Why the political worldviews of young men and women are increasingly diverging | DW Analysis

something strange is going on with boys in many countries around the world young men are more likely to be less educated than women to die from overdose drinking or suicide and even to vote differently a recent Financial Times report found that while young women are on average more Progressive than their parents as you'd expect from Young Generations boys are becoming more conservative now it's very difficult to Define what it means to be conserv in one country let alone around the world but some experts think that one issue in particular could be driving this divide gender equality so why is this happening women are hardwired to get their needs met through a man women in America and London how combative they are and how hard it is for them to submit so I think my sister is my her husband's property yes many agree that misogynist influencers like these are radicalizing young men Andrew Tate is definitely in the conversation for the most dangerous person alive but I spoke to some experts who think there's a lot more going on the men who are struggling who can't get status who then feel insulted when this lower status group women is being assertive and while they don't always agree what they have to say might surprise you men aren't wrong to feel like their issues aren't getting much attention right they're not getting much [Music] attention I reached out to high think might just be the best experts on this topic Richard Reeves the president of the first and maybe only think tank in the world focused on the problems of boys and men Alis Evans talking with me from seul as she's travel in the world precisely to write a book on this topic titled the great gender Divergence and Neil shimsky a professor who interacts daily with a young generation and is famous on Tik Tok for his videos on these issues so let's Jump Right In lately we have seen a lot of studies showing a growing gender divide some have even said that gen Z two generations not one because on some topics like gender boys and girls have very different opinions so what's going on so if we look at South Korea China the US and also across Europe we see that women young women tend to Express more Progressive views concern for gender bias and also racial bias whereas young men uh not all but some may Express concerns that gains for women's rights come at Men's expense there's this idea that women's rights might be a threat and also in some parts of Europe the idea of being concerned about migration or foreigners so are young men just becoming more conservative well it comes back to what we mean by these terms because there are other surveys which show that young men are just as likely to support gender equality as older men right so they're in favor of gender equality but they're turning against feminism and so what that means is in their minds at least those two things are no longer the same they're not synonymous Neil and this is one of the main reasons I want to talk to you that is you actually teach these young generations and talk with them every day so do you also see this divide in your day-to-day job yes there there's absolutely a gender divide I see it in the students that I teach I also see it I should mention I have a 15-year-old daughter I attended her middle school so her eighth grade graduation when she was 14 and uh each of the students was asked to include an inspirational quote in a video that played before the ceremony and the most popular figure to quote was Andrew Tate people have come up with various theories to explain this divide like on radicalization or backlash against women's rights and we'll get to all of these but first I want to highlight something sometimes missing in the general conversation and that's that young men really have some issues and you wrote a whole book about it so I want to know your response to what I think is the most common reaction you might get men's issues really yes well really is a quite a that's quite a polite one one the one interview I did the first question was when did you first start hating women H and so there is that kind of just that sense the fact that you're focusing on boys and men means that you're somehow against women and girls right that's the that's the Zero Sum framing that is such a problem I think in this this whole debate which is the presumption you can only do one thing at a time right we we can't think two thoughts at once and there's still a huge amount we need to do on behalf of women and girls especially in senior positions like in politics and boardrooms and Technology and Engineering and so on there's still a lot to do it's not as if somehow all the problems of women have been solved and we we ignore them and now turn our attention back to men it is that we need to do both and the last thing I'll say is that we shouldn't in the end probably separate out those problems because men and women to some extent do rise or fall together in families and in communities so it's a world of floundering men is very difficult to imagine as a world of flourishing women or vice versa and I think that was one of the central insights of the women's movement absolutely I think this is a really critical issue many people feel that they're struggling so right now here in South Korea you know women face the largest gender pay Gap in the oecd they face massive discrimination at work and they feel there's a r that women are struggling meanwhile South Korean men have mandatory conscription mandatory conscription for the war in North Korea and every single year a 100 men commit suicide during that mandatory conscription I mean it's absolutely horrific hierarchical and brutal so both sides have real real Grievances and difficulties on top of that you know many youngan men are struggling to find Brides they're struggling to achieve status in a very competitive Society you know their parents have invested so much in their education and now they're unable to buy house so you know every everyone everyone is having a really really tough time in in a status uh competition game so I am 100% with you that it's important to connect to people and learn about different life worlds and learn about and build compassion and support for one another so what issues do men face and I'd like to start with education because some of the findings you have there are mindboggling boys and