There is something to sex differences and how that has consequences in terms of political thinking. But this is not the essay one should read for a good explanation. There are correlations but also assumptions.
The Week: How single men and women are making politics more extreme by Ed West
How single men and women are making politics more extreme https://t.co/c29i1mLktS
— Ed West (@edwest) June 16, 2020
The more freedom we have, the more there will be very feminine and masculine subcultures too, and this might explain a great deal of recent political developments — in particular the campus identity politics movement and the alt-right. The former is heavily female, while the latter is overwhelmingly male — in fact, not just male, but populated by men who seem to have difficulties with women.The alt-right existed before the internet and those subcultures. Perhaps there are some sexless males who become alt-right because they are frustrated. But there are sexless males who become male feminists with the hope of hooking up with a woman. Without statistics these generalizations are unwarranted.
Although there are numerous factors accounting for these two broad developments, it could also be that they are just the political equivalent of the Lego Friends Heartlake Cupcake Cafe and the Lego Nexo Knight's Clay's Falcon Fighter Blaster, examples of where greater freedom of association and self-actualization has led men and women to form into more gendered political groups.
Single women tend to be politically very liberal, voting for the Democrats in huge numbers, while in Britain Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has overwhelming support among young women, the vast majority of whom are unmarried. Generally speaking, the culture wars are far more intense between women because women have to make more sacrifices — whether children or career — and this inevitably influences their worldview. Political liberalism, with its strong relationship between the state and the individual, favors single women, while conservatism, with its emphasis on monogamy and support for the nuclear family, speaks to their married equivalents. And while married men with children are also more conservative than single ones, the difference is not as pronounced.
So what happens when fewer people get married and, indeed, spend time with the opposite sex? Gender-segregated politics it seems.
In recent years there has been a steep rise in the proportion of female students, especially in the humanities, to such an extent that the imbalance has led to a shortage of marriageable men.
It would seem logical, therefore, that already heavily left-leaning institutions filled with single women would be the perfect breeding ground for a forceful progressive movement, one in which members are in competition to display their political zeal.
In contrast, increasing numbers of men are moving into all-male worlds by dropping out of dating altogether. So while compared to Generation X, a larger proportion of millennials are engaging in more promiscuous sex, a larger number of them are also having no sex at all.
Freedom leads to sexual divergence — even in political movements.
The online alt-right grew out of subcultures that were already heavily male, where excess, angry men made ideal recruits to a cause — something noticed long ago by Stephen Bannon during his venture into World of Warcraft, when the future Breitbart boss said that "these guys, these rootless, white males, had monster power."
A weak support:
And anecdotally, a lot of men who do partner up become more politically liberal or moderate, perhaps under female influence or perhaps because the Islamification of the West doesn't seem like such a pressing issue when you have an actual girlfriend.
Among his friends? Maybe they're just whipped. Who are the most numerous supporters of Trump? Married white men, probably. Married men do experience some physiological changes after getting married and becoming fathers with respect to T-production, but testosterone doesn't explain everything about men's attitudes or political stances.
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