Study: Men Embrace Feminism If Ryan Gosling Says So

If the popularity of Ryan Gosling’s “Drive” jacket taught us one thing, it’s that people will love anything with the Gos seal of approval. That’s a good sign for feminism and Danielle Henderson, who has been putting Gosling’s beautiful face under feminist quotes for years on her Tumblr Feminist Ryan Gosling. University of Saskatchewan Ph.D. students Sarah Sangster, Linzi Williamson, and Karen Lawson believe in the power of Gosling, and they conducted a study using Feminist Ryan Gosling photos to test whether the memes affect people’s feminist beliefs.The researchers tested three versions of Ryan Gosling photos on 99 participants, a third of whom were male. Each participant was exposed to a photo of Feminist Ryan Gosling, “Hey Girl” Gosling, or an unadorned photo of the Gos. The research found that men who saw a picture of Ryan Gosling with feminist text written over it were more inclined to endorse radical feminist beliefs than the control group of people who looked at text-free photos. Beliefs were changed by as much as 10%, said the The Hollywood Reporter.After viewing 10 to 15 photos of Feminist Ryan Gosling, male participants were more likely to believe statements like “men use abortion laws and reproductive technology to control women’s lives.” Women, meanwhile, remained largely unchanged in their feminist beliefs regardless of the Gosling memes.”What our research says is that we shouldn’t quickly dismiss pop culture phenomena and realize that there is potential to use it as a persuasive device,” Sangster told the National Post of her research. Hey, girls: Keep up the good work. Next time you need to change people’s minds, may we suggest having Ryan himself read Tumblr quotes out loud?