Study finds moral divide between men and women
We’ve heard it all before — men and women can’t agree on anything, and a new poll suggests that might be true.
Men and women have different moral stances on such divisive issues as pornography, sex between high school students, keeping a handgun in the house and avoiding taxes, an Angus Reid poll finds.
The most dramatic differences between the genders lie in sexually based topics.
Fifty-two per cent of men said watching porn is morally acceptable. Fifty-six per cent of women stated watching porn is unacceptable.
Men also find buying or selling sex more acceptable than do women. Thirty-five per cent of men think buying sex is OK and 36 per cent find selling sex is fine. Women come in at 16 and 17 per cent, respectively.
Shachi Kurl, senior vice-president of the Angus Reid Institute, says the gender divide on sexual topics is common.
The study, which polled 1,530 Canadians Dec. 10-14 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, also found age is a defining factor.
Kurl said the majority of women over 55 see watching porn as immoral, while fewer than half of women in the 18-34 age group agree.
The poll reveals that men are also more likely to find telling jokes about race more acceptable.
The same applies to having an affair. Most Canadians see an affair as morally unacceptable, although eight per cent of men polled find it is acceptable.
On the question of guns, 29 per cent of men find it OK to keep a handgun in the house; only 16 per cent of women feel the same.
The study also probed feelings on such issues as gambling, tax avoidance, abortion, capital punishment and assisted suicide. It found a little more than half of those polled see assisted suicide as morally acceptable, about 40 per cent favour abortion, 10 per cent see not declaring income to avoid paying taxes as not a moral issue, and only 49 per cent of both men and women see eating meat as morally acceptable.
More men than women saw gambling and the death penalty as morally acceptable.