The Real Gender Gap Is Political
The gender wars are alive and well in American politics. The political gender gap between men and women continues to widen, creating a “new fault line” among American voters. The divide is particularly pronounced among voters under the age of...
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The gender wars are alive and well in American politics. The political gender gap between men and women continues to widen, creating a “new fault line” among American voters. The divide is particularly pronounced among voters under the age of 30. Where young men favor President Donald Trump and other Republican politicians, young women firmly support Democrat lawmakers. In particular, young women have grown increasingly liberal in recent decades.
Democrats Adopt Longhouse Tactics
The leftward drift among young women mirrors the gradual feminization of politics. Though the “girl boss” motif of the career-focused woman who has it all peaked several years ago, Democrats can’t stop leaning in. In the analysis of Jonathan Keeperman, who posts under the pseudonym “Lomez,” politics has been subsumed into the “longhouse.” Keeperman defines the longhouse thus:
“It refers at once to our increasingly degraded mode of technocratic governance; but also to wokeness, to the “progressive,” “liberal,” and “secular” values that pervade all major institutions. More fundamentally, the Longhouse is a metonym for the disequilibrium afflicting the contemporary social imaginary.”
The disequilibrium Keeperman identifies is gendered. The longhouse results from the “remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations towards social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior.” (RELATED: The Longhouse Comes for Lomez)
Last week, the longhouse was in full effect during the “White Women for Kamala” call. TikTok star Arielle Fodor — an elementary teacher who makes videos explaining political headlines in a sing-song baby talk voice reminiscent of Dolores Umbridge — spoke during the event.
“Take a beat and instead we can put our listening ears on,” Fodor instructed adult women who might find themselves “talking over or speaking for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and other people of color] individuals or, God forbid, correcting them.” Caught in a political environment where this style of passive aggression has replaced direct confrontation, it’s no surprise that young men feel increasingly alienated.
Kamala Wants to Be the It-Girl
But Kamala’s female supporters aren’t the only ones buying into the longhouse. The vice president herself has leaned into immature, girlish tactics on the campaign trail, too. Harris debuted her campaign’s “Kamala HQ” rapid response page with bright green branding in the style of “brat,” the trend defined by English pop star Charli XCX’s most recent album.
Eager to fit in with TikTok’s it-girls, Kamala embraced the blurry, neon aesthetics of brat and its accompanying social connotations. As Charli XCX eloquently explained:
“You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”
Since announcing her campaign, Kamala has basked in the brat-hued glow of friendly media focused on providing positive press rather than substantive engagement with her still-nebulous policy platform. In the meantime, the longhouse has closed rank, attacking Sen. JD Vance as “weird.” Even rank-and-file Democrats have noticed a change, with Feminist Fight Club author Jessica Bennett celebrating the shift in the New York Times: “Finally, the Democrats start name-calling.” (READ MORE: Vance Is Right. Our Society Is Plagued by Childless Cat Ladies.)
Perhaps it’s strategic, perhaps it’s long overdue, but Kamala’s campaign is definitely tapping into the immaturity of middle school girlhood. One user on Twitter/X commented earlier this week, “I hope Kamala doesn’t start a real campaign and instead just keeps her girl campaign where they talk about pop music and call boys weird.”
I hope Kamala doesn’t start a real campaign and instead just keeps her girl campaign where they talk about pop music and call boys weird
— John Doyle (@ComradeDoyIe) July 30, 2024
The Gender Gap Grows
Based on Kamala’s campaign thus far, it’s no wonder that young men have swung towards the right. But this kind of political divide doesn’t just fuel the gender war — it also heightens the stakes of division among women and men themselves.
In spite of — or perhaps because of — the polarization among women, battling archetypes of the “girl boss” and “trad wife” have percolated online in recent years. Women who embrace a more traditional view of gender, family, and marriage face a culture and a media environment eager to tear them down. The longhouse might be a result of cultural feminization, but it’s particularly cruel to the women who don’t just parrot progressive talking points.
The gap among men is moderate: 50 percent of men support Trump compared to 36 percent who supported Biden (and now, presumably, support Harris). Conversely, a sizable majority of young women — about 2 to 1 — support Democrats over Republicans. David French may take to the New York Times to assure insecure male readers that Hulk Hogan doesn’t need to be their measure of masculinity, but no mainstream media outlet would dare publish a corresponding article for women. The political gender gap, it seems, is here to stay.
Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.
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