Many Gen Z men feel left behind. Some see Trump as an answer

WASHINGTON – In some ways, this presidential election has become a referendum on gender roles – and the generation with the biggest difference in opinion between male and female voters is Generation Z.

On one side are young women, who as a group are very liberal, and who have been politically galvanised by gender bombshells like #MeToo, the overturning of Roe v Wade and the candidacy of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

On the other are young men, some of whom feel that rapidly changing gender roles have left them behind socially and economically, and see former President Donald Trump as a champion of traditional manhood.

When President Joe Biden was still in the race, men aged 18 to 29 favoured Trump by an average of 11 percentage points, while young women favoured Mr Biden by 28 points, according to four national New York Times/Siena College polls conducted from December to June. That was a 39-point gender gap – far exceeding that of any older generation.

And in Times/Siena polls of six swing states in August – taken after Ms Harris became the presumptive Democratic nominee – young men favoured Trump by 13 points, while young women favoured Ms Harris by 38 points, a 51-point gap.

Trump’s message has been particularly resonant for young men without college degrees and young men of colour. Among men under 30 who voted for Mr Biden in 2020, those who were sticking with him in swing-state polls in May were more likely to be white and have college degrees than those shifting to Trump.

“Economically they’re getting shafted, politically they’re getting shafted, culturally no one’s looking out for them,” said Mr Daniel A. Cox, director of the Survey Centre on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning think-tank, who has written about the youth gender gap. “They’re drawn to his message, his persona, the unapologetic machismo he tries to exude.”

Gen Z men are not making a rightward shift en masse, and they are still somewhat more likely to identify as Democratic than Republican, 30 per cent to 24 per cent, according to data from PRRI, a public opinion research firm. A majority of them support abortion rights and same-sex marriage, and even young men voting Republican are not necessarily socially conservative.

In interviews with young men planning to vote for Trump, they described feeling unvalued. They said it had become harder to be a man. They valued strength in a president. Yet they didn’t express bitter misogyny or praise the exaggerated displays of brawn embraced by the Trump campaign. Their concerns were mostly economic, like whether they could fulfill the traditionally masculine role of supporting a family.

In recent years, the two parties have been seen as offering men different visions of their place in American society, researchers said. While the right has embraced conventional masculinity, the left has seemed to shun it, leaving many young men looking for an alternative.

“I’m going to talk as a feminist: We do it, when we try to suggest women are brilliant and men are the problem,” said Professor Niobe Way, a developmental psychologist at New York University, who has studied boys and men for four decades and in July published Rebels With a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves and Our Culture.

Conversely, she said, “Trump is definitely saying, ‘I see you, I value you, I see your masculinity’”.

Mr Ranger Irwin, a 20-year-old Trump voter who works at a Discount Tire in North Las Vegas, said American society no longer “lets boys be boys”.

“Men my age, from a very young age we were told, ‘You’re not supposed to do this, you’re not supposed to do that, you’re just supposed to sit here and be quiet,’” he said. It has made being a man “a little bit harder than it used to be”.

Feeling unmoored

Since women began entering the workforce and higher education in large numbers in the 1970s, each generation has made strides toward economic equality with men. Young women today are the most educated ever – earning more college degrees than men, increasingly serving as their families’ breadwinners, and reaching pinnacles of power in American society.

For men, the last few decades have been more complicated. The share of men working has gone down. Many of the jobs that mostly men did, especially manual labour not requiring a college degree, have disappeared. The share of men without partners is growing.

As the old script for men changed, some felt as if they were left without a new one to follow.

Mr Alec Torres, 21, a high school graduate who works in retail in Canton, Georgia, and who planned to vote for Trump based on concerns about prices, said that what he wants is simple: to be able to support a family.

“We can’t afford to have children; we can barely afford three meals a day,” he said. “I want to be able to go to the doctor and afford it. I want to be able to own a home. I want to be able to have a car. I want to have a job I enjoy. I want to live, not just survive.”

He supports abortion rights and leans progressive on other social issues: “You want to be gay or trans? Cool,” he said. But he said that boys are no longer raised to be good fathers or to provide for their families.

Democrats have been losing support among young non-white people, though still retaining their backing overall. Mr Torres, who is Hispanic, Native American and Black, is planning to vote for Trump, and also liked Mr Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

In recent years, as social progress has helped women chip away at centuries of sexism, parts of the movement have seemed to dismiss or even demonise men, with phrases like “the future is female” and “toxic masculinity” and books with titles like The End of Men: And the Rise of Women. As Mr Cox noted, a page titled Who We Serve on the Democratic Party’s website lists 16 demographic groups, including “women” – but not men.

The ideas show up in broader society, too. American parents, who have long preferred sons, may no longer favour boys, data shows, perhaps because of a sense that boys cause more trouble. The jobs that have been increasing, like those involving caregiving, have traditionally been considered women’s work.

The shifts have left some young men feeling attacked. Almost half of men aged 18 to 29 say there is some or a lot of discrimination against men in American society – more than older age groups, and up from a third in 2019, Mr Cox’s group found.

When Pew Research Centre asked people whether women’s gains have come at the expense of men, less than one-fifth of respondents said yes. But among young Trump-supporting men, 40 per cent did.

“We tend to be just in general looked down upon,” said Mr Daniel Romstad, 28, a Trump voter and a high school graduate in Lapeer, Michigan, who works in auto body repair. It starts early, he said: “The school system in general is more geared toward girls just because they’re easier.”

The ‘testosterone ticket’

Trump, with his cage-fighting, shirt-ripping, insult-hurling campaign, has offered an alternative, aggressive version of masculinity. His running mate J. D. Vance offers another, in his emphasis on the importance of patriarchal families and women raising children.

Together, said pollster Christine Matthews, they’ve created “the testosterone ticket”.

“Vance himself has said that the Democratic Party is run by childless cat ladies, and that is his projection of a sort of feminine, intolerant, not all-American party,” she said. “And then their party is exalting this sort of male, muscular, working-class, drive-a-pickup-truck, made-in-the-USA version of the party.”

In interviews, many of the young men supporting Trump said they admired his strength and macho demeanour.

Mr Malachi Bohlmann, 23, a veteran, student and real estate entrepreneur in Phoenix, said Trump’s strength was beneficial for border control and foreign policy.

“What I do like about Trump is his overall aura when it comes to geopolitics, and just his ability to just show the US as a strong superpower,” he said. “You’re not going to mess with us.”

Though gender issues like reproductive rights are a centerpiece of Ms Harris’ presidential campaign, she has not made her own gender a focus. Instead, it’s her running mate Tim Walz who has done so, by offering a different version of masculinity.

He is a veteran, a Second Amendment supporter and a former high school football coach. Yet he worked in a female-dominated profession, teaching, and he is comfortable talking about fatherhood and championing the rights of women and gay and transgender people.

“He represents an entirely new way of being a man, hard and soft, valuing equally both sides of his humanity,” Prof Way said.

To be successful, politicians need to see both sides of voters too, she said.

“My message to Democrats is we have to be including the needs of the people who are voting for Trump, and addressing them smack-on,” she said. “Not trying to convince them they should care about immigrants or Black people or women. But what are your concerns, and what can we do to help your family thrive?” NYTIMES