men are behind in education at every level from you know the age of five through to the age of 25 in every Advanced economy and in pretty much every subject area you can choose your metric but you'll get the same story and it's very interesting that it is pretty much a global phenomenon and what that means it's not just something about the American you education system or the Spanish education system or the German education system and in interestingly in Scandinavia that's where you see the biggest education gaps men have F Fallen the furthest behind in Sweden nor Norway Denmark and Finland which are very very gender egalitarian countries so that's a pretty consistent story is that um if you take the gaps that existed say in the 1970s uh in favor of men they're at least as big now the other way around ac across the basically across the advanced world and even in many developing countries and Middle Eastern countries the girls are now ahead of the boys so it's not just advanced economies now it's like there's a worldwide gender gap essentially why is there is happening I think one big reason is that girls will typically just mature a little bit earlier than boys so their brains develop a bit earlier they're not smarter than boys so on the tests of intelligence there's really no gender gap at all none but in terms of grades and graduation rates and so on young women and girls are typically doing better and it seems to be that's like they they just enter they hit puberty earlier that develops part of their brain called The frontal cortex earlier so girls aren't smarter than boys but they do get that acte together a bit earlier than boys and the education system really rewards that as it should but it means that to some extent girls are at a bit of a natural Advantage especially in adolescence so what happens when these men leave school when they enter the economy well first of all if they don't do as well in education they will struggle to find employment and good employment that is not true for their fathers their fathers May well have been able to just do okay in school and get a decent job but those jobs for men have very significantly declined so for example here in England house prices have skyrocketed and young people's wages even though wages are rising it's much much harder for young people to buy a house um and that's the case in many European capitals that young people are unable to buy housing earlier this year I in Spain a lot of Spanish young people and also it Italians are on temporary contracts you know young Italian men at 30 still living with their parents is this a struggle only in comparative terms when menen is yes they're doing worse than their fathers but compared to women they're still earning more that's a great question and it depends there it does vary by country so the the US is unusual in the fact that there's been this absolute drop in in male earnings right from for the bottom half let's say of the of the labor force that's not true in other countries in other countries they've at least seen some wage gains um but in all countries they've seen a significant shift in their relative position relative to women now of course that's the inevitable and positive consequence of more equality right if women are doing better we want we want that Gap to close um but it's easier for people to adjust to that world of Greater relative equality if they're also feeling like they're doing absolutely better off absolutely better so we covered education we covered the economic situation but there's more to life than the economy so how are men doing on other metrics and you mentioned this St in your book the found men who commit suicide were likely to use words like useless and worthless to describe themselves which really breaks your heart when you read it I think this is where a lot of the real tragedy lies and so you're quite right that you know male male suicide victims and there are a lot I mean in the US we lost 40,000 Men last year to Suicide um and four times as many men as women and you're right that those the two words they most commonly use the men who commit suicide use are useless and worthless to describe themselves and it it that sense of not having a clear purpose not having a clear sense of why you would be needed I'm pretty sure that it's a human Universal need to be needed and I would say that for a lot of men right now it's not clear to them that they are needed you know do their kids need them does their wife or girlfriend need them do does the labor market need them who needs them are they needed are they necessary this leads me nicely to another explanation I have often found by the way these are not mutually exclusive in fact they're all interconnected but in any case it has more to do with culture reasons the idea that why patri key has pressed women down it has also propped men up and now that the system is changing women are finally Rising but men kind of falling when people ask me these questions um about the the anxiety and the crisis of masculinity what masculinity is always in crisis we are always fearful that we are not as manly and masculine as our fathers and grandfathers both of my grandfathers were manual laborers in mining um you know they could would diagnose and fix cars with their bare hands uh I I don't have those abilities I can't possibly live up to whatever standard they embody um so feminine of you it's incredibly feminine of me yes I I you know I work in a college and I talk for a living but I think that historical context can can provide some comfort that you know actually what we're experiencing right now is totally normal I take a point that everybody always worries about a crisis of masculinity but at the same time there's obviously been something extraordinary that perhaps we have never seen in history with the mitu movement and the feminist movement since the70s so I take your point the masculinity is always in a crisis but maybe sometimes there is a [Laughter] crisis I mean fair enough um certainly we we''ve never seen this this level of gender equality the way that that I like to discuss this then is um don't look at it in terms of what you've lost look at it as an opportunity look at what you stand to gain um so sure you men are no longer the default bread winner um that means that we can be something else that there's room there to have discussions with our partners with our families um to explore