Talking about politics on the first date used to be taboo, but for some young people, political ideology is an important mark of compatibility that they want to know right away.
“One of those questions is going to be, ‘So, who did you vote for?’ if they’re of age to vote. Or, ‘Pro-life? Pro-choice?’” said Jazymynn Good, a Drake University student studying law, politics and society. “Things that you can kind of immediately connect someone to politically.”
This is one example of an increasing trend among young people. More and more, younger generations are feeling the impacts of the political gender gap in their social lives. According to a 2024 Gallup poll, 40% of women 18 to 29 identify as liberal, compared to 25% of men in the same age range. The study found that 44% of young men identify as moderate, while 29% identify as conservative.
“I actually had a friend who just ended things with a 'talking situationship,'” said Conner Hawkins, a Drake University student studying environment science, while describing a casual relationship one of his female friends ended. “Because he was conservative, and they finally talked that through ... she was like, ‘Yeah, no thanks.’”
Hawkins said his male friends tend to stay out of politics or be more conservative, while his female friends are more tuned in to the issues and tend to be more liberal.
Though they may share the same college campus or brush elbows in bars, a significant amount of young women and men aren't aligned politically based on their policy priorities.
Policy issues driving the divide
Women across generations are more likely to favor government spending on social programs such as food stamps, social security, health care, education, Medicaid and Medicare. Karen Kedrowski, professor of political science at Iowa State University, said these are sometimes referred to as ‘chick issues.’
Part of this support is because some women want the social safety net in case they themselves should need it, Kedrowski said. Since women live longer, they are more likely to collect social security benefits and Medicare.
“They feel that their situation is more precarious and that they might find themselves in a position of needing government support, whereas men don't have that same feeling of precariousness,” she said.
For younger generations, the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision taking away federal protections for abortion was also a major inflection point. In a poll ahead of the 2022 midterms, 61% of young women said abortion was a critical issue, compared to 36% percent of all Americans. The Dobbs decision showed that the stakes of political decisions are higher for women than men, Kedrowski added.
“These are young women who are in their prime reproductive years, for whom abortion becomes the top issue that they consider when they are looking at a candidate to vote for.”
The majority of men at the same age level also favor abortion rights, but other issues, especially the economy, are ranked as more important to them than abortion rights, according to the American Survey Center. That difference in policy prioritization is played out politically, where Republican candidates tend to focus issues that are ranked as more important to men, whereas Democratic candidates have focused more on issues of greater importance to women.
Internet culture turns a gap into a gulf
The political differences between male and female voters have been further amplified by online communities, where men with microphones turned megaphones share their ideas about politics and gender through podcasts. Anyone with access to the internet is vulnerable to falling down these rabbit holes.
As soon as you show an interest in, let's say, right-leaning political content, they're going to give you more and more and more and more.Jeremy Blackburn
Jeremy Blackburn, an associate professor of computing at Binghamton University, studies the “manosphere,” a collection of online forums, websites and podcasts that oppose feminism and promote misogyny, often also espousing hard right political ideals. The rise of these communities is thought to be a reaction to feminist movements online.
Early male influencers in the manosphere included pick-up artists, who shared their tactics online for convincing women to have sex with them, and male rights activists who felt the U.S. legal system was rigged against them. The way content algorithms are designed, a person can quickly be drawn into extremist views, which has also contributed to the growth of manosphere culture.
“As soon as you show an interest in, let's say, right-leaning political content, they're going to give you more and more and more and more,” Blackburn said.
In the manosphere culture, one of the most extreme groups, Blackburn said, are involuntary celibates, or incels — men who are unable to find a romantic or sexual partner despite desiring one, and who then blame, objectify and denigrate women as a result.
Blackburn noted that the rise of podcasts as an entertainment format, as well as short form apps like TikTok and Instagram, have allowed misogynistic ideas — like those of incels — to become common on social media feeds.
“Clips and stuff like that from podcasts show up here, and all of a sudden, your feed is filled with Andrew Tate type of material, as you kind of move from less to more extreme,” Blackburn said.
Andrew Tate, a self-described misogynist charged with rape and human trafficking, has more than 10 million followers on X. The Joe Rogan Experience, a show that has spread vaccine COVID-19 misinformation and hosted both President Donald Trump and Elon Musk ahead of the 2024 election, is the most streamed podcast on Spotify in the U.S. And Trump invited “The Nelk Boys,” a YouTube prank channel that specializes in right-wing trolling, onto his plane.
Blackburn said leftist extremism hasn't been as organized as online right wing extremism, though that appears to be changing.
Kedrowski added that these online manosphere spaces reinforce messages of masculinity and depict men as being attacked by people of color and women — the groups of people that are more often identified with Democratic political policies. This is a particularly powerful message for young men without a sense of purpose.
“Their previous generations would have been raised so that they would be the breadwinners in their family, the heads of households ... they would go to work and bring home a paycheck, and that that was their role in society,” Kedrowski said. “But as women have gained more entrance into careers and are exceeding men by a great margin in educational attainment, that leaves men — young men especially — adrift, right?”
She added these men often lack social connections, but in far-right chat rooms and through these masculine podcasts and YouTube channels, they find people who feel the same way they do, more readily priming them to develop more extreme beliefs, influencing how they view the world, who they date and who they vote for.
“That are giving words to their lived experience and sort of reinforcing that there must be some evil out there that has left them behind,” Kedrowski said. “And of course, often that evil is feminism.”
To hear this conversation listen to Unsettled, hosted by Charity Nebbe. Dani Gehr produced this episode.
