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.
Which is why some men are becoming “anti-feminist”. It’s not that they’re anti-women, it’s that they are anti-“A movement that tells them they are the source of all problems and offers them no support”. Why support a cause that openly tells you you’re the bad guy just for what private parts you have while simultaneously shouting that private parts are irrelevant and shouldnt be part of the conversation.
But nah, guys are just hateful and terrible. Keep up the divide 👍
I think the problem is more inherent in how America interprets liberalism. We don’t include things like class consciousness into liberal ideology, here it’s all about addressing specific systemic inequalities between certain demographics.
When you define liberalism as only fixing these inequalities then of course a large population of men aren’t going to involve themselves, they don’t reap any benefit, they’re not experiencing any systemic abuse.
However, if we accommodate socioeconomic realities of class into the equation, things start making a bit more sense. By protecting the most disadvantaged demographic in your class, you also strengthen your own interests.
I think it’s important to keep in mind exactly who people are talking about when they make general criticism about men. If you aren’t participating in misogyny, then they really aren’t talking about you. They just aren’t vocalizing the division in class that separates us all from the reigns of power.
I’m a leftist man and I hate that this phenomenon is considered acceptable. On one hand, a lot of women make criticisms of “men” without further qualification, and even make fun of anyone who says “not all men”, but then they’ll turn around and say “oh we didn’t mean you, just misogynists”. I’m on the fence about even identifying as a man (as opposed to non-binary), and my political views generally very well aligned with feminists’, but nonetheless even I feel insulted, so I imagine a huge number of men feel much more insulted than I do.
How hard is it for critics of toxic masculinity to just say what they actually mean instead of saying a bunch of blatantly sexist things things and then claiming they meant something else when they’re called on it? It has exactly the same energy as the “Schrodinger’s douchebag” phenomenon, but in that case we see it as obviously disingenuous, but with criticisms of “men”, we’re supposed to accept that women really don’t mean what they say.
Women who do this need to fucking stop, because they’re draining enthusiasm from their male allies and driving recruitment for their enemies.
Edit: typo
You said so well what I have felt and expressed for so long. It’s really heartbreaking to feel like you’re a “lesser ally”. Thank you for taking the time to write this.