the possibility of working part-time of being a stay-at-home father uh these are opportunities that being the default red winner denied men I think that within this framework you can add the backlash explanation so the idea that we're seeing a push back against women's rights okay so I think there are two elements so first of all if we look at education women tend to be more educated than men but I don't think that in itself is causing in the problem the backlashes when men feeling like they're economically struggling compared to other men so men care about their status relative to other men so if a man is inverted as a loser so if he is unable to get a house a nice job a nice car and keep up with other men then he may feel that sense of strife and the and one of the biggest blowbacks to inability to achieve status or relative status among men it's not just that you can't afford you can't have the lifestyle that you feel entitled to but that you may become unattractive towards women so men who think that their fathers were in a better position to them now and then they're told oh that more men are remaining single is that sense of being snubbed on The Dating Market that sense of being unwanted by men that hurts men's egos so I don't think it's about all men failing because some men you know in in Munich and Berlin they're on a lot you know they're earning a lot of money there's still a gender pay Gap where men typically earn more than women right so some men are doing fantastic ially well right but some men are struggling and also if I can jump on that it's it's the idea of intersectionality that one shouldn't look at this only through the lens of gender it's impossible to understand this divide without looking at social economic factors rich men are fine it's really workingclass men who are struggling class and race are both very important so the gender gaps in the US are much bigger in education and employment for workingclass men but in the US in particular there also issue for black men especially the G the gender gaps between black boys and black girls black men and black women are roughly twice the gender gaps for other racial groups and so it's incredibly important to look at these things through that lens as you as you just said like looking at it intersectionally it's a horrible word but it's a useful idea one of the big moves particularly on the prog Center left side of the political Spectrum has been to move away from focusing on individual responsibility to structural disadvantages and I think that of course both are important but but if we look at like why for example in in the pandemic why were black Americans you know so much more exposed we didn't say well it's BEC we didn't typically think it's because black Americans weren't wearing masks or they weren't doing anything we thought no it's because of poverty it's because of neighborhoods because black Americans are more involved in in Frontline work and similarly I think that the women's movement actually moved Beyond an individualizing approach which which was more about the shoulder pads right and the voice training and more about no no no it's about child care it's about the structure of careers it's about the way employers treat the think about family life right it's structural there are structural barriers to women's inequality well in just the same way in education now if boys are struggling in the education which they are really struggling in the classroom we should do the same thing and say what is it about the structure of Education that might not be working very well for boys so if I understand correctly more educated men are also more likely to support feminism yes absolutely so young uh educated educated men who are rich they're doing fantastically well right they're doing fantastically well and when you're doing fantastically well you're less likely to have that zero some mentality right you're doing well yes we can all Thrive so you know uh educated rich successful men yes absolutely because they've already achieved status they have achieved status so women's gains are not a threat to them but the irony here is that the men who have the most traditional views about the roles of men like the men should be the bread winner the provider are men from poorer communities who are the least likely to be able to fulfill that role so there's a real tragedy there which is that actually kind of upper middle class men who are super feminist much more lik to be feminists and don't have this view that men should be providers they are providers and they can be providers right it's a lot easier to say that when you don't have to do it exact exactly it's just so basically like equality is much easier for the affluent and well educated I think it's really important that we think about patriarchy as status beliefs that you know a patriarchal society is one where people think that men are high status they are knowledgeable authorities deserving of deference so even if a man is unemployed or has a you know a pretty crappy house he may still feel a sense of dominance over women he may still um be upset if a woman says no to his advances if she spurns him so that creates an in intense sense of struggle and competition the feeling that life is hard for them um and that that sense of economic resentment uh is associated with what a pro Professor Stephanie staneva and others called zero some mentalities the idea that there is a fixed basket of goods and gains for you come at my expense well I think that the danger of zero something thinking is present is real you see it in survey evidence and it's true but it's true on both sides right I mean it's it's most obviously true in the way you've just seen it which is men saying well men are suffering because women are rising but it's also true when I try to persuade policy makers to do more stuff about boys and men they'll say no no no it's women and girls who need help like no no no they both need help my friend of mine Dana bow and Matthew at Brooking she said equality always feels like a loss to the people who are previously unfairly ahead and that's true it's back to your point about relative status earlier right if you if if it used to be the case just being male just gave you this unfair Advantage then the removal of that is going to create some dislocation right and to the extent it's really great sentence equality feels like a loss to the people who we unfairly