Revealed: the new radicalism among young women
The prevailing narrative is that young men, under the influence of the manosphere and enchanted by men’s rights activists and misogynists such as Andrew Tate, are being politically radicalised faster and in greater numbers than young women. The result is a gulf in political sensibility between young British women and men, who are now dramatically inclined to the populist right compared with other parts of the population.
It’s a compelling story, but it isn’t completely accurate. Instead, it is young women moving to the radical left that is widening the political gender gap among the under-30s. Merlin Strategy has surveyed, exclusively for the New Statesman, 2,000 British 18- to 30-year-olds to explore this phenomenon in more detail.
As expected, we found that there are significant divides between young men and young women – but they are not just confined to political views. Gen Z women are more left wing than their male peers when it comes to politics and economics. This generation of women is also much more pessimistic about the country and their own lives than men, and substantially more negative towards men than the men are towards women. Seventy-two per cent of men under 30 say they have a positive view of the opposite gender, compared with just 50 per cent of women of the same age. Thirty-eight per cent of men say they feel “very positively” towards women, while only 18 per cent of women say the same about men. This trend is particularly pronounced among women under 25, of whom just 35 per cent feel positively towards men.
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Men of this generation overwhelmingly think that they are understood by women and can trust members of the opposite gender, whereas women report much lower scores on both questions. The gap is much more pronounced when it comes to safety and consent. More than four in ten of the women surveyed said men did not have the same understanding of consent in sexual relationships that they did (25 per cent of men thought the same).
While much debate about declining birth rates focuses on prohibitive economic conditions alone, there is less focus on how younger generations of women feel towards the idea of motherhood. Young women are twice as likely as young men to say they would not like to have children (15 per cent compared with 8 per cent), and among white women under 30, this increases to one in five.
One in four young women say that their partner having different political views to them would be a red flag in a relationship. However, on particular political issues, women’s stance is more hard-line. Six in ten say they would find it difficult to date someone who disagreed with them on the Palestine/Israel conflict, or who did not share their views on Donald Trump. Seventy-four per cent say they’d find it difficult to be in a relationship with someone who did not share their views about social justice. Young women are also more likely than young men to say that they would not have a relationship with someone who disagreed with them over immigration.
Women under 30 are much more inclined to be on the left economically than men their own age, although both favour increasing government intervention and believe that it is more important to reduce inequality than it is to grow the economy. While young women are relatively evenly divided over whether they believe “it is unfair some people have more than others and we should redistribute wealth” (43 per cent) or that “people deserve to keep what is theirs, even if that means that others have less” (40 per cent), men are more decisively split: 37 per cent are inclined towards redistribution whereas 51 per cent are not.
Men of this generation are substantially more positive about capitalism (net +28), whereas women view it (+2) substantially less favourably than communism (+11). This is, in part, a consequence of how young men believe that “the economy works well for people like me” (48 per cent to 37 per cent), while women believe it works against them (43 per cent to 34 per cent).
We often hear about a lost generation of young men. However, Merlin Strategy’s research reveals that young women are more pessimistic across the board. They are less likely to say they feel “happy”, “ambitious”, “excited” and “fulfilled”, and are more pessimistic about the prospects of “being happy” for their “life generally”.
It is not surprising that young Brits, who face insurmountable levels of student debt, unaffordable housing and a higher youth unemployment rate than the European Union average, feel locked out of the British economy. The system is not working for them. What is striking is that women under 30 are much less hopeful about their own financial future and goals than men of the same age. They are net 21 points less likely than men to say they are optimistic they will earn more than their parents, and 19 points less likely to say they will be able to buy the house they want.
But this financial pessimism among young women does not necessarily reflect the reality of their position relative to young men. Among 16- to 24-year-olds, there are more women in full-time work than their male counterparts, with the average woman in that age group earning 9 per cent more than the average man. The rate of unemployment for young men is 6.3 per cent higher than for young women.
There are stark differences when it comes to questions of identity and national pride. Gen Z women are significantly less likely to say they are proud to call themselves British than Gen Z men (53 per cent compared with 68 per cent). Perhaps this is because young men in Britain strongly do not think the country is racist (29 per cent to 57 per cent), while women (43 per cent to 38 per cent) think it is. The divide is similar on the question of whether the UK is sexist.
These findings suggest a generation of women at odds with the country around them. And there are other, revealing divides that indicate what has driven these attitudes. Consistently, we have seen substantial differences along education, age, class and ethnicity lines, as well as by how much time respondents spend online.
