Zoomers: Gender, Religion, and Politics

Watch out for the women

This is a follow-up to last Friday’s post which shared a similar title. As I wrote in that piece, there is a significant gender imbalance evident in Melissa Deckman’s The Politics of Gen Z. Not only were young women more engaged in a variety of political activities, they were much more issue driven than men.

While they all share standard concerns about the economy, cost of living, and housing, recent changes like the Dobbs decision and its subsequent fallout in the states have mobilized these voters. A great number of men are motivated around issues of the need for change and having a strong leader who can pull that off.

One chart in Melissa’s book really grabbed my attention. It speaks directly to what we could call the bro-podcast-culture. While I don’t frequent these sites, I understand that folks like Josh Rogan, Barstool sports, Josh Peterson, Vivek Ramaswamy, Aaron Rodgers, and others shape a particular version of masculinity. Here’s the chart.

The question asked respondents if they agreed or disagreed that “America is too soft and feminine” (likely the result of childless cat ladies). Republican women were 21 points less likely to agree than Republican men. There is a similar 20 point gap among Democratic women. The interaction of gender and party is particularly interesting. Democratic women were 45 point less likely than Republican men to agree and were more likely to disagree by the same margin.

A Fairleigh Dikenson professor, Dan Cassino, had an op-ed in the Washington Post exploring the linkages between Trump support and the “crypto-bros” according to a poll they had conducted. He describes a sentiment similar to what shows up in Deckman’s chart.

The overlap among these three things — crypto ownership, views on masculinity and views on Trump — might seem like a coincidence, but our poll found strong evidence that they’re interrelated. A question on our survey asked people to rate how masculine or feminine they are on a six-point scale running from “completely masculine” to “completely feminine.” About half of men said they’re “completely masculine.” Such men support Trump over Harris by a 34-point margin. All other groups, men and women alike, favor Harris by about 20 points.

This group — men who say they’re “completely masculine” — are Trump’s core audience, but that’s not the only way masculinity is shaping voting preferences. Those men who say they’re “completely masculine” are less likely than other men to say they’ve owned crypto: They don’t need to, since, by their own standards, they’re already meeting the demands of masculinity.

In his Monday Off Message SubStack (which I faithfully read every morning), Brian Beutler points out why this attempt to reach these strong young men is not likely to go anywhere.

The thing about Trump that appeals to young men isn’t rooted in policy per se, but in his devil-may-care affect. Trump exudes Go Fuck Yourself, and young men constitute the demographic that most wants you to get fucked. He personifies a certain kind of young man’s daydream of impunity—that with enough bluster and force of will, they, too, can act like assholes, embrace moral hypocrisy, break all the rules, and get away with it. Not just get away with it, but thrive.

Last night I viewed a webinar from a group called BigTentUSA. It focused on the patterns among Zoomers and had as a guest John Della Volpe, who was reporting on the most recent release of the Harvard Youth Poll.

Among likely voters surveyed, Harris was preferred over Trump by a margin of 61% to 30%, a gap of 31%. More significantly, he found an important gender difference. Male likely voters barely preferred Harris by 53% to 36%, a margin of 17%. Women who were likely voters favored Harris 70% to 23%, a whopping 47% gap.

Another interesting finding in the Youth Poll deals with what I wrote about last Friday: turnout. In the spring version of the survey, 66% of Democrats and 64% of Republicans said they would definitely vote in the upcoming election. In the recent version, Democrats increased to 74% while Republicans decreased to 60%. If those patterns hold, this could be vitally important to the outcome of the election.

Another story on Monday showed an anecdotal separation between Gen Z women and Gen Z men in terms of religion. Ruth Graham wrote in the New York Times about a church in Waco (home of Baylor) and how there were more young men in the congregation than young women. This is consistent with what Melissa Deckman found in her book. The women activists she discovered were not motivated by religion. Ryan Burge explored these patterns and found that the gender differentiation seems to hold for both the millennial generation and the Zoomers. As I’ve long argued, and Della Volpe reiterated last night, something distinctive separates these younger generation from their predecessor generations.

I haven’t watched it yet, but I think that Kristin DuMez’s new film For Our Daughters is an important part of the puzzle for both religion and politic¹. The #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements have been pivotal for the young women is these surveys. Add in Dobbs and draconian state measures and things just get worse.

The women rightly notice that leaders in media, politics, and churches seem first to minimize the real harm done, often by protecting the powerful figure and denigrating the women who complained. Moreover, institutions — denominations, colleges, churches, political parties (see Gaetz, Matt) — have failed to act thereby adding to the distrust already present.

One could imagine that these young women could simply be patient, hoping for change over the long term. Perhaps they could look inward to see how these abusive situations could possible occur. They could write articles and social media posts expressing their concern.

Deckman’s book makes clear that these are not options for Gen Z women. They are organizing and using their political clout to demand change and to demand it now. Patient they are not.

I encourage them to organize, to protest, to complain, to advocate. We need them.

Because they just might be the most important segment of the electorate over the next five weeks.

1. Just finished watching Kristin’s film on YouTube. It’s fabulous and everyone should check it out.