Sex differences are stark in generation 'gender neutral'

Young men and women are more politically divided than ever

Photo by Duncan Shaffer on Unsplash

Poland’s Presidential election confirms a trend: young voters back anti-establishment parties at opposite ends of the political spectrum. According to one exit poll, the right-wing Confederation (Konfederacja) party came first with voters under the age of 30 gaining 34.8% of votes, while the left-wing Together (Razem) party came second, with 18.7% of votes.

Across the West, young voters can no longer be relied upon to back established left-wing parties. France’s far-right Rassemblement National, now led by 29-year-old Jordan Bardella, won almost a third of the 18-to-25-year-old vote in the first round of last year’s Presidential run-off. And across the Atlantic, in what was dubbed ‘the zillennial election’, young voters helped Trump to victory.

In the UK, Gen Z is also embracing extremes. Both Reform and the Green Party have benefited from growing youth polarisation, with almost 10 per cent of 18 to 30-year-olds backing Reform in the UK’s last general election and almost twice as many young voters going Green.

What explains this polarisation?

Education accounts for some of the gap with graduates voting left and school leavers veering right. But gender also represents a significant political faultline. Young women were twice as likely as men to have voted Green while the exact opposite was the case for both Reform and the Conservative Party. When it comes to politics, Gen Z are more divided along gender lines than any other age group.

Pollsters disagree as to whether we are witnessing young women moving left or young men drifting right. Certainly it’s the case that for much of the twentieth century, British women were more likely to have voted Conservative than men. Shying away from radical change in favour of maintaining the status quo was assumed to appeal to women who traditionally put the security of family life above revolutionary upheaval.

There is concern that in a post-industrial, feminist era, working class men in particular are increasingly uncertain as to their place in the world. Both Farage and Trump are unapologetically male and their ‘blokeishness’ - especially when mediated through podcast bros like Joe Rogan - is assumed to be attractive to lost boys. But perhaps we need to take young men more seriously than this. It’s not just Farage’s smoking and drinking or Trump’s fondness for Mixed Martial Arts that turns them on but politics itself.

Young men and women are divided on issues, not just personalities and parties. Surveys show that young women are more worried about climate change and ‘social justice’ concerns - such as gender equality and access to abortion - than men. Gen Z boys, meanwhile, are more likely to think feminism has gone too far. Young men report being more concerned about the economy and immigration than women.

Social media is inevitably looked to as one explanation for this political gender gap. As digitial natives, Gen Z have grown up in online echo chambers with figures like Andrew Tate and Jordan Peterson appealing far more to young men than young women. But we can also point to the role of education here too. Women are much more likely to go to university than men and have been for many years. Once there, they meet staff who overwhelmingly lean left. From pro-Palestine protests to transgender rights, radical causes gain traction on campus.

But perhaps what’s most surprising is that young people are politically divided by gender at all. After all, this is the first generation raised to consider biological sex immaterial. Today’s young adults are likely to have attended nurseries or primary schools with teachers trained to use gender neutral language, referring to ‘children’ rather than ‘boys and girls’. At secondary school they may have had gender neutral uniforms and even unisex toilets. Although less likely now, Gen Z school leavers are likely to have attended Relationships and Sex Education Classes where they were taught that gender is a matter of identity, located in brains rather than bodies. This message was reinforced in assemblies, television programmes and by out-of-school groups such as Scouts and Guides.

It seems that the more society has attempted to move beyond sex, the more entrenched the differences in outlook between young men and women have become. Indeed, counter to the lessons from their childhood, both nature and nurture might account for some of today’s sex-based political differences. We see that from Black Lives Matter to transgender rights, many of today’s left-wing campaigns rely on emotion and ‘lived experience’ rather than logic and statistics. In particular, the ‘Be Kind’ mantra adopted by a number of woke causes holds a powerful grip on young women for whom the consequences of appearing to be mean and failing to conform with gendered expectations can be considerable. Boys, meanwhile, having taken on board a different internet meme - ‘facts don’t care about your feelings’ - can ride out the disapproval of teachers and parents with bravado.

The impact of this sex-based political polarisation is growing hard to ignore. Young men and women are not just less likely to be in a relationship, they are also less likely to hook up and have casual sex than older generations. While Gen Z may aspire to a wedding, current trends suggest marriage rates in the UK are the lowest since records began.

Being in a relationship means setting differences aside in the interests of shared priorities and goals. The question facing us now is whether boys and girls can find enough common ground ever to get to that point. Ironically, dropping gender neutral childhoods might be a necessary first step.

Poland perhaps sends a warning to the left: young women’s votes cannot be relied upon. That Konfederacja took such a large share of the youth vote suggests women might be tempted to turn right - even if they do not admit this to pollsters.