Women who have gone on to higher education are substantially more to the left, particularly on economic questions, than those who haven’t. They have a significantly more favourable view of communism, feminism, environmentalism and socialism, as well as of figures like Greta Thunberg and movements such as Extinction Rebellion. They are also much more likely to say that the UK should pay slavery reparations, and are more supportive of increased state intervention and wealth redistribution.
The disruptive impact of Covid-19 on this cohort should not be underestimated. A majority of Gen Z, across both genders, believe the pandemic had a significant impact on their lives and opportunities. This is much starker for 18- to 25-year-olds who were at crucial stages of school or university during lockdown. Six in ten women under 25 say Covid impacted their life and opportunities.
This “Covid generation” looks far more frustrated and radicalised than those aged 25 to 30. The younger members of the cohort surveyed – 18 to 24 – have more negative views of the opposite gender, the country and the status quo. Keir Starmer’s approval rating is -27 points with women under 25, compared with +17 points among their slightly older peers. Women aged between 18 and 25 are much more inclined to support slavery reparations and to think that the UK is racist. They are also more likely to believe that things are “stacked against me, no matter how hard I try”. They are dramatically to the left of over-25s when it comes to economics, and are significantly more likely to hold a negative view of capitalism than a positive one. Indeed, just 16 per cent of women this age hold a favourable view of capitalism, the same percentage that has a positive view of fascism.
There are no signs that the gender gap in cultural values among young people will close any time soon; in fact, it looks likely to widen further. Just 11 per cent of this younger cohort of 18- to 25-year-old women say they have a very positive view of men, compared with 25 per cent of those aged 25 to 30. They are also more likely than older peers to say they spend significantly more time with members of their own gender. Less than half (47 per cent) say they feel understood by members of the opposite gender.
There is also a substantial class divide among Gen Z women. Those in C2DE professions (skilled or unskilled manual workers, as well as the unemployed, or those dependent on the state) are more likely to say they feel happy, ambitious and fulfilled than their ABC1 (professional and managerial) peers, and are more likely to believe that if they work hard, they will succeed in life. Similarly, ABC1 young women do not think the economy works as well for people like them (21 per cent, compared with 39 per cent of C2DE respondents) and feel substantially less valued by society. Gen Z women in middle-class professions also view capitalism overwhelmingly negatively, compared with C2DE women, who have a positive view of the system. And young ABC1 women are substantially more negative about the opposite gender, too, with just 36 per cent of them holding a positive view of men, compared with 61 per cent of C2DE Gen Z women.
This divide also applies to political opinions and expectations. ABC1 women are much more likely to believe that the country is racist and sexist, and much less likely to say they are proud to call themselves British than their C2DE peers (41 per cent compared with 57 per cent). They have a more positive view of transgender rights and a less positive view of capitalism, and also favour reducing inequality over economic growth.
Spending more time online appears to alter participants’ perceptions of the world around them. Those who are online for more than five hours a day believe that the option to have an abortion is under attack in the UK, despite parliament recently voting to decriminalise abortion up until birth. Gen Z women who spend a lot of time online also show heightened concern about climate change and the environment. They are more likely to say that climate change is the biggest threat to the world, and more likely to have favourable views of Thunberg, Zack Polanski and environmentalism. They also lean more to the left on questions of economics – for example, they are more inclined to agree that wealth should be redistributed and that it is more important to reduce inequality than to grow the economy.
There are also striking differences between white women of this generation and those from an ethnic minority background (with similar if not more pronounced trends among young men, too). Gen Z women from a black, Asian and minority ethnic (Bame) background are significantly more likely to say that they feel valued by society than white women their age. They are also less likely to think that the country is racist (Bame women are split 39 per cent to 39 per cent on the question, whereas white women believe the country is racist by 45 per cent to 37 per cent).
Those from an ethnic minority background are also more inclined to think that if they work hard in life, they will succeed; feel more positively about earning more than their parents; and are more content with their jobs and careers.
What young women think matters. Electorally, they are moving in great numbers towards Polanski’s Green Party – a trend that seems as though it will only get more pronounced. Though a proportion of this generation do not identify as either left or right wing, both young men and young women are enthusiastic about political figures on the populist left, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Zohran Mamdani, Jeremy Corbyn and Polanski. Strikingly, Keir Starmer is much more unpopular with young women than with young men, as are – less surprisingly – Nigel Farage and Donald Trump.
There is something more fundamental going on here than shifts in voting patterns. Starmer will find it difficult to win back these young women, because their political beliefs are based on deeply held ideological and cultural values that they do not want to compromise. The cultural impact of a generation of women who feel their beliefs are incompatible with not just their male peers but with their country could dramatically reshape the UK.
[Further reading: The march of the Pink Ladies]
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