\u201cIt is just an enormous difference these days,\u201d said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies the dynamics of the American electorate.<\/p>\n
Hetherington said this political \u201cgender gap\u201d is largely driven by the behaviors of young women. Because young women are not only more liberal than young men\u2014they\u2019re more liberal than women of other generations by a long shot. And this trend is on the rise, according to past Gallup polls<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the period from 2001 to 2007, an average of 28 percent of women aged 18\u201329 identified as liberal. Then, between 2008 and 2016, that average grew to 32 percent.<\/p>\n The most recent period of data\u2014from 2017 to 2024\u2014shows that 40 percent of young women in this age cohort identify as liberal. That\u2019s a 12-point increase in 23 years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe below-30 women really stand out as being different from even women of older age cohorts,\u201d Hetherington said.<\/p>\n But young men have not followed the same pattern. Over the past 25 years, the percentage of men aged 18\u201329 who identify as liberal has fluctuated, but has generally hovered in the 20\u201330 percent range. In 2001, 25 percent of men in this age cohort were reported to have identified as liberal\u2014the same percentage who identify as liberal now.<\/p>\n For Khasya Tinglin, a junior at the University of Texas at Austin, the numbers aren\u2019t surprising. She\u2019s a rhetoric and writing major, but studied international relations during her first two years of college. Before she changed her major, she said she frequently noticed this divide in her classes.<\/p>\n In many of her required courses, which were often in the disciplines of political science and international relations, Tinglin said she found that male students were more likely to express conservative views. She said this became particularly noticeable when engaging in class discussions about current events and foreign conflicts.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a very unempathetic and unemotional way of looking at the world,\u201d Tinglin said. \u201cThere\u2019s multiple perspectives when you\u2019re looking at international relations. You can always do the state argument, but those are actual people\u2019s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n Hetherington said one possible reason for a growing political gender gap could be that support for many women\u2019s issues\u2014such as reproductive rights and gender equality\u2014has become distinctly partisan.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my generation, when we were young, there wasn\u2019t a giant difference between the Republicans and Democrats on gender issues,\u201d Hetherington said. \u201cAnd to the extent that there was a difference, it was really kind of just opening up in the 1980s.\u201d<\/p>\n One example Hetherington pointed to was the presidential election of 1976. During the race, both Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter and Republican candidate Gerald Ford were pro-life and expressed personal opposition to abortion.<\/p>\n Just a few years prior, when the US Supreme Court ruled in Roe v. Wade<\/em>, it was Justice Harry Blackmun who authored the majority opinion, which held that a woman\u2019s right to an abortion was protected by the right to privacy. Blackmun, along with four other justices in the 7\u20132 majority, was appointed by a Republican president.<\/p>\n \u201cThese things have changed a lot, starting in the 1980s, but those types of changes take a while,\u201d Hetherington said. \u201cSo, when we were being politically socialized, the choice between the parties was not that stark.\u201d<\/p>\n But that political context is much different from the one that young women today grew up in, Hetherington said. Instead, they watched a conservative Supreme Court with a majority of Republican-appointed justices overturn Roe v. Wade<\/em>.<\/p>\n Hetherington said other gender issues, such as women\u2019s rights and equality initiatives, have also become more partisan in the past 20 to 30 years. Women, he said, are therefore more likely to flock to the party that supports these rights.<\/p>\n Maggie Oliver, a junior majoring in political science at Pace University, said gender issues such as reproductive health care access influenced why she became politically active.<\/p>\n Oliver, who works on the campaign for Alex Flores, a Democratic candidate running for New York\u2019s 12th Congressional District, is a registered Democrat and describes herself as left-leaning. She said this is shaped in part by her own personal experiences.<\/p>\n \u201cYoung men specifically have the luxury of not having to worry about a lot of the same things that I feel like I watched myself worry about growing up,\u201d Oliver said. \u201cI had to think about birth control when I was 15 years old just as healthcare for menstruation.