Young men’s and women’s opinions differ all over the developed world
It’s not just in the US that young women lean more to the left than young men. It’s pretty much a worldwide phenomenon in developed countries, as well as a relatively new one:
The Economist analysed polling data from 20 rich countries, using the European Social Survey, America’s General Social Survey and the Korean Social Survey. Two decades ago there was little difference between men and women aged 18-29 on a self-reported scale of 1-10 from very liberal to very conservative. However, our analysis found that by 2020 the gap was 0.75. For context, this is roughly twice the size of the gap in opinion between people with and without a degree in the same year.
Put another way, in 2020 young men were only slightly more likely to describe themselves as liberal than conservative, with a gap of just two percentage points. Young women, however, were much more likely to lean to the left than the right, with a gap of a massive 27 percentage points.
In all the large countries we examined, young men were more conservative than young women. In Poland, the gap was 1.1 points on a scale of 1-10. It was a hefty 1.4 in America, 1 in France, 0.75 in Italy, 0.71 in Britain and 0.74 in South Korea. Men and women have always seen the world differently. What is striking, though, is that a gulf in political opinions has opened up, as younger women are becoming sharply more liberal while their male peers are not.
The phenomenon resides in the young – and if memory serves, I believe that in the US it is the young and unmarried, for the most part. Issues such as abortion are obviously a big part of this, at least in the US, but also perceived continuing injustices such as non-equal pay (which is a misunderstanding; the inequality has to do with women’s work patterns rather than discrimination, but widespread feminist propaganda says otherwise).
More:
One poll found that 72% of young American women who voted in House elections in 2022 backed the Democratic candidate; some 54% of young men did. In 2008 there was barely any gap. In Europe, where many elections offer a wide array of parties, young women are more likely to support the most left-wing ones, whereas young men are more likely to favour the right or even the radical right.
Remember that red wave that didn’t happen in 2022?
Also:
Although the men at the top are doing fine, many of the rest are struggling. In rich countries, 28% of boys but only 18% of girls fail to reach the minimum level of reading proficiency as defined by PISA, which tests high-school students. And women have overtaken men at university. In the EU, the share of men aged 25 to 34 with tertiary degrees rose from 21% to 35% between 2002 and 2020. For women it rose faster, from 25% to 46%. In America, the gap is about the same: ten percentage points more young women than men earn a bachelor’s degree.
So young women are more exposed than men to the leftist propaganda that dominates universities. My guess is that as a group they also tend to be more susceptible than men to propaganda that appeals to feelings, as leftist messages ordinarily do. And the disparity in education is probably contributing to a drop in marriage and childbirth rates, although there are certainly other factors as well:
In America, Daniel Cox, Kelsey Hammond and Kyle Gray of the Survey Centre on American Life find that Generation Z (typically defined as those born between the late 1990s and early 2000s) have their first romantic relationship years later than did Millennials (born between 1980 and the late 1990s) or Generation X (born in the decade or so to 1980), and are more likely to feel lonely. Also, Gen Z women, unlike older women, are dramatically more likely than their male peers to describe themselves as LGBT (31% to 16%). It remains to be seen whether this mismatch will last, and if so, how it will affect the formation of families in the future.
There’s much more at the link, none of it particularly encouraging.
Women have been sold a bill of goods for a long time, at least since 1963, maybe earlier.
For some time, I have felt the 19th Amendment was a mistake. And I am a woman.
So it’s not all about abortion and specifically American issues and circumstances? That’s worth noting and remembering.
Originally, from the 1920s down to the mid 1960s, women were more likely to vote Republican and identify as Republicans. Male and female voting and identification then converged for a while until the gender gap opened up in the early 1980s.
Lee Also:
However, imagine a country where women are not allowed to vote. You might like the outcome politically, being on the right, but everything else about that country would probably be pretty pernicious. In fact, every country in the world presently allows women to vote. Only the Vatican (not really a country in the usual sense) doesn’t.
