, anything any of us are doing. If I'm in the kitchen, if I am trying to figure out where something goes, if I'm in the theater room trying to figure out how to log into a particular streaming service, if I'm in the back trying to figure out it doesn't matter. I'm saying. In day to day life, every little thing you do, you try to figure it out and then you go, oh crap, I need help. But what's natural?
00:16:27
Speaker 3: What does it take for you to get to that point where you would actually ask me or someone else.
00:16:32
Speaker 1: I'll ask anybody. I don't have time to waste. Okay, that's just me, and I'm trying to leave room for somebody else feeling differently about it, but that is my mindset. The male female nothing robes. How many times you know this? How many times a day I can't figure something out? I say, by what does that mean, I've never heard of that. You'll say a word to me, I say, what does that word mean? I'll ask you. I ask you constantly if I don't know something, we don't have time to waste. The male female thing doesn't come into any kind anywhere in my mind as I'm doing that. That might be age, that might be experienced, that might be you're my best friend, that might be all kinds of things, But I just I just don't the male female part of that. It is not a part of the equation.
00:17:21
Speaker 3: I think when it's this is my perception of you problem solving. I think when you think it's reasonable to ask for help, when it's reasonable.
00:17:30
Speaker 2: That you wouldn't know it, you will. But if you think you should know it, you won't even let me in. You'll be like, I got this, I'm on it. What like you? Just you do?
00:17:40
Speaker 3: You? You do have a mindset where I would say, and maybe it annoys you, but I'll ask you for help while I'm trying to figure it out. I do think there's a difference and I and maybe it's gender based, maybe it's not. But this study showed that thirty two percent of men, So that's again around the same. A third of men think I should figure out my problem on my own before I ask for help, And I would say that I would ask for help while I'm trying to figure it out.
00:18:10
Speaker 1: But I think, I mean, that doesn't sound so I don't have the what's the language on that one? Again? Because that doesn't seem Yes, don't we all try to figure it out before we ask for help?
00:18:20
Speaker 2: No, I think I would ask for help while I'm trying to figure it out.
00:18:23
Speaker 3: Like I would be like, hey, if you got an answer while I'm trying to google this, or like, I don't know, put on my glasses and read the fine print if.
00:18:31
Speaker 2: You know, like I'll take that. Like I do think it is.
00:18:35
Speaker 3: A more male ego driven mode of operation to say I got this, and I'm not saying you don't have it, but I am.
00:18:45
Speaker 2: Actually And maybe it's call it, maybe.
00:18:47
Speaker 3: It's deferring to someone else, or maybe this maybe I'm on a foundation of how could I possibly know this on my own? And you're thinking, why wouldn't I know this on my own? There is a different sometimes a different place I think where we're coming from from a gender based expectation that I think I shouldn't know it, and you think you should know it, And so I'm like, hey.
00:19:14
Speaker 2: You know because I don't.
00:19:16
Speaker 3: And you might be like I should know this and I'll figure it out before asking for help.
00:19:20
Speaker 1: That's crazy. No, I just I give it just something that makes sense generally speaking. I'm just I'm forty eight. I just I'm running out of time to try to figure this out on my own. I could use some help. Let's save some time.
00:19:32
Speaker 3: So the interesting way that they put this, so this was an IPSO study. I found that so they put this all in one sentence. I'm curious what you think about this. Forty three percent of gen Z men believe men should.
00:19:45
Speaker 2: Try to be physically tough when necessary.
00:19:51
Speaker 3: Wait, say it again, it said forty three percent of gen Z men believe young men should try to besly.
00:19:58
Speaker 1: Tough, should try to be physically tough.
00:20:00
Speaker 3: And when it came to more emotion centric prompts, thirty two percent of men agreed that men should figure out problems on their own before asking for help. That was where I was trying to get this idea of masculinity, like I got this, I can take care of this, I can figure this out.
00:20:17
Speaker 2: I don't need anyone else's help.
00:20:19
Speaker 3: And that's why I went to the whole I don't need to ask for directions thing because that was always kind of like the go to explanation where I felt like that was.
00:20:28
Speaker 2: The thing they were kind of referring to generally.
00:20:31
Speaker 1: Okay, is it masculine to not have to ask for help in changing a newborn's diaper? You see what I'm getting at?
00:20:45
Speaker 3: Yes?
00:20:45
Speaker 1: Is it a matter of the task or that me handling the task on my own? Right? You know what I'm saying. No one, you look at a man over there changing a diaper. You don't think that's manly. You don't think that's a stud I think you don't think that's looking over that. Yeah, it's sexy as hell, and I didn't have to ask for help in doing it. Right. What is it we we keep assigning these these things? What is masculine and what is being a man? Is it being a man to not ask for help? Is it being a man to not at it? That's manly? Okay, that's fine, some people can see it's that way. I know what we were getting at here, robes. But then the task that you don't ask for help in doing coleaning the dishes, handling the dishwasher. I didn't ask for help on that. I swept the floors, I made the bed, I sprayed downy wrinkle release on the damn thing. I did all these things and didn't have to ask for help. Are those not manly chores?
00:21:50
Speaker 2: I think they are?
00:21:51
Speaker 1: Okay? Then what are we doing?
00:21:52
Speaker 3: Then?
