Left foot, right foot

Written by Emily Harle

Illustration by @georgiabrownillustration

Sitting down to a first date in the middle of Mayfair, London. A perfectly unassuming guy sits across from me – brunette, kind eyes with a relaxed yet confident smile plastered across his face. Yet as soon as the conversation dares to go deeper than the weather or how lovely the gelato is that we’re sharing, I feel that all-too-familiar tug of disconnect.

We dance steadily around the socio-political topics of the day, as I attempt to subtly gauge where he stands on the values I deem vital for a partner to share – for example, where his vote typically falls on a ballot; if he is the type to stiffen up in a room full of queer people; or whether he would expect his woman to busy herself making sandwiches all day. After quite a painstaking two hours of surface-level chat – that despite numerous attempts to dive deeper, barely makes a ripple in the conversational pond – I leave, struggling to pinpoint the exact cause of such tangible disconnect.

And yes, I am a nightmare Hinge date (and frankly, unapologetically so). But this is not the only time I’ve found myself pulling teeth in a new conversation with a man of my age. And this is definitely not the only time I’ve been taken aback at some of the more conservative or “traditional” sentiments sewn during a conversation with another person of my generation.

Of course this is all anecdotal – it’s one 24-year-old woman’s experience. But is it just me? A number of media outlets have recently reported on an emerging phenomenon: a global and growing divide between the political views and ideologies of young men and young women. 

The theme for this issue is between spaces, and while at first it may seem unusual to consider men and women as two distinct regions with a gap existing between them, a growing pool of research has begun to suggest exactly that.

An analysis by John Burn-Murdoch at the Financial Times published in January 2024 went as far as to say that “Gen Z is two generations, not one”, due to an “ideological gap” that has opened up between young men and women across the globe. His analysis of recent US polling data from the consulting firm Gallup showed that women between the ages of 18 and 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than their male peers – a gap which took just 6 years to emerge. 

This trend was also found in Germany, where a general social survey showed a 30-point gap between men and women’s political views, with women leaning towards more liberal outlooks. In the UK, Burn-Murdoch’s analysis of the British Election Study showed a 25-point gap, which had opened up in less than a decade. 

The trend grew even more clear-cut outside of the Western world. Data from South Korea’s general social survey showed what Burn-Murdoch described as a “yawning chasm” between the country’s 18-to 30-year-olds of different genders, a gap of about 50 percentage points. 

In all of the countries that Burn-Murdoch analysed, he noted that the split was “either exclusive to the younger generation" or far more pronounced there than among men and women aged 30 and upwards.

“It seems that this growing divide is beginning to creep its way onto UK ballot papers. ”

UK in a Changing Europe, a political think tank, analysed the UK’s 2019 general election results and found the largest difference between men and women’s voting choices in more than 50 years.

In the 2019 election, women were nearly 8 percentage points more supportive of Labour than men, while men were about 5 percentage points more supportive of the Conservatives than women. 

This difference was particularly stark among younger voters, with women under the age of 35 being 13 percentage points more supportive of Labour than men in this age bracket. These women were also eight percentage points less likely to vote Conservative than their male peers.

People are beginning to notice this growing chasm – one young Londoner, who identifies as non-binary/gender-fluid, described a “huge divide” between the views of their male and female peers. The 25-year-old, who would prefer to remain anonymous, believes that while society is moving in a “more equal direction”, some men have clung onto “old fashioned gender roles” in particular. Simply put, they said that “men are leaning right, while women are leaning left”.

Out of the group of nearly 20 young people I asked about this issue, mostly Londoners who varied in gender identity and were aged between 20 and 35, only three said that their views typically align with those of people in their age group who identify as a different gender – that’s just 20 percent of those I spoke to. 

Half of the remaining respondents said that they often feel that their views differ from their peers of a different gender, while the other half said they sometimes feel this is the case. Interestingly, most people who said they shared similar views with people of their same gender were either women or non-binary. The remaining 70 percent, who said their views sometimes differ, were mostly male.

Now this conversation was had with a small group – the majority of whom described their socio-political views as “left-wing”, “progressive” or “centre-left”. Delving into the explanations people gave for their answers provides some clarity on why these left-leaning men may not feel ideologically connected to their male peers – and why the respondents who identify as female may feel a growing divide between their own views and those of the men in their generation.

One anonymous male respondent felt that there is a “real mix” of ideological outlooks among men and peers of his age group. “I’ve met men with far-left views often, but there seems to be a shift in my generation and younger to more ‘incel’-adjacent views, which is worrying,” he said.

Another, named Geoffrey, agreed that the shift is apparent when looking at male views on gender issues. “Men of my age are increasingly more anti-feminist without really understanding what feminism, especially second or third wave feminism, entails,” he explained. 

Burn-Murdoch’s piece in the Financial Times picked out the #MeToo movement, which exploded globally in 2017, as a “key trigger” of this divergence, saying: “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.”

Given time, this narrative and the division it sowed grew into a rise in anti-feminist rhetoric, amplified by what Geoffrey described as the “echo chambers of social media” and the money that stands to be made from “outrage baiting” online.

The Musk-ification of Twitter springs to mind here – after the billionaire Elon Musk took over the social media platform in 2022, he slapped an X on it and promptly reinstated the accounts of many users who were previously blocked for spreading hate or misinformation online. Musk marketed the move as an act of righteous democracy, posting that “the people have spoken”…or to translate, 3.1 million Twitter users voted for a blocked accounts amnesty in an online poll.