\u201d<\/p>\n But, Hetherington said that the Democratic Party\u2019s focus on gender issues could be alienating young men. \u201cThere\u2019s an old definition of politics that comes from a guy named Harold Laswell, and he defined politics as who gets what, when and how,\u201d Hetherington said. \u201cWhen men see what the Democratic party seems to be offering, as far as gender issues are concerned, they feel like there\u2019s not much on offer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n Partisan support for gender issues is likely not the only reason for a growing political gender gap. Education could also play a role.<\/p>\n Data from the Pew Research Center shows that since the late 1990s, US women have been outpacing men in receiving a college education.<\/p>\n Presently, 47 percent of women between the ages of 25 and 34 have a bachelor\u2019s degree, compared to just 37 percent of men. Women surpass men in bachelor\u2019s degree completion in every major racial and ethnic group, although the size of the gap varies.<\/p>\n Surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center revealed that education is strongly associated with partisanship. The findings showed that adults who have completed a four-year college degree are significantly more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, suggesting that education could be contributing to young women\u2019s leftward shift.<\/p>\n Hetherington asserts that the ideology of young men is also influencing elections. Indeed, Preston Hill, who was the president of UNC\u2013Chapel Hill\u2019s College Republicans club during the 2025\u201326 academic year, said he thinks the male demographic is a secret weapon for candidates.<\/p>\n Why? He points to the 2024 election.<\/p>\n During the election, young men swung sharply to the right. According to an analysis by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, roughly 56 percent of men aged 18\u201329 voted for President Donald Trump in a stark reversal from 2020, when about the same amount supported Joe Biden. In comparison, 40 percent of young women in that same age group voted for Trump in 2024.<\/p>\n This marked the first time that a majority of young male voters backed a Republican presidential candidate since the 1988 election of George H. W. Bush.<\/p>\n According to Hill, this demographic of young men is one that has felt \u201cleft out\u201d by the Democratic Party and dissatisfied with the Biden administration over issues like the economy and immigration. And during this period of discontent, Hill said conservatives provided young men with a seemingly better offer.<\/p>\n This was true for Kai Lindsey, a junior at UT-Austin. Lindsey said that he, alongside some of his male peers, felt \u201cswept aside\u201d by liberal ideologies that he believes are becoming more extreme.<\/p>\n \u201cswipe left below to view more authors\u201d<\/span>Swipe \u2192<\/span>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to things like affirmative action and hiring, some of that rhetoric definitely pushed me a little bit to see conservative ideology as more accepting or more caring for my personal issues,\u201d Lindsey said.<\/p>\n Hill said he particularly noticed gender being targeted during the 2024 presidential election. While Trump accepted the invitation to appear on Joe Rogan\u2019s podcast, which has an audience primarily of young men, Kamala Harris did not. In contrast, she campaigned primarily with female influencers and touted an endorsement from Taylor Swift.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the end, I think it paid off more for Trump to be going after the younger men,\u201d Hill said.<\/p>\n Briana Edwards, a graduate research assistant at the Center for Innovation and Sustainability in Local Media, said the type of content young men consume, like Rogan\u2019s podcast, is likely influencing their conservative slant. Much of the online content targeted towards young men, Edwards said, is part of the manosphere\u2014an ecosystem of toxic male online communities, which she studied for her master\u2019s thesis. This political content, she says, manipulates young men\u2019s sense of being discounted by the political system, and gives them someone to blame: Women.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s misplaced blame,\u201d Edwards said. \u201cI\u2019ve been articulating it as men are looking across at women. They\u2019re looking horizontally versus looking vertically. They need to look up at systems that are acting on them, and look side to side at the women who are facing the same experiences they are in this country, but handling it.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Edwards, there are several subgroups of the content that permeate the manosphere. Not all of it is inherently political. The ideologies that she\u2019s studied within the manosphere include Christian nationalism, men\u2019s rights activism, and anti-woke rhetoric, but Edwards said that even content that is not outwardly political tends to emphasize conservative values. Many of the ideas in the manosphere center around a desire to return to traditional gender norms and values. This longing for the past is something that Edwards said many Republican candidates leverage in their rhetoric.<\/p>\n \u201cI think Trump, RFK, and the broader manosphere does that very well,\u201d Edwards said. \u201c\u2018Make America Great Again.\u2019 \u2018Make America Healthy Again.\u2019 \u2018Let\u2019s return to traditional gender norms.