**The Witch **, I was surprised by the percentages, not by the attitudes expressed. Although I agree with some of the posters (including CK) that the question might been misinterpreted by some respondents.
“I don’t think it’s increasing conservatism that’s causing all of it–I think it’s nostalgia for an ideal that never existed and consumerism that is driving this current wave.”
Allow me to clarify: I don’t see increasing conservatism as a cause of resurgent patriarchal attitudes; I see resurgent patriarchal attitudes as conservative. (Though I’d agree that The Surrendered Wife kind of stuff can be marketed, to a point, to women with fairly mainstream political attitudes.) As to consumerism, you won’t get me to disagree; OTOH, this type of stuff wouldn’t have been marketed 10 or even five years ago, IMO.
"I would expect a drive for security to happen in conjunction with economic insecurity. That’s the reason I think the driving force is nostalgia–the rise in popularity of patriarchal ideals is occurring in a time of widespread prosperity.
Well, there’s always been nostalgia. Look at the '50s nostalgia that gave us shows like “Happy Days” when I was a kid. I think you have to ask what the nostalgia is for: and in this instance, it’s for a conservative stance on relations between the sexes, no?
That said, I totally agree with you about the impact of consumerism: let’s just say that there’s an unholy alliance between consumer hype and conservative trends of various kinds (although there are, of course, exceptions).
Tom: “If you consider Dex’s response “hot under the collar,” I can suggest several posters whom you might wish to avoid at all costs.”
Ah, I’m pretty sure I’ve already met those posters 
If truth be told I had originally written “defensive” but I didn’t want DDG to think I was belaboring my original post with reference to her. So, perhaps, to be just to DDG I was unjust to CK. If so, I regret the exaggeration.
"Dex provided an alternative interpretation to the conclusion drawn by the pollsters. That hardly equates to “flag waving.”
The alternative interpretation did not. Some of the other stuff, to my mind, did. I could not help but think that had the poll been conducted by some US group and published in The Washington Post the response would have been different. And I don’t feel that there’s any justification for that kind of oversensitivity to international discussion of US culture.
“It should be noted that we are getting a very condensed synopsis of the conclusions drawn by the pollsters. However “measured” you believe their poll to be,”
You have misunderstood me. I have said (several times, including in my post to CK) that I can’t speak for the accuracy of the poll. What I actually said was that the observations made in the article about the poll were “measured”-- by which I meant rhetorically moderate. Hence my contrast to the sexist caved-welling Americans that the Canadian article did not take us to be
You may be certain, Tom that I too am aware that polls can be misleading and/or methodologically invalid: every single post I’ve made on this subject has included at least one qualification of that sort.
"As to your aside: The U.S. has certainly had a rocky road toward recognizing the equality of its people, however, at the time of its founding, all the societies to which you refer had an established nobility and aristocracy (along with the slavery from which we suffered). While Dex did not claim that we “invented” the notion of equal rights, the U.S. was the first country to proclaim as a part of its foundation (however hypocritically) that equal rights were an essential element of its nature.
I’m sorry Tom, but I see this as hair-splitting. Of course colonial America had no aristocracy. And CK’s comments were implied rather than stated.
That said, I believe my comments are justified. Americans–including some smart and well-educated Americans–tend to bridle whenever people from other countries make even very moderately critical assertions about the US. Undoubtedly this is true for other nationals as well. But here is a case where we have poll: a poll to be sure of questionable accuracy; a poll that may have asked the pertinent question in a misleading way. However, the poll is reported in a fairly unsensationalistic way. The query of the poll I entirely understand and sympathize with. But why the need to point out that Japan is materialistic, that France is French? Why the need to congratulate ourselves for not being Chinese communists? Why the need to remind ourselves, in this particular context, that the US has been at the vanguard of some democratic institutions? Why not just discuss the OP instead?
What’s been alleged is only that the US appears to have become more culturally conservative and anti-feminist. Is this really in dispute?
To be honest, I have lived both in France and the UK (although in the former only for a very short time); and I found the US a much less sexist society than either in many respects. I think it still is.
But right now, certain kinds of reactionary attitudes are gaining ground in the US and the “culture wars” are becoming ever more divisive. This is simply much less the case in far more secular countries such as Britain and France. Over in another thread Ben has just posted a link to a discussion of anti-evolutionary legislation. So far no one has responded, but it would be interesting to know how people might respond differently if the same link were to a Canadian or other international source.
So that’s my point. The OP asked us to discuss patriarchy in the US and discuss the validity of the poll. Can we not do this in good faith? Or must we divert some of our energies into defending ourselves against the imagined snickers of Canadians?