What to Do About the Gender Divide
The social fabric will suffer if my generation keeps drifting apart.
A few months ago, Financial Times columnist John Burn-Murdoch wrote a viral piece describing the growing gender divide between the men and women of my generation (Gen Z). Its conclusions were pretty concerning: men are becoming more conservative, while women are becoming far more progressive.
Why is this concerning? Simply put, the more the men and women of my generation drift apart ideologically, the harder it’ll become for us to connect with each other. The harder it becomes for us to connect with each other, the more we drift apart ideologically. It’s a vicious cycle.
And if men and women live increasingly separate lives and hold increasingly separate beliefs, that comes with its own host of problems. It may cause men and women to retreat online to avoid spending time in-person together. The more they retreat online, the more they face the negative aspects of social media that are best avoided. For example, young men may be drawn to influencers on the reactionary right, who accurately assess the fact that men are struggling and falling behind in ways that deserve recognition, but whose response (a lot of the time) is to turn reactionary and peddle in gross misogyny.
Perhaps most importantly, gender polarization encourages the two mainstream political parties to become more identitarian on gender issues, as Democrats lose sight of men’s struggles just as Republicans have traditionally failed to appeal to young women.
And bad as things already are, they could get even worse. Few countries have gender polarization anywhere near as terrible as South Korea, for instance. There, women often face overt misogyny, while men are still held to extremely unrealistic expectations about how much they need to sacrifice in their jobs and lives to provide for their families. The country’s gender divide is so terrible that its fertility rate is lower than that of any other country in the world.
There are two main things young people could—and should—be doing to address gender polarization.
First, it’s important for both genders to be more cognizant of the struggles that the other side faces. There are plenty of issues that women and girls still face in the present day. For one, they are massively underrepresented in the upper echelons of society. They make up less than a fifth of CEOs in literally every country in the world, and are massively underrepresented in STEM occupations. Even more notably, they are incredibly sparse in Congress and other elected leadership positions.
There are also plenty of issues that men and boys face in the present day. They are four times as likely to commit suicide as women. They are massively underrepresented as students on college campuses. They also face increased levels of mortality in ways that are strikingly undercovered. For example, they were far more likely to die from COVID during the pandemic, and face far lower life expectancy than women do.
One of the main problems making it harder for us to connect with each other is the fact that we’re so attuned to seeing gender inequality as zero sum. There is a misconception out there, on both the left and on the right, that reducing the gaps that disadvantage one gender would somehow take away from the real problems that the other gender faces. That simply isn’t true. We can increase the number of female CEOs and also increase the number of male students on college campuses. The process of doing one of those two things does not, and should not, detract from the process of doing the other.
The second thing we can do to reduce gender polarization is to spend more time in-person together. My generation of young adults is undergoing a drastic reduction in the amount of time we spend hanging out with friends, as well as in the number of friends we have in the first place. When we spend more time together in-person, not only does that ameliorate the negative effects of friendship loss, but it also allows each gender to be more cognizant of the struggles facing the other side.
Stanford visiting fellow Alice Evans refers to this as “mixed gendered socializing,” and views it as a unique opportunity to foster empathy between genders. According to Evans, young women in mixed gendered spaces educate their male friends about the assumptions and entitlement they have about women. In that regard, young women are teaching young men about the ways they experience gender inequality, and those men often listen and learn for the sake of preserving friendships with the people they care about.
As someone who’s spent the last several years on a college campus, I think the reverse is true as well: women can be insufficiently cognizant of the struggles that young men face. Boys mature more slowly than girls because they develop many non-cognitive skills (the types of skills that allow you to pay attention in class or remember to turn assignments in on time) later than girls do. In other words, they struggle in school in part because of biological disadvantages rather than their own laziness. Yet I’ve observed that the latter is often the default assumption among women on college campuses. In the words of college student Taylor Spill in an interview with The New York Times Magazine, “It’s almost like it’s reverse sexism… the women kind of underestimate the men. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re not.”
An increase in mixed gendered socializing therefore has the potential to benefit young men in the same way that it benefits young women: people tend to care about the ways that their friends are struggling, and are likely to sympathize with their struggles if they want to remain friends.
While no solution is foolproof, cultivating shared empathy is a useful starting point for bridging one of the largest divides in society right now. We must encourage men and women to spend more time together and less time on the internet, thus avoiding many of the problems that come with being too online. And if we are successful in our efforts to decrease gender polarization, we can start alleviating many other social problems: the loneliness epidemic, mutual hostility between political tribes, and the number of men and boys drifting towards the reactionary right and the flagrantly anti-democratic instincts it is associated with.