\u2019 I think people want to imagine a world where things could be better. But, instead of imagining or speculating about what the future could be, we look at what the past was\u2014what we think it was. There\u2019s that weaponization of nostalgia. I think both groups do it very well.\u201d<\/p>\n As more and more young men consume this content, Edwards said they are becoming more disconnected from young women\u2014both politically and socially.<\/p>\n For some young adults, this is being reflected in their relationships. Lea Martin, a sophomore at the University of Oregon, said that political disagreements contributed to her decision to end a relationship with a romantic partner.<\/p>\n \u201cHe identified as a liberal, but didn\u2019t actually vote in the [2024 presidential] election,\u201d Martin said. \u201cHe didn\u2019t put any action behind his words. It was just disappointing.\u201d<\/p>\n Martin was raised in a politically active family. She attended her first protest at 8 years old and continued to participate in women\u2019s marches and rallies defending the academy as she grew up. Now, she feels that her political views are more than just beliefs\u2014they\u2019re part of her value system.<\/p>\n \u201cI would say I\u2019m definitely very liberal,\u201d Martin said. \u201cI think everyone deserves equal rights, and the environment deserves protection. I could never be that close with someone who doesn\u2019t have my same ethos.\u201d<\/p>\n A recent study from the University of California at Irvine found that 37 percent of Americans reported experiencing a \u201cpolitical breakup\u201d with friends, partners or family members at some point in their lives. The research suggests the trend might be accelerating, particularly since the 2024 election.<\/p>\n This comes at a time when women are already staying single longer and delaying having children. Using Census Bureau historical data, Morgan Stanley has predicted that 45 percent of women ages 25\u201344 will be single by 2030\u2014which would be the largest share in history.<\/p>\n Lindsey said he worries about what increasing division between young men and women could mean in the long term.<\/p>\n \u201cWith this growing ideological divide, when people are thinking about starting families, I think there\u2019s a disconnect,\u201d Lindsey said. \u201cThere\u2019s a growing disconnect between husbands and wives, where the man may have a certain expectation of the wife that the wife does not want to adhere to or, or vice versa. I\u2019m a big believer in the idea that getting married and having kids is an objectively good thing for the country. Seeing the ideological differences of men and women sort of butting heads with each other, I think, is a really bad sign.\u201d<\/p>\n Rue Siddiqui, a junior at DePaul University in Chicago, said she also worries about growing polarization. That\u2019s part of why she founded DePaul\u2019s chapter of BridgeUSA, a student movement designed to fight political division by championing viewpoint diversity and responsible discourse.<\/p>\n The club meets twice a month to discuss a preselected topic, which in the past has included matters such as immigration, DEI initiatives, and local Chicago issues. During the discussions, Siddiqui says all viewpoints are welcome. An executive board moderates all conversations to ensure they remain productive.<\/p>\n And though Siddiqui has noticed that many of the members who discuss more conservative takes tend to be male students, she\u2019s noticed something else, too. At the end of the meetings, all of the participants can leave not necessarily with their minds changed, but with a sense of mutual respect.<\/p>\n Siddiqui said she hopes the same could eventually be true for young men and women.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen it comes to men and women, those differences might never go away,\u201d Siddiqui said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying that they never will. But until we can talk to each other, nothing\u2019s really going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n Alice Scott is a 2026 Puffin student writing fellow for The Nation<\/em>. She studies journalism at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has been published by PBS NewsHour<\/em>, Texas Highways<\/em> magazine, and the Austin American-Statesman<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n \t\t<\/p>\n After his primary win, Ed Markey says he\u2019s ready to take on \u201cthe criminal enterprises\u201d of Big Tech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n John Nichols<\/a> <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n A conversation with Michigan\u2019s Democratic Senate nominee about public health, outside money, and a new kind of politics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n Feature<\/a> Pro-Israel influence over US politics is weaker than ever\u2014but that doesn\u2019t mean the lobby\u2019s demise is inevitable.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n Feature<\/a> Moulton, a centrist opportunist, sought to unseat his incumbent opponent by posturing as a young progressive. Voters didn\u2019t fall for it. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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