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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Psychol.
Sec. Personality and Social Psychology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1455199

What do men and women envy each other?

Provisionally accepted
  • University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The present study examines the phenomenon of envy directed towards the opposite sex. The research was conducted in the Czech Republic using a demographically representative sample of 1,769 individuals (867 men and 902 women). A qualitative analysis was conducted on the responses of respondents to the question of what they envied about the opposite sex. A total of 32 categories were identified, with some exhibiting a notable discrepancy between the responses of men and women. These findings corroborate the existing evidence of a sex imbalance. To illustrate, women expressed envy towards men in relation to their salary, prestige, lack of concern, ability to urinate standing up, physical strength, and the absence of menstruation, childbirth, and menopause. This suggests that women envy men in domains that are linked to the female biological condition. Conversely, men expressed envy towards women in relation to their physical attractiveness, ease of seduction, ability to perform "women's work", breasts, motherhood, and the capacity to manage multiple tasks simultaneously. Some categories (safety, tolerance) exhibited a near-equal representation of men and women, yet their content differed markedly.For instance, women envied men for not having to be afraid to be alone, while men envied women for being protected by men. The study revealed a previously unidentified phenomenon: the envy of the absence of an unpleasant quality, which we designated as ablative envy.

    Keywords: envy, sex difference, Inequality, ablative envy, social comparison, Czech Republic

    Received: 26 Jun 2024; Accepted: 03 Sep 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Kimplova, Krakovska, Badosek and Cakirpaloglu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Michaela Krakovska, University of Ostrava, Ostrava, Czechia

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