ahead right great I mean it is isn't it and it's like well and so the question then is like do we just roll our eyes and say get over it right in a space of a generation like what's wrong with you and anybody that strug strling with this transition is by default just a misogynist reactionary right or do we say look that's a tough change no question we've lost some kind of automatic status that's a good thing for society but we should be we should be honest about the fact that that is quite a difficult change for people and then we throw in terms like toxic masculinity which sort of blames them for their own plight then I just think we're going to hold we're going to lose men if we keep framing it this way and we're doing a much better job right now of calling men out rather than calling them in there are just a few too many wagging fingers and not quite enough Helping Hands what do you think of the term toxic masculinity you know I talk a lot about toxic masculinity and and I discuss it in terms of um getting people to think of toxic not as uh a value judgment um but rather of toxicity as rigidity um and intolerance to difference so what makes masculinity toxic um for that matter I would argue what makes femininity toxic is prescribing um just one way one role to operate in the world to move through life and to behave in your interpersonal relationships and then to to demonize um exceptions to that rule um now I don't always use the word toxic masculinity um despite liking it for that reason um because it it has become toxic itself um if you use the word toxic in a conversation about gender you can be pretty certain that a large proportion of the people that you're speaking to will just shut off um you you've now signaled what your politics are um you've perhaps signaled that you are their enemy and uh and the conversation may be over right there so over the past 30 40 years media has become increasingly negative we're also spending more time on our phones and that means we can self- select into certain Echo Chambers just don't share a consensus culture anymore you know there there are no TV shows um that I can mention in a classroom that more than a quarter of my students have seen um I taught a popular culture class so a class that you would assume um is filled with people who are interested in music and film and television and we had a running joke which was that I was going to buy everyone pizza if we could find one movie that half of them had seen uh and so it got to the point halfway through the year we still hadn't found that movie and then social media corporations Keen to keep me will then feed me more content that uh pleases my PRI so they send me more stuff more polarizing content and so because I'm in this now social media filter bubble I hear people who agree with me and I come to feel oh yes that's right you know because I don't don't see those views being challenged or criticized so it's because of the economic resentment because of the zeros some mentalities because of the technological shifts then cultural entrepreneurs like menson in Poland or Andrew Tate in England um or vo in Spain can then make political capital or cultural capital or a lot of money right by harnessing and building on the th those ideas what do you think of otate if you were to ask me um who is the most dangerous single person alive we could of course go through lists of uh political leaders obviously people who are conducting Wars Andrew Tate though uh is definitely in the conversation I think for the most dangerous person alive um just to see the incredible influence the number of teenage boys who don't just listen to him but idolize him who feel that he uh he is not just um important but profound in some way uh and that you know he he speaks Truth uh that he he villainized he vilifies women and feminism um and he mocks empathy kindness uh the way that he is is socializing these boys um I am terrified to see you know what will our world look like in 10 15 years uh if we can't deprogram the teenage boys who look up to him I see people like Andrew Tay as largely the symptom rather than the cause you have to risk saying there are some aspects of what Andrew Tate says which you can understand why young men would be attracted to it it's just that he then leads you into a place that is much darker but the second thing I'm much more interested Less in what Andrew Tate and others are supplying and more that they are finding a market the reason they're finding a market is because there are a lot of questions that young men are struggling boys and are struggling with now as we've just discussed and so they're looking for someone who's addressing those questions and providing answers well who do they find they find the reactionaries and why do they find them because there's nobody else there except perhaps some feminists telling them well stop being so toxic and you know be better allies for me it's an unbelievable failure on on cultural failure on our part to have created a world where that demand is going to those figures to that Supply yeah I think that it is certainly true that Andrew Tate offers men who are looking for a male role model um somebody to look up to and he doesn't exclusively talk about women that's not even the majority of what he offers that's absolutely true uh what I do see though is that his self-help is is a bit of um it's a gateway drug which is why I I would hesitate to say well you know he he does this one thing well there's nobody who is there just to learn how to um be an accountant apparently his accounting course um I've read is actually quite good uh but I do think that there there we do have a problem um with strong male role models so I'll give you one example someone who is a a big follower of Andrew Tate and I'm talking to him on the on the on the phone and he said they don't care about male suicide and I said who's they and I'm sure they do he said the government they don't care about male suicide I said okay what's your evidence they don't care he sends me to the government website on suicide disparities and says asks me the question where do they mention the gender gap the biggest gap of all which is between men and women there's no mention there's a page for lgbtq there's a page for rural urban there's a page for veterans it's all good stuff right but there is no mention of the fact that being male puts you at a four times higher risk of