So no, it’s not a mistake – it is an inevitability in a modern country of any sort to not deny half the population the right to vote. What is a mistake is the leftist takeover of the MSM, education, and so many other institutions. Leftist men are very much a part of this and have been from the start. Plus, the trend being described in the post is recent.
Women on the average seem even more susceptible to social pressure than are men…if this is true then it will act as an accelerator for whatever views are already gaining traction.
Women want certainty, in the aggregate they are risk averse, that’s the appeal of the left’s lies. Simple biology; women’s ability to have children carries with it an implicit dynamic; the safer the environment in which a child is raised, the less anxiety for the mother. Implicit to that dynamic is a universal cultural imperative and politics is downstream from culture.
“As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal.” Lazarus Long aka Robert Anson Heinlein
Geoffrey Britain:
But this disparity is a recent phenomenon, so that explanation is insufficient.
The young women in our families seem to be attempting and failing to make sense of a formless dissatisfaction. (The young men need lap band surgery). Both sets are getting ineffective if not downright damaging counsel from the older generations.
From my reading, the black and Hispanic defections from the Dem party are mostly male.
So it is more a gender issue (and whatever that entails) than People of Color.
It is said there are two scientific disciplines without actual material to study.
One is exobiology and the other is evolutionary psychology.
The restrictions required by reality are not a burden in these two endeavors, which makes them more fun and you don’t need any actual training to indulge.
So I will. For a million years, men or their male hominin ancestors have been far more likely to deal with, to know they can deal with, to know how, to know they know how, issues with a club or spear than have women. Is it in their genes?
Thus the uncertainties sometimes associated with more conservative thinking and policies are less unnerving for guys than for women. One way or another, they can take care of it.
Evpsych is pretty big on dating sites, particularly those of the PUA folks.
Okay. Here’s my real-world experience: When in college, the lefty guys were rarely physically impressive. You wouldn’t choose one of them to be watching your six in case of trouble. In many cases, you wouldn’t think they’d even try, much less handle the likely issues. It got to the point where ostentatious physical uselessness was a kind of virtue, in some circles.
I was involved in a couple of dicey field projects–all props to those who participated–mostly recruited from the campus left. A big frat-jock guy (me) was a curiosity. There were some issues I hadn’t noticed that my wife picked up on forty years later at a reunion.
My colleagues were brave, I lacked imagination.
Still, I think there is something to the original thesis; physically capable guys are less likely to be far left. Why? See my entirely baseless evpsych guess.
It’s a trend, I should say, not a certainty.
Ruxandra Teslo, a very thoughtful Gen Z woman, has some thoughts on the political polarization by gender:
https://www.writingruxandrabio.com/p/political-polarisation-by-gender
I think David Foster’s (April 3, 2024 at 5:28 pm) and Geoffrey B’s reasonings are fairly solid. As to the problem of explaining the “recent phenomenon,” one could take David’s argument and invoke smart phones and social media as a newer amplifier.
Also, with Geoffrey’s argument, I think the socially/politically generated safety net has expanded recently, and I think there has been a moderately rapid shift away from marriage and child bearing. And I think there is a shift towards late marriage and child bearing. Just the age shift would have an impact on these statistics.
A neighbor of mine had her two daughters at the age of 37 and 40. And didn’t bother to get married until the first child was two years of age.
you cannot take a giant company with over 10,000 managers overwhelmingly men, and over the course of 15-20 years convert that to 50% women without a massive deleterious effect on the men.
“Risk averse” once involved sticking close to home and family and locality and old ways and beliefs. Now it involves relying on government. Families, home life, local communities and established ways and beliefs can disappear overnight, so the risk averse turn to the government. But it’s also true that women are now risk takers more and men are more risk averse in the past.
@ David Foster > “Ruxandra Teslo, a very thoughtful Gen Z woman, has some thoughts on the political polarization by gender:”
Excellent post, thank you.
I don’t agree with everything she asserts, but she makes a lot of good points.
