Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

Gen Z Women Are Moving Left. Young Men Aren’t.

The gendered political divide is transforming how young Americans are organizing, voting, and relating to one another.

Young men stand for the US national anthem during a 2024 campaign event for Donald Trump

Marina Martinez believes that little actions can make a difference. That’s part of why the University of Oregon sophomore joined her school’s chapter of Citizen’s Climate Lobby, a national organization dedicated to advocating for effective climate solutions in Congress.

Martinez, who is the group’s secretary, said the club is open to anyone on campus who’s interested in climate advocacy. Still, out of the group’s 25 regular members, none are men.

“There just seems to be a higher number of women who are eager to take actual day-to-day political action on the left-leaning side,” Martinez said.

Martinez’s observation might not solely apply to her club. Across the country, young women are becoming increasingly liberal. Their male counterparts, however, are not.

According to a Gallup Poll published in 2024, 40% of U.S. women aged 18-29 identified themselves as liberal—the highest percentage in decades. Comparatively, only 25% of men in that same age group identified as liberal.

​“It is just an enormous difference these days,” said Marc Hetherington, a political science professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who studies the dynamics of the American electorate.

​Hetherington said this political “gender gap” is largely driven by the behaviors of young women. Because young women are not only more liberal than young men—they’re more liberal than women of other generations by a long shot. And this trend is on the rise, according to past Gallup polls.

In the period from 2001-2007, an average of 28% of women aged 18-29 identified as liberal. Then, between 2008-2016, that average grew to 32%.

The most recent period of data—from 2017-2024—shows that 40% of young women in this age cohort identify as liberal. That’s a 12-point increase in 23 years.

“The below-30 women really stand out as being different from even women of older age cohorts,” Hetherington said.

But young men have not followed the same pattern. Over the past 25 years, the percentage of men aged 18-29 who identify as liberal has fluctuated, but has generally hovered in the 20-30% range. In 2001, 25% of men in this age cohort were reported to have identified as liberal—the same percentage who identify as liberal now.

For Khasya Tinglin, a junior at the University of Texas at Austin, the numbers aren’t surprising. She’s 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.

Chud the Builder and America’s Tradition of White Racial Terror Chud the Builder and America’s Tradition of White Racial Terror Kali Holloway

Chud the Builder and America’s Tradition of White Racial Terror Chud the Builder and America’s Tradition of White Racial Terror

Trump Just Created a White Grievance Reparations Fund Trump Just Created a White Grievance Reparations Fund Elie Mystal

Trump Just Created a White Grievance Reparations Fund Trump Just Created a White Grievance Reparations Fund

Thomas Massie’s Defeat Could Come Back to Haunt Trump Thomas Massie’s Defeat Could Come Back to Haunt Trump Jeet Heer

Thomas Massie’s Defeat Could Come Back to Haunt Trump Thomas Massie’s Defeat Could Come Back to Haunt Trump

The Dismantling of Black Studies The Dismantling of Black Studies Feature / Jafari Sinclaire Allen

The Dismantling of Black Studies The Dismantling of Black Studies

Feature / Jafari Sinclaire Allen

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.

“It was a very unempathetic and unemotional way of looking at the world,” Tinglin said. “There’s multiple perspectives when you’re looking at international relations. You can always do the state argument, but those are actual people’s lives.”

Hetherington said one possible reason for a growing political gender gap........

© The Nation