Young women are more and more liberal in their values and young men of the same age are more and more conservative. There are signs of the phenomenon all over the world. Values are exceptionally sharply divided between the women and men of Generation Z, born at the beginning of the millennium, according to several studies from around the world.
There is a “great gender separation” going on. So to name the phenomenon a university lecturer who is one of the leading researchers in the subject Alice Evans from King’s College London.
According to Evans, the political values of young women and men are separating, especially in economically developed and open societies, such as most Western countries. Attitudes are most divided in relation to value and identity issues, such as sexuality and gender, immigration and racism, and climate change.
There is no single explanation for the growing divide. According to the researchers, the background shows the inequality of opportunities and the competitive attitude stemming from it. Tensions are exacerbated by social media.
The Finnish researcher points to the stage of young people’s lives, but also to the great currents of time.
– Young adults are really polarized. It is partly related to the stage of life, but also to changes in society, increased uncertainty and especially inequality, says the identity researcher Rasmus Mannerström.
Generation Z is already so divided that it can be considered two different generations, writes the respected British media The Financial Times.
FT has analyzed national surveys and election studies from different countries. The graphics compiled by the magazine show the generational change in values. In many countries, the gap has started to grow strongly in recent years compared to previous generations.
– Polarization between men and women has occurred in many countries in the last 10-15 years, confirms Mannerström, who works as a university lecturer at the University of Helsinki.
Finland is part of the same phenomenon, Mannerström’s research group found. In the attitudes of young Finnish women, left-liberal values are emphasized, and in the attitudes of men, right-wing conservative values.
Mannerström’s group the study discussed The political values and ideologies of the Finnish youth, i.e. millennials, of the mid-2010s. The results showed a strong division into two, which has probably only strengthened in Finland in the 2020s.
However, Mannerström does not subscribe to the notion that gender is the most important factor determining the division of Generation Z into two.
The root cause is growing inequality
The background is, among other things, the growing inequality of education and labor market status.
– Economic inequality has increased exponentially on a global scale, and the growth of wealth differences, especially in Western countries, has been enormous during the last twenty years.
At the center of the division of attitudes among young people, however, are issues of identity stronger than economic politics.
Also in the 2021 Youth Barometer it appeared that young Finnish women are more liberal in values and young men are more conservative in values. In the youth barometer, the same division was also strongly visible in education: the most liberals were among young people who graduated from university, while the most conservatives were among elementary school students and those who attended vocational training.
In Finland, women are more highly educated than men. Globally, the number of women in higher education has increased greatly in recent years, Mannerström reminds.
At the same time, uncertainty and competition, as well as the demands placed on young people regarding goals and lifestyles, have only increased.
– The position of a white man, especially an uneducated one, is threatened for the first time in history, says Mannerström.
Some exacerbates the hardening of attitudes
According to him, a position that is perceived as threatened leads to a hedgehog defense: protection is sought from one’s own group. Young men experiencing insecurity, loneliness and incompetence have become advocates Andrew Tate misogynistic social media celebrities like
– They create a nostalgic longing for a very conservative society where everyone has a place. The man is the head of the family and the woman’s place is at home to take care of the children. This seems to appeal to a lot of young men at the moment, says Mannerström.
The appeal of the message has been explained, among other things, as a backlash against the #metoo movement, which strengthened feminist values in society in one fell swoop. At the same time, according to Mannerström, the public has been talking more and more and partly misleadingly about the “crisis of masculinity”, which has partly strengthened the effectiveness of the message of social media celebrities.
According to the researcher, social media influencers offer young men simple and black-and-white explanations for, for example, why many of them do worse in school and in work life than women.
– It is not understood, not able or not willing to intervene in the real reasons that create financial uncertainty. Instead, the “manosphere” of social media creates confrontation between the sexes, says Mannerström.
Polarization feeds and reinforces itself. British researcher Alice Evans writes that many young women are in a social media bubble that primarily makes society’s inequalities visible.
– I can well imagine that many women who read about men’s hardened and very conservative values in the media will have a backlash, and their thinking will turn more liberal, says Mannerström.
Researchers: Inequality must be addressed
The division can also be seen in the voting behavior of young people, according to a study by Mannerström’s group. Young Finnish men support the value-conservative Basic Finns the most, and young women the value-liberal Greens.
The division is even steeper in other countries such as Germany. There, young men increasingly support the far-right AfD party.
According to Mannerström, the root causes of bitterness and the resulting polarization can be found elsewhere than in gender itself, even though gender has now risen to prominence. According to him, the unequal development of opportunities should be turned in the opposite direction.
Evans, on the other hand, also proposes the regulation of social media algorithms: dividing people into social bubbles that emphasize sharp contrasts. According to him, understanding could also be increased through friendships between different genders.
– Talk about confrontation should be questioned, because in reality it is not a confrontation between men and women, says Mannerström.