00:21:52
Speaker 1: What are we doing right? We we're just struggling with what is supposed to be manly behavior and not and we're just seeing I guess rogues generations kind of shift. The older generation that grew up with that thing has now grown up and grown old and figured out, Wow, we didn't get it right. And now the younger generation is trying to figure this ish out and they will.
00:22:18
Speaker 3: That's interesting and I guess that's hopeful the way you put it that, maybe we're just looking at a younger generation who hasn't lived enough life to understand that we don't. That you don't need to prove anything to be something. And in a world where women are becoming more relevant, in a world where women are more educated and am, in a world where women are earning more money, do you think men are struggling for their role their identity. Is that part of what is fueling some of this that we're seeing in these types of.
00:22:53
Speaker 1: S's a mindset where if you are of an old mindset of what a man is supposed to be, then you have a problem with Kamala Harris and Hillary Clinton being the Democratic nominee. That means you also have a problem with your woman going out and making twice your salary and not realizing, Wow, that's awesome that I got a woman that can earn twice as much as me and still wants to be with my bum ass. Right, we're looking at it all the wrong way. What is manhood? What is it now? That's that's I'm okay with the evolution robes. I think it's kind of cool, and I think it's kind of cool for the younger they're going to figure it out like we did. Robes. There were people our generation look back to, some members of our own family, how they looked at our opposite races. Even like I've our families evolved from a time right and in their lifetime they changed in their own thinking because of the world changing around them. This is kind of I didn't know where this story was going, and this stat hopeful in seeing this. Wow, that's hopeful because it's cyclical. We all figure it out, and we all think at that age that we got to figure it out.
00:24:12
Speaker 3: I'm curious, and we'll wrap this up with your thoughts on this. But when you were I guess thirty and under, so when you were in your twenties, teens, twenties, would you have ever said, I'm just curious and I won't hold this against you, that a wife should obey her husband.
00:24:34
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's insanity. That's obey. Oh my god. Okay, First of all, the word obey should be banished. Who obeys? For like, give me any scenario, any relationship? A dog obeys the bam okay, And if we start with that, that's the first one you can come up with, exactly.
00:24:53
Speaker 2: And that is why the obey?
00:24:55
Speaker 1: Give me human and human? Is there any obey? Maybe the the prisoner has to obey the warden. I don't know what else is there other than that.
00:25:05
Speaker 3: I think that verb is so offensive when it comes to a relationship.
00:25:09
Speaker 1: No, you never is it? Okay?
00:25:12
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, I appreciate that, and thank you.
00:25:15
Speaker 2: That makes me feel what you.
00:25:18
Speaker 1: Obey. But if you said I've obeyed you.
00:25:21
Speaker 2: You told me no, I've obeyed you.
00:25:24
Speaker 3: The point being is you and I have done that and given each other those moments when we know it's really important to the other person.
00:25:31
Speaker 2: I wouldn't call it obeying.
00:25:32
Speaker 3: I think it's deferring, maybe in moments where it makes sense, and I get that I've deferred a lot.
00:25:41
Speaker 2: Fair But I'm curious do you think that? Do you think that what the best way?
00:25:50
Speaker 3: I'm so curious from a man's perspective, was there ever a point in which, in modern times it was advantageous or better for a relationship or a family for there to be a head of household, for.
00:26:05
Speaker 2: Someone to ultimately have the final.
00:26:07
Speaker 1: Say okay, just my experience, no, to have the final say no. No, one in a couple, in a relationship gets veto power. We've done that jokingly. We can talk about that in a second, but there is nobody that is able to say, at the end of a debate, I'm putting my foot down, that is it, and you don't have any choice but to accept it. That is not a partnership. No relationship works like that. If somebody else in whatever world they live in, say that's the way we want our household to work, not yourselves out. I'm just saying, no, I don't subscribe to that. Even it's laughable.
00:26:50
Speaker 2: I just fell more in love with you. Is that possible?
00:26:57
Speaker 1: It shouldn't know, that's nothing. I didn't say anything there should have been, But I will say.
00:27:01
Speaker 3: That I do think this is this, so, this, this poll, this survey, this, these headlines that are out here on this International Women's Day certainly get people up in arms. But I do think it's worth a conversation. I do think that asking your partner or wondering what works, what makes sense. And I do think it is shocking to hear that the younger generations are like this. But I appreciate your perspective. I appreciate the fact that you say they'll figure it out.
00:27:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did too. We thought we had it all figured out when we were in our teens twenties. Yes, we got it. You old folkies don't know what you're talking about. Yes, everybody did. Yes. Do you know they used to ride separate buses to school. That was still in our parents. Yeah, generation, they figured it out, they came around, It just happened. It's okay, they'll figure out. They'll be fine, I I.
00:27:59
Speaker 3: You know what, that is the best perspective I've heard on this entire story.
00:28:05
Speaker 2: And you know what, So when.
00:28:06
Speaker 3: You read these headlines, hopefully you've listened to this episode and you're like, you know what, it's gonna be.
00:28:11
Speaker 2: Okay, just give it some time. We appreciate that.
00:28:14
Speaker 3: We appreciate you for listening to us on this Sunday and on this International Women's Day, I may be Roeboch alongside my lovely partner TJ.
00:28:24
Speaker 2: Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.