The newly freed accounts included the social media influencers Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate, who are both notorious for their controversial political and social views (particularly relating to gender), with the latter facing allegations of human trafficking, rape and forming a criminal gang to exploit women.

Both of these individuals have grown infamous across a range of social media platforms including X/Twitter, but their presence has been particularly pervasive on TikTok.

“When asked about the reasons behind the growing ideological divide between men and women, a number of people pointed to TikTok as a key driver, especially in regard to gender issues.”

“I think TikTok has acted as a medium, alongside more available literature,” 24-year-old Rachael asserted. “It has simultaneously opened women’s eyes to feminism and sparked misogyny among some men.”

Another young woman, Melissa, said it “feels like there’s a lot more housewife content on TikTok” and noted that a lot of the content targeted towards men has begun to promote more ‘traditional’ gender roles. 

Gender being a performative social construct is an oft-cited argument of many scholars in gender studies, including Judith Butler, an American philosopher and academic. Butler’s Gender Trouble proposed that “gender is an identity tenuously constituted in time”, with masculinity and femininity being socially constructed performances that vary across time and culture.

When discussing the impact of gender on our socio-political views, Geoffrey pointed towards Butler’s theories, saying: “Identities are imagined communities and how we interact with them includes both elements of performance and performativity.” Taking this into account, we can picture gender identities as a form of “imagined communities” – we build up a shared sense of sisterhood or brotherhood with our peers, based on performed feminine and masculine identities that we have socially constructed over time.

In the digital age, much of this performance is taking centre stage on our screens, and as we know not all actors make ideal role models. Many of the men I spoke with mentioned – with disdain – an increase in content from the likes of Andrew Tate and other right-wing creators, despite not following any accounts that are aligned with them or their views. 

The prolific rise and inescapable visibility of these influencers – many of whom create and promote extremely conservative and sometimes harmful content – on social media is likely a star player in the apparent difference of opinion between men and women. It could also serve as an explanation for why the gap appears to be widening as younger generations enter the playing field. 

After all, we’re only beginning to see the emergence of a generation that has been raised closely entwined with technology – many teenagers will have seen these ‘traditional’ gender roles held up on pedestals by the likes of Tate and Peterson on their screens before even entering secondary school. These actors are rapidly becoming the directors of our imagined communities, barking out stage directions to the beat of trending TikTok sounds. 

This may be why younger age groups were identified as a point of divergence by a number of people I spoke with. One Londoner, who preferred to remain anonymous, said: “Overall, I think men younger than me are more right-wing, whereas the ones in my age group (early twenties)  are more closely aligned with the ideological views of most young women.”

But though online conversations seem to be driving polarisation, is this increasingly divisive rhetoric translating into day-to-day experience? 

For some people, the opposite seems true. One person I spoke with said that while there seems to be a slight divergence of political opinion among men and women in his age group, in his circles he’s actually seen the gap begin to close: “Most people I’ve met in my generation are fairly tolerant of each other", he observed.

But others disagreed, with Melissa saying: “I think that women and gender non-conforming people are becoming more progressive, so even if men are generally static, surely the gap will inevitably widen?”

If this divergence of perspectives does begin to play out offscreen, the people who stand to be most detrimentally affected are likely those who are already more vulnerable to marginalisation. One person I spoke with, named Hattie, said that society is seeing an increase in the number of people who are expressing gender critical views, putting transgender, non-binary and other gender non-conforming people in the crosshairs of political debate. 

“As different identities gain publicity, many young people divide themselves off from the camp, because they don’t want to take time to learn or to support something that has become so divisive,”
she explained.

Another individual, who is transgender, observed: “Having lived on ‘both sides’, people like me are often a bit of a sticking point. For example, due to the rise of exclusionary radical feminism (with feminism being widely regarded as a more left-wing stance), there is an increase in right-wing rhetoric towards trans people in my age group.”

“Feminism is being taken to right-wing extremes by some actors and as a result, transgender and gender non-conforming people are not only being ostracised from our ‘imagined communities’ of gender, they are actively suffering because of it.”

Last year’s hate crime statistics from the Office for National Statistics revealed that in the UK, hate crimes against transgender people had risen by a horrifying 186% in just 5 years. The same figures showed an 11% rise in hate crimes against transgender people between 2022 and 2023 alone. So, while a lot of people may not be feeling the effects of the growing division among younger generations, those who are already suffering the real-life impact are people who are already vulnerable to discrimination. Conflict among our imagined communities, as with any conflict, causes the most pain to those already on the outskirts. 

The feeling of disconnect is already there for some. Hattie said that while the divide can feel more subtle these days, it’s common in heteronormative relationships for a man to feel a “lack of masculine power if he earns less than his partner”.

Melissa also reflected on one friendship that slowly faded due to a divergence of socio-political views, saying: “I purposely drifted from him because I felt like his views hadn’t really matured since school.”

The ideological divide between young men and women seems to slowly be making itself known, and while the Financial Times’s assertion that “Gen Z is two generations, not one” may not be fully realised yet, the danger it poses is real. 

Relationships between younger people of different genders, both romantic and platonic, are becoming more difficult to build as we struggle to occupy the space in between. The gap between these regions is not yet tangible but the traces are there; from the performances on our screens to fractured friendships in our day-to-day lives. A path is slowly being paved towards a splintered generation, which could impact far more than just votes on a ballot. The question remains: Will we follow this road to its end or can we find an off-ramp?