suicide or that male suicides are rising especially among young men and I'm I'm I'm I'm thinking no wonder no wonder Andrew tapate and his others can pick up followers because when they say that the government and other institutions aren't paying enough attention to their issues they're right and so what we have to do is make them wrong we have to be able to say what are you talking about the government and the media are covering this stuff all the time but I got to tell you right now that's not true what do you think the solution could be to bridge this divide well you have to end with the the hardest question right women can't just live in their Echo chamber they can't just live in their bubble because they may have that online but when they start moving through the real world they butt up against patriarchy they butt up against sexism and misogyny they can't avoid it um men on the other hand because we live in a patriarchy um they're much more insulated in that way and so part of the solution has to be um men showing an increasing willingness to enter spaces that they are uncomfortable with as men we we are often so used to moving through the world with a certain level of safety um you know you have a discussion with uh any group of women and you will hear about how anytime they're in public they are thinking about their physical safety so younger men ju just don't have that same experience we feel entitled to feeling comfortable and safe so how how do we Bridge The Divide um listening to new voices entering new spaces to hear the conversations that people who are not like us are having I have to say I feel a bit cynical about this because as a teenager you just don't have the mindset for this maybe when you're like 18 20 25 but as a teenager you're whole preoccupation is to fit within our group isn't it I feel like sometimes we forget that they're still very young like you can expect men to change but boys maybe that's expecting too much perhaps we should expect the system to change and I don't know how but perhaps phrases like Boys Don't Cry can't you study like sister maybe even toxic masculinity they can make it sound for someone still very young like these issues are their fault I I think you're you're actually pointing toward one specific solution we talk to their parents because it really is it's not just teaching the children but talking to the parents and talking to them about uh how how they may be contributing to the problem not consciously not intentionally by saying things like um you know toughen up Boys Don't Cry so if if we can work on educating um not directly the children but instead talking to their parents and saying look here here are ways that you can concretely impact um the gender ideology that your children develop in ways then that may um I would use the word inoculate or vaccinate them against some of these ideas uh because frankly it's never too early to start teaching feminism to children we we need to work very hard to persuade fathers that they matter as fathers even if they're not providers in the traditional sense and so that means when we have paid leave policies they must be equal for fathers and mothers and they must be independently available to fathers and we need workplaces that are father friendly we have to have a massive recruitment Drive of men into teaching into the healthcare professions where there are few and fewer men we need more Technical Training apprenticeships technical high schools which are good for boys especially the other thing that we should I think seriously consider as policy makers is starting Boys in school a year later just because they you know as we discussed they do mature a little bit later and in adolesence especially that really count and then lastly as kind of parents and you know journalists and think tankers and policy makers and Community leaders is let's take this issue away from the culture Warriors away from the people who want to weaponize this or exploit this or profit from this in one way or another and just straightforwardly and compassionately say there are a whole bunch of issues that we we need to pay attention more attention to now boys and men and make those boys and men feel seen and heard and loved and acknowledged without in any way doing any less for women and girl clearly if if if one of the major underlying economic drivers is stagnant regions then it's really important to boost economic growth to make sure there's continued job creation to improve perceptions of Mobility two I think the the EU can think creatively about uh regulating algorithms I mean we we regulate so many other parts of our society but the digital world I mean I think the eu's previous uh agreement was to assess the risk of different kinds of Technologies but we haven't looked at regulating these algorithms that create such a distorted view like you know most of us are so normal most of us are so modate and boring yeah yeah yeah yeah most of us are really boring I think one thing to appreciate is that there's polarization between young men and women is partly a function of cultural liberalization so in December I was in usbekistan for a month before that I was in India for two months Morocco uh turkey in many of these places there's so much Social policing that men and women cannot think differently you know women are socialized for marriage and then you have to stay put because divorce are humiliating failure so on the one hand people should not see this polarization as a total catastrophe because in part it reflects growing freedoms and growing gender equality um that said I think that my comparative research Around the World shows that there are these very common structural drivers this isn't a story just about one country it's a story about economic stagnation uh corporate algorithms and also these cultural entrepreneurs those are the three things that have the same effects in all rich culturally liberal countries thank you so much for this great conversation it's been a pleasure to talk with you about this very difficult but also very important and fascinating topic thank you all right that was fun Take Care by bye

Channel: DW News

Views: 861,352

Keywords: DW News, gender gap, gen z, gen z worldviews, incels, toxic masculinity, gender divide, Neil Shyminsky, Alice Evans, political divide, culture wars, woke, wokeness

Id: 54H8ppxnp8I

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 01 2024