We all have a role to play in fostering a climate for debate

DESPITE the urge of humanity for togetherness, division is more often the way in which we state our membership of a ‘tribe’. Consider for a moment famous rivalries or divisions: the North-South divide; East vs West; Geordie vs Mackem – the list is endless. New research suggests that the male-female divide is currently getting wider, with Gen Z demonstrating opposing political and social views.

For decades, every generation has broadly shared the same general ideology as they share the same formative experiences and grow up with similar political and economic backdrops. Importantly, there has never been any real differences within a generation for this general trend – until now.

Recent research suggests that 18-30 year olds, not just in this country but in countries across the world, demonstrate a huge gender divergence in their ideologies. This would explain why Gen Z appear to be hyper-conservative on some issues and very liberal on others. In the last six years in particular, there has been a huge divergence in thinking between young males and females.

In countries across the world, the same divisions are being seen. Young males are becoming increasingly right wing and (small c) conservative in their views on a range of issues, while young women are demonstrating much higher degrees of liberalism than in previous generations.

This difference in outlook is translating to voting; as an example, nearly half of 18 to 21-year-old Polish males backed the hard-right party in the recent elections when only about 15% of females of the same age did.

AfD, the far-right German party’s supporters are made up from overwhelming numbers of young men.

In South Korea’s presidential election in 2022, the votes for each party were approximately evenly shared between males and females except for under 25s. Young men heavily backed the right-wing People Power party while, in almost equal and opposite numbers, young women backed the liberal Democratic party.

The trigger point for this gender divide appears to be the #MeToo movement, which seems to have empowered young women to

speak out about long-standing injustices and inequalities. The social media reaction, pushing boys towards the ‘manosphere’ led by the likes of Andrew Tate; toxic masculinity; misogyny; and even the incel movement are often blamed for the socio-political kickback.

This clear progressive vs conservative divide on sexual harassment appears to have caused – or at least is part of – a broader realignment of young men and women into conservative and liberal camps respectively on other issues such as immigration, racial justice and health inequalities.

One really positive message from all of this doom and gloom is that the UK, while going along with the growing division between liberal females vs conservative males, shows a radically different trend to most other countries. British Gen Z males have increased their liberality by about 15 percentage points in the last six years whereas it has decreased in almost all other countries measured (in the US by 10%, in South Korea by 40%).

In the UK, however, Gen Z females’ liberalness has increased more quickly, by 35%.

The impact of this shift to the left and the right in terms of ideologies hasn’t really made an impact on political parties yet as young people are less likely to vote, therefore their views are not considered as much.

We could ignore this phenomenon as a ‘blip’ that will pass but the gaps in ideology are growing and our early political experiences tend to influence the way we will vote for the rest of our lives.

We are seeing a more gender divided group of young people in schools and this is exacerbated by the isolating effect of social media, which tends to encourage people to inhabit separate spaces where they interact with fewer opposing views, thus embedding their beliefs.

We need to find ways to challenge the separation of young people’s thinking by gender and improve their ability to challenge other’s thinking.

Being open to hearing differing views and debating them is a much healthier way forward than de-platforming, othering and refusing to engage. Parents, schools and politicians all have a part to play in this.

Neil Walker is the headmaster of Westfield School in Gosforth