Revoltingly, some people are prone to attributing their distaste for everything to “gender equality.” Take into consideration all the other alarming news reports about how women are increasingly behaving aggressively, stealing, and binge drinking. According to reports, male behavior has diverged from what is expected of men. Consider Kay Hymowitz’s concerns that men are behaving more boyishly. Isn’t it true that the topic of gender equality troubles and perplexes us all? When it appears that men and women have “changed places,” most people react negatively. But is that really the case? Let’s examine the evidence in more detail. First off, if you can’t trust your spouse to be loyal, as Peggy Drexler notes in that article, you can’t expect them to answer honestly in a survey. Additionally, studies indicate that men and women both commit adultery at rates that are probably higher than those indicated by survey results. Surveys show that most married people value monogamy and avoid it. In general, neither men nor women engage in sexual misconduct. The reason why becomes immediately clear if we assume that the statistics are typically accurate and that either more women confess to adultery or more women actually do it than in the past.