“The mainstreaming of hysteria”? (or a form, thereof?)
Or if that might seem a bit extreme, then “The mainstreaming of cattiness”?
Or perhaps “The mainstreaming of PERFECTION”?
…No, that couldn’t be it…or could it?
Hmm. Instead of “PERFECTION”, let’s try “The Mainstreaming of ‘DO what I SAY, NOT WHAT I DO!'”…or perhaps even better, “The Mainstreaming of ‘IT’S NOT MY FAULT!! It COULDN’T POSSIBLY be my fault!! IT’S ALL YOUR/HIS/HER/THEIR FAULT’…”
…all leading to a kind of defensiveness, ruthlessness—and FEAR(?)—of which Saul Alinsky might be proud. (In fact he would appear to be the one who distilled it all into a very fine and heady brew…of HATRED….)
I tried to post this once, but it disappeared. My apologies if this ends up being a repeat:
Men and women are wired differently (speaking in generalities of course, there are always exceptions, but those are, by definition, outside the norm).
Men generally are risk takers. They’re more aggressive and competitive. Men generally prefer self-determination over security and safety.
Women are nurturers. They are more protective and defensive. Women generally prefer security and stability over risk and reward.
In the past, even as recently as 20 years ago, pairing up with someone was expected. Even if the culture had already changed and the pairings weren’t typically for life, the pairings still occurred.
In that dynamic, many, possibly most, women could rely on their male partners to provide the stability and safety that they crave.
Society has changed that dynamic. Girls are taught that they need a man “like a fish needs a bicycle”. That they should provide for themselves, that being a “housewife” and mother equate to weakness.
Boys are taught that their natural aggressive, competitive, risk taking instincts are wrong and are even dangerous and “toxic”.
There’s way more to it than that, I’m obviously oversimplifying, but I don’t want this to end up a treatise rather than just a blog comment.
The bottom line is that the recent generations of boys and girls aren’t interested in pairing up.
Girls are instructed to pursue a career path first and worry about the other things later, so they tend to be single into their 30’s if they ever marry at all…but they still have that instinctive desire for security and stability.
And men don’t pursue relationships any more because “hookup culture” makes it unnecessary and the risks inherent to long term relationships make it unpalatable.
So, if women have no male partner to take on the role, upon whom does the responsibility for providing safety and security fall? Daddy Government. Hence support for liberal causes.
By the way, the massive cognitive dissonance between what they’re naturally wired for and what society tells them they should want and need is a big, big part of what is causing the mental health crisis in our younger population.
Heck, even the women of my generation (late baby boom/early Gen X) suffer from this. There was still a strong tradition of pairing up and marriage, but they were pumped full of feminist propaganda about how they should want to be strong and independent and that having to rely on a man is detestable and weak.
How many women under the age of 60 do you know who aren’t on at least one type of anti-depression or anti-anxiety drug? Of the hundreds of women I know that are my age or younger, I only know a handful who aren’t taking mood altering drugs to keep them from melting down. And they’re all quite open about it. Virtually every conversation involving a group of women eventually devolves into a discussion about what types of anxiety or depression drugs they’re taking this month.
Of the older women I know…my mom (84) and her friends, aunts, older cousins, church elders, etc, it’s quite rare for them to need these types of meds. My mom takes blood pressure medicine and a handful of vitamins every day. That’s it. And she’s one of the happiest people I know.
I wonder why that is…
God created us with distinct roles, responsibilities, strengths and weaknesses for a reason. Men and Women’s natures are complimentary and, when the roles are acknowledged and respected, rather than denied and disparaged, that’s when people are happiest and the most fulfilled in their lives.
Since the 1960’s women have been sold a bill of goods about what they should want and expect out of life and their mental health has suffered dramatically as a direct result.
And in the younger generations, the same disservice has been foisted upon men as well…with the same, predictable, result.
In My Humble Opinion.
Someone at an aviation magazine observed that ‘if you do anything with your airplane that is not consistent with the Pilot’s Operating Handbook, then you are a test pilot’.
