It has long been the case that American women are generally more liberal than American men. But among young Americans, this gender gap has widened into an enormous rift: According to recent Gallup polling, there is a 30-point differencebetween the number of women age 18–30 who self-identify as liberal and the number of men in that demographic who do the same.

That’s largely because young women have gotten much more liberal, while young men have stayed ideologically more consistent—or, according to other analyses, become more conservative and anti-feminist. (Of course, not every person identifies as a man or woman. But gender roles still play a big part in shaping our lives and politics, and in the context of this column, I am focusing mostly on the vast majority of Americans who identify as one or the other.) It’s not happening just here either; the political divide between the sexes is a trend that researchers are observing in some other countries too.

  • protist@mander.xyz
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    7 months ago

    This is an article about women becoming much more liberal, men staying ideologically the same and the implications of that. That you would think an article about women becoming more liberal needs to focus more on men’s issues is itself a reflection of patriarchal thinking, whether or not that’s your intention. There are plenty of articles covering men’s issues, like tons of articles. Why do you think men are entitled to more coverage in this article?

    So when you talk about the “liberal left,” what issues do you think they need to talk about more?

    • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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      7 months ago

      Why do you think men are entitled to more coverage in this article?

      But men are covered in this article! It outlines a ton of problems affecting men, it just either does not follow up on the causes and solutions - because who cares, right? - or outright paints it as a political opportunity for women that disaffected men are less likely voters, or even blames men as a whole for the issue.

      young men have stayed ideologically more consistent—or, according to other analyses, become more conservative and anti-feminist.

      A cohort of profoundly misogynistic male influencers, one of whom is currently facing criminal charges in Romania for rape and human trafficking, rose to prominence and captured the attention of young men the world over.

      Marriage is declining in the U.S. in part, at least anecdotally, because women, who can now ably provide for themselves, are refusing to pair up with misogynistic men who bring little to the table. This dynamic could leave a lot more single men out there—members of a cohort who are more likely than their female counterparts to be unemployed, financially vulnerable, isolated, and lonely, which in turn can fuel anger and even violence. As young women grow more liberal and young men move right, heterosexual marriage may very well continue to decline, perhaps snowballing political, social, and economic divides.

      work to bridge the divide (which, to be clear, would mean pressing men to be better and creating the conditions for both sexes to thrive)

      Yeah, good job, the only way to fix this stupid gender war is “to press men to be better” and pick themselves up by their bootstraps or something.

      • eatthecake@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        How do women bridge the divide with men who follow misogynist influencers? How is that even possible? With men who are antifeminist and want to take away our rights?

        • maynarkh@feddit.nl
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          7 months ago

          How do women bridge the divide with men

          It’s not on “women”. It’s on all society. Stuff like this does not work like either one or the other. We are one society, men and women. We are the same in more things that matter when forming a society than we are different in.

          One could start literally for free by creating successful, positive male role models in media and public discourse alongside women. I don’t mean the two dimensional cutouts like Marvel heroes, but people with real problems tackling real issues. If it has to be Marvel, you can start at Deadpool. Dude was ugly as fuck and still loved.

          Celebrate Men’s Day and Father’s Day as well as Women’s Day and Mother’s Day. Create acceptance and celebrate fatherhood and single fathers, fathers as homemakers as well as fathers as breadwinners. Celebrate successful (not wealthy, but societally positive) men as great examples of what a man should and can be.

          There are other things that would be more expensive, like unfucking schooling. Other than reversing the underfundedness of it, make teachers be a prestigious profession again, and have more male teachers for male students to look up to. Get a bit more into why current school practices like homework, rote learning and “frontal”, unidirectional lessons disadvantage boys in school. Address the conflict between the societal expectation for boys to be dominant as boys and submissive as students better. Unfuck sports as a subject, take the sole focus away from whatever flavour of profitable “sportsball” your country plays and offer more choice.

          You can then go on to work. Tighten up labour safety and wellbeing practices, especially in hard physical labour disproportionately affecting men. Fight overtime as a concept in general, enforce breaks and frequent examinations of both workers’ health and safety regulations. Fight back against “macho” culture not by “telling men not to rape”, but by strengthening mental healthcare, and supporting hobby groups as third places where men can create friend groups to share feelings with. If broke communist countries could support hobby associations like glider airfields, shooting clubs, hiking clubs and so on, with substantial financial and material grants, why can’t the most wealthy societies in history?

          Make sure that every third man compared to the life expectancy of women does not die by reaching the age of 60 from the mental and physical hardship of work.

          Then there are the hard parts. Like undoing the creation of barriers between people where you are not supposed to interact with other people next to you. Undoing loneliness and the “Tinderization” of relationships, and social media and all the fucked up stuff. Stop having society treat all men as potential predators.

          This is just shit off the top of my head, and I’m not even an expert.