The Gender Ideology Gap
By V MURDAYA ‘27
Over recent years, the political division between young men and women has widened. In many Western countries, young men have become more conservative while young women have become more liberal. This trend of division between the two demographics may reflect increased political polarization, especially with regard to social issues. While this trend must be acknowledged, we must also understand its problematic societal implications.
Communicative technological innovation may be one of the biggest factors in the ideological rifts between genders. Whether it be online news sources, social media platforms, or just data networks, the world is clearly more connected than ever before. While this widespread ease of information circulation has given society immense benefits and conveniences, this could inadvertently serve to exacerbate the problem of ideological polarization among people, notably that of gender. Pertaining to social media, software algorithms are trained to push content that personalizes to the viewer, which includes polarizing videos to users in order to increase stimulation and viewer retention, so as to increase the number of advertisements given to viewers. As a result, this increased exposure to far right and far left politics for many would gradually push their subconscious beliefs to one side or the other, causing elevated levels of political extremism. This would especially apply to the gap between men and women. Within the internet, various social media figures are also incentivized to push their political viewpoints and preferences in order to stir support or controversy. This further elevates their prominence in the media, as it increases viewer engagement. As a consequence, these celebrities could also use this widening divide among genders to cement support with one group, even if it meant gathering hate for the other. An instance of this include male chauvinists who idolize the endless pursuit of materialistic wealth, and encourage many to objectify women. This far right movement directly contrasts the opinions of many females, due to its misogyny, serves to only widen this divide between the genders’ political ideals.
Within this polarization, the core of these political arguments between genders are also shifting. Another immense change that society has undergone is political: There has been a rise of progressivism and gender politics, while right wing politics have remained the same. Specifically in the last three decades, there has been a sharp rise of feminism within the younger generation. This wave of gender activism, which pushes for reproductive rights, workplace equality, and LGBTQ+ awareness has been at the forefront of left wing politics. On the other hand, right wing politics remain centered in traditional gender roles and religion. Some of these beliefs include the opposition of abortion rights and the preference to maintain the household roles of the nuclear family, which would subsequently object to some LGBTQ+ beliefs. Therefore, it is apparent that there is a widening rift in the status quo of both political ideologies. Paired with the usage of social media which pushes users to choose one side of these extremes, there is no doubt that there is a bigger gender schism.
A potential dangerous effect of this disparity in young men and women’s beliefs is a sentiment of mutual animosity between the two demographics charged by the political divide. While deep-seated political differences between rural and urban populations cause rifts within nations, similar discord between men and women are particularly damaging because they may cause schisms within the nuclear family—that is, the most detrimental internal division. Men and women should be cooperating together to attain common goals—not fighting against each other—because they are on the same team: the nation. Meaningless, superfluous arguments regarding specific elements of gender roles in urban society portrayed in social media only distract members of society from realizing their common aspirations.
Even in communities where gender political division appears to be small, there are things we can do to minimize it.