In a society, the POH is the aggregated set of customs, expectations, and laws which people use to guide their behavior. It does need constant updating and improvement…but what happens when either (a) it is thrown out completely, or (b) new versions of the POH are issued by people who sound very authoritative but in reality have a lot less knowledge and experience than they claim to?
Some people like being social test pilots and can even thrive in the role…but most people feel lost in that role.
As people more freely express their “inner selves” publicly, the actual purchase price of a particular contract and the liabilities involved will become more clear.
In the short term, this will mean that fewer children will be produced as the liabilities are perceived as exceeding the potential returns given the assumed prevailing associative conditions.
However, once young males accept their emotional estramgement from the current system of mores, they will tend to lose any fear of the censure of those with whom their political and social relations is now purely formal.
At some point the social cleavage might become so great that young males will seek alternative investment in foreign women; or even as technology allows in natural “”Stepford wives”.
A quick noninvasive genetic scan of a potential associate or mate may instantaneously reveal whether they are suitable as allies or judged an irredeemable human toxin to be avoided and excluded from mutual aid arrangements.
Of course, this choice to disengage will be seen as immoral by those who benefit from the current system of distributed risk and biased benefit.
How far they will go to peempt it should such choices appear to be within the realm of plausibility, is an ooen question.
Some hint of the respose, might be predicted by the known reaction of those in favor of unrestriced abortion, when some years ago it was mooted that given an absolute right of choice, some potential parents might use that choice in order to abort foeti with gay genes, should such genes or prenatally established dispositions be confirmed.
Choice for me, but not for thee. A pretty common and predictable response.
Sailorcurt, great post!
@Sailorcurt,
I wouldn’t presume to speak for half of humanity (not even the half I belong to). However, it’s obvious that more and more women embraced feminism out of seeking more power, money, and opportunity for themselves. Think about it:
If you were born a boy, you got to embrace any career you wanted, marry any woman you liked, vote, run for office, speak out on any subject, etc.
If you were a girl, you got one choice: you were a homemaker. Oh, you might be a servant or a cook or a factory worker if you were poor, but you would never make as much money or have as much power as a man who took the same job. The only way to move up in society was to marry well, and you only had a limited time to do so, before 25 at the latest, or else you were pitied and disdained as an “old maid”. You had to use every art to make yourself attractive, because you weren’t allowed to ask a man out, much less ask him to marry you. Even if you got the Cinderella prize, your husband could beat you, rape you, take your money, take your kids, even have you locked up in an asylum without your consent, and the law could do nothing.
Of course, most husbands were better to their wives than that. But even if you got the best husband, there was always the fear he could divorce you, leaving you with nothing, or die and leave you as a penniless widow. Of course, a widow or a divorcee could marry again, but again, you had to wait to be chosen for marriage: you couldn’t go out to propose to a likely prospect. You couldn’t vote, you couldn’t run for office: you had to remain silent and obedient, no matter what you thought, or how you felt.
You couldn’t go out unescorted anywhere, or your reputation would be hurt, ruining your chances for marriage. You couldn’t flirt too much or dance too much or swear or drink or smoke: that would ruin your reputation. You certainly couldn’t learn anything about sex, much less have sex with anyone but your husband. You had no control over whether you would get pregnant. If your husband was impotent or sterile, you would get the blame for being barren. If you did get pregnant, your health could be ruined by your pregnancy or you could die in childbirth. Once the baby was born, the work and responsibilities of raising it was 99.99% on you, along with cooking, cleaning, and serving your husband.
So I ask you: if you had to live the 70 or 80 years of your life that way, would you be happy?
@ BJ > “if you had to live the 70 or 80 years of your life that way, would you be happy?”
Many women have claimed they were.
@BJ
Your assumption is that there is no “happy medium” between servitude and boss-girl.
It is entirely possible for society to recognize that women aren’t property and shouldn’t be treated as such, while at the same time recognizing the natural God-given roles of the genders.