Posted on 02/03/2024 1:46:23 PM PST by Drew68
One of the most well-established patterns in measuring public opinion is that every generation tends to move as one in terms of its politics and general ideology. Its members share the same formative experiences, reach life’s big milestones at the same time and intermingle in the same spaces. So how should we make sense of reports that Gen Z is hyper-progressive on certain issues, but surprisingly conservative on others?
The answer, in the words of Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and one of the leading researchers on the topic, is that today’s under-thirties are undergoing a great gender divergence, with young women in the former camp and young men the latter. Gen Z is two generations, not one.
In countries on every continent, an ideological gap has opened up between young men and women. Tens of millions of people who occupy the same cities, workplaces, classrooms and even homes no longer see eye-to-eye.
In the US, Gallup data shows that after decades where the sexes were each spread roughly equally across liberal and conservative world views, women aged 18 to 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male contemporaries. That gap took just six years to open up.
Germany also now shows a 30-point gap between increasingly conservative young men and progressive female contemporaries, and in the UK the gap is 25 points. In Poland last year, almost half of men aged 18-21 backed the hard-right Confederation party, compared to just a sixth of young women of the same age.
Outside the west, there are even more stark divisions. In South Korea there is now a yawning chasm between young men and women, and it’s a similar situation in China. In Africa, Tunisia shows the same pattern. Notably, in every country this dramatic split is either exclusive to the younger generation or far more pronounced there than among men and women in their thirties and upwards. The #MeToo movement was the key trigger, giving rise to fiercely feminist values among young women who felt empowered to speak out against long-running injustices. That spark found especially dry tinder in South Korea, where gender inequality remains stark, and outright misogyny is common.
In the country’s 2022 presidential election, while older men and women voted in lockstep, young men swung heavily behind the right-wing People Power party, and young women backed the liberal Democratic party in almost equal and opposite numbers.
Korea’s is an extreme situation, but it serves as a warning to other countries of what can happen when young men and women part ways. Its society is riven in two. Its marriage rate has plummeted, and birth rate has fallen precipitously, dropping to 0.78 births per woman in 2022, the lowest of any country in the world.
Seven years on from the initial #MeToo explosion, the gender divergence in attitudes has become self-sustaining. Survey data show that in many countries the ideological differences now extend beyond this issue. The clear progressive-vs-conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused — or at least is part of — a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues.
In the US, UK and Germany, young women now take far more liberal positions on immigration and racial justice than young men, while older age groups remain evenly matched. The trend in most countries has been one of women shifting left while men stand still, but there are signs that young men are actively moving to the right in Germany, where today’s under-30s are more opposed to immigration than their elders, and have shifted towards the far-right AfD in recent years.
It would be easy to say this is all a phase that will pass, but the ideology gaps are only growing, and data shows that people’s formative political experiences are hard to shake off. All of this is exacerbated by the fact that the proliferation of smartphones and social media mean that young men and women now increasingly inhabit separate spaces and experience separate cultures.
Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation, but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts.
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A thirty point difference between men and women is massive and doesn't bode well for the future.
Repeal the 19th before these idiots get us all killed.
But he has gained a massive following among young men.
Unless we hand the country over to the Taliban, the right for women to vote will not be going anywhere.
This nothing new. Emotions vs. Reason. Feels v. Real. Men and women are biologically very different and it has led to innate differences in thought processes by sex.
I think of a man, and then I take away reason and accountability.
If we want to win, we have to appeal to all the female voters, unfortunately.
This Financial Times author doesn’t mention biology
In a meaningful way, but seems to have drunk the “blank slate equalizm” kool-aide.
Future historians will study what caused the collapse of the powerful American Civilization. Your answer is here.
“Unless we hand the country over to the Taliban...”
Couldn’t we just contract them out for the dirty work?
Gen Z men will be looking for Asian and East European wives
A woman began the downfall of man, and it continues apace today.
Takin’ a lot for granted ain’t ya? Tossing around terms like men and women as if anyone an define what they are…
From what I hear it’s the soon-to-be-majority tranny vote we should want to know about.
There’s another dimension to this besides the real issues that affect men and women differently:
We increasingly exist in a culture fueled by deep and profound levels of deception. The “information” bombarding us at light-speed 24/7 is not by any stretch of the imagination guaranteed to be the truth. The media institutions that monopolize our air-waves are full of agendas at odds with the obligation to report the gospel truth.
Add to that the fact that creating divisions has long been a wildly successful political strategy for all sorts of Marxists and fellow travelers who know that pitting factions against each other is the best way to create the opportunity to offer the kinds of “protection” which always involve the increase in the size and scope of government and the suspension of individual freedom.
So, how much of this male / female gap is based on real issues, and how much is being programmed to create divisions to be exploited?
Or much younger or older women.
Gen Z men will be looking for Asian and East European wives.
DingDingDing! We have a winner. In addition, it will be a good time to be a cat veterinarian, because all of those lonely liberal GenZ women who are working so hard to get ahead will need to take care of their fur babies.
I agree.
Maybe German girls like their immigrant men. Maybe German men don’t like that.
Sexists! Only two genders. What about the other 2,354,679,871 genders claimed by sickos?
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