Andrew Xu is an intern at Persuasion and a recent graduate of McGill University.
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Great article, love the spirit of it. I would agree with a lot of this piece, but now it is time to put on my grumpy Millennial Male Hat and harp on a few points.
"According to Evans, young women in mixed gendered spaces educate their male friends about the assumptions and entitlement they have about women."
I find this a perverse way of thinking of friendship, that you will 'educate' your friends. And it is precisely this sort of cultural attitude that polarizes people. I grew up overseas with many people with a lot of different backgrounds, and many beliefs I find to be plainly untrue. I had the pleasure to befriend many people precisely because we didn't try to 'educate' each other, we simply were friends and recognized each other as people we valued. Rather it has been this recent trend of 'educating' that I have found destructive.
In recent years having friendships with female friends have gotten harder, because I would prefer a more nuanced vision of how men and women should engage. A years long relationship ended a few years back because my female friend couldn't 'believe' that I didn't have completely agreement with her. Every time we hung out it would devolve into the same argument. And I would argue this need to 'educate' has tainted not only the discourse between men and women but in seemingly everything.
I am in the (un)fortunate position that I have a diverse friend group where I have people on both sides of the political aisle while I sit somewhere in the middle. The same people who I have known for years can no longer contain their political views, now having to volunteer a 'fact' about Trump or Biden, and how if you don't know this fact you are dumb and unaware. We need to stop educating each other and get away from every meal turning into an opportunity to proselytize.
This all feels a lot like the last post on Persuasion (https://www.persuasion.community/p/journalism-needs-cultural-adjacency). Particularly the line:
"If you’re hanging out with an unsavory character, for instance, and you don’t want to get your ass kicked, you go with the flow. You might disagree with this person, but opposing theories don’t register with this kind of guy."
We all need to get more comfortable with other people thinking differently than we do. We should instead focus on spending time together where nothing is at stake.
I would also avoid this well-worn rhetoric:
"And if we are successful in our efforts to decrease gender polarization, we can start alleviating many other social problems: the loneliness epidemic, mutual hostility between political tribes, and the number of men and boys drifting towards the reactionary right and the flagrantly anti-democratic instincts it is associated with."
Firstly you are citing Charles Blow who I find to be one of the most predictable ideologues. More importantly the 'flagrantly anti-democratic instincts' is not going to win you any friends. First off I engage with some of these men and they do not appreciate being told they are anti-democratic and otherwise 'bad', thats precisely the type of attitude that they are responding to when turning to the online-right. I would also very much argue that the democrats have no love for democracy, again the previous article mentions ' “voting against their interests” or why Hispanics are suffering from such mysterious ailments such as “multiracial whiteness.”'. See the wonderful collection of clips from Matt Orfalea documenting a similar 'the election was rigged' rhetoric post-2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOYQeIrVdYo). Now I would argue that there is a notable difference in the presentation of these views, with the democrats adopting an intellectual sort of air about their views while the republicans appear to be represented by some high school drop out screaming on the corner. But just because you are more intelligent/polite about it doesn't mean we should get dewy eyed about the democrats, both sides simply wishes to win and cares little for 'democracy' besides as a claim to legitimacy.
Just last weekend I was trying to talk a friend out of voting for Trump, and the only way I can do that is to treat him as a thinking individual who wants best for his family. He has a lot of anger that born of being told that because he is conservative (socially and economically) that he is bad, anti-democratic, etc. If I simply reiterated the trite statement that "Trump is bad, doesn't like democracy" I will be no different than the others in his life. But by approaching it as a question of policies and what he wants for himself and his family there is possible dialogue. Doubtful that I succeeded, but at least he listens to my arguments and I hear his.
This was a frustrating read. I agree with Mr. Xu's prescriptions, but many of the facts he deploys read like the poor assumptions typical liberals make about things like the "gap" between men and women in STEM. Is it possible women and men, on average bases, are interested in different things? That the difference between men and women in STEM is like the difference between men and women in garbage collection? In nursing? In construction?
The core of this argument is that society is in some sense "holding women back" from entering those fields. I challenge that notion. I'm not going to argue men and women have it equally hard or easy; but I am going to argue that any women with the intellect and interest to be in STEM can be in STEM. It's a choice.