[Lee Byung-jong] Gen Z’s rising gender hole

The upcoming US presidential election in November has a shocking diploma of similarities with the South Korean presidential election in 2022. For starters, each elections characteristic candidates who’re being tried for varied prison prices, going through prosecutors-turned-candidates on the opposite facet. However extra importantly, each elections spotlight a remarkably sharp gender divide amongst younger folks, significantly Era Z. In each international locations, younger males predominantly assist conservative candidates, whereas younger ladies are likely to vote for liberal candidates.

In response to a current survey by The New York Instances, US males aged 18-29 favor former President Donald Trump by 13 factors, whereas US ladies in the identical age group desire Vice President Kamala Harris by 38 factors — a whopping 51-point distinction. The hole is sort of significant as a result of the survey was finished in six swing states that may doubtless decide the ultimate end result of the election. Though Trump of the conservative Republican Get together is normally extra widespread amongst males and Harris of the liberal Democratic Get together amongst ladies, the gender distinction is just not that placing amongst generations older than age 29.

Some US analysts imagine the broad gender hole amongst Gen Z is a results of current advances in ladies’s rights that lead younger males to really feel ignored. As ladies’s positions rise repeatedly in each side of the American society, males, significantly younger ones, face extra difficulties find jobs or fulfilling their conventional duty of supporting a household. More and more feeling excluded socially and economically, younger males are drawn to Trump who stresses a extra standard model of masculinity. His powerful and tough demeanor captivates many males who miss standard notions of male power. Trump’s MAGA (Make America Nice Once more) slogan is an extension of his masculinity to a nationwide stage the place he tasks the US as a powerful superpower.

Conversely, younger ladies are drawn by the imaginative and prescient of the Harris marketing campaign, attempting to empower ladies and different historically deprived teams, resembling minorities and LGBTQ+. The marketing campaign’s pledge for the restoration of abortion rights, which had been taken away by the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Courtroom ruling, particularly galvanizes younger ladies voters. Towards the Republican Get together’s assaults on the problems of immigration and inflation, the Democratic Get together places abortion and reproductive rights on the entrance and middle of its marketing campaign. For that purpose, The New York Instances calls the US election “a referendum on gender roles.”

The gender hole amongst younger folks, nevertheless, is just not restricted to the US. Particularly after the center of the 2010s when the #MeToo motion started to rock the entire world, the divide appears to have deepened. But the division was maybe most profound in South Korea. In response to the Monetary Instances, younger Korean ladies had been 30 factors extra progressive in 2020, whereas younger Korean males had been 20 factors extra conservative, for a startling 50-point hole. In that 12 months, the distinction was 30 factors within the US and 25 factors within the UK.

The broad division between genders amongst younger Koreans little doubt materialized in its presidential election in 2022. Among the many so-called “idaenam,” males of their 20s, 58 p.c voted for conservative candidate Yoon Suk Yeol, whereas 59 p.c of “idaenyeo,” ladies of their 20s, voted for liberal candidate Lee Jae-myung. Yoon’s promise of insurance policies he thought would enchantment on to younger males, resembling his proposed dissolution of the Ministry of Gender Equality and Household, certainly attracted many younger male voters. His signature gesture of an uppercut punch throughout his marketing campaign was I imagine emblematic of his specific form of macho masculine enchantment on the time. The gender hole in Korea continued to look to a sure extent within the subsequent native and parliamentary elections.

Sadly, this pervasive gender divide is anticipated to worsen, in keeping with some consultants. One foremost purpose is the truth that women and men are more and more residing individually bodily and are remoted from one another on the web. As extra folks get married later, they’re single for an extended interval, ensuing within the strengthening of their predisposed beliefs and values. Additionally, as folks spend extra time on the web with fewer probabilities of interacting with folks with totally different concepts, their perception programs additional harden.

The gender divide is exacerbated by politicians who capitalize on it for their very own political features. In each Korea and the US, some politicians try and rally their assist bases by attacking the opposite gender. For instance, Trump’s working mate for vice chairman, JD Vance, has not too long ago provoked and angered ladies and others by calling the US Democratic Get together a celebration of “childless cat girls.”

Amid such politicized gender-based assaults, there may very well be a method out. For conservatives, as an alternative of demanding an anachronistic, premodern, macho model of masculinity, they may envision a extra developed identification for males that befits the instances. In that sense, Harris’ working mate for vice chairman, Tim Walz, presents a brand new masculine supreme. As a former army veteran and soccer coach who owns weapons, Walz seems on one hand to be a typical macho man on the floor. However his assist for ladies’s reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ rights and same-sex marriage, together with gun management, free faculty meals, paid household depart, proactive local weather change insurance policies and different liberal values, presents a picture of a extra refined, modern male identification. As a vice presidential candidate, Walz’s model of masculinity is a worthwhile political experiment on this time of polarized politics.

Lee Byung-jong

Lee Byung-jong is a former Seoul correspondent for Newsweek, The Related Press and Bloomberg Information. He’s a professor within the Faculty of International Service at Sookmyung Girls’s College in Seoul. The views expressed listed here are the author’s personal. — Ed.