The public debate largely revolves around the radicalisation of young men. It is termed the “manosphere” when one wishes to scandalise men as bearers of toxic masculinity and right-wing extremism. One even allocates hundreds of thousands of tax kroner to left-wing extremists so that they may map the extent of the manosphere.
But much suggests that it is in reality the young women who are radicalised.
A Gallup survey from 2024 on political ideology among Americans aged 18–29 from 1999 to 2023 demonstrates this with complete clarity.
During this period, young women become significantly more left-wing, while attitudes among young men remain stable, which almost doubles the gender gap: around 1999 there is a difference of approximately 12 percentage points between the sexes, whereas the gap in 2023 stands at around 23 percentage points.
Now a brand-new British study in The New Statesman shows the same, namely a marked gender and political divide among young Britons. The study shows in particular that young women have far more negative attitudes towards men than vice versa, and that they at the same time move strongly towards the Left on the political scale.
72% of young men have a positive impression of young women, and only 7% have a negative impression.
Among women under 30, only around half have a positive view of men, and among women under 25 the proportion with a positive view of men falls to 35%, while only 11% have a positive view.
The study was conducted by the analyst Scarlett Maguire and the journalist Emily Lawford. In this video about the study, they describe how young women experience a pervasive distrust of men. This applies even to women who are in relationships with men. Several women describe boyfriends they “love”, yet at the same time speak disparagingly of the men’s political interest, engagement, and empathy.
Some women desire neither male friends nor romantic relationships if the men do not share their fundamental political values. Six out of ten young women say that they would find it difficult to date a man who disagreed with them about Israel–Palestine or Donald Trump, and this is presented as a morally non-negotiable criterion, not merely a preference.
The femosphere
Young women are concerned about men’s exposure to figures such as Andrew Tate, but their own news feeds are filled with strongly left-wing, anti-imperialist, and pro-Palestinian content, often combined with content about toxic masculinity. This creates a climate characterised by anger and contempt towards men.
This online culture is described as a counterpart to the manosphere: a “femosphere” in which feminist and progressive politics are combined with a profound hostility towards men.
At the same time, young women have a more positive attitude towards communism than towards capitalism: capitalism is assessed as weakly positive, while communism scores far higher.
Women from the middle class are more pessimistic and more negative in all respects than young women with working-class backgrounds. They perceive the United Kingdom as more sexist, more racist, and the future as more hopeless.
The young women also speak extensively about women’s “physical pain” (menstruation, pregnancy, etc.) as a source of increased sensitivity, and contrast this with men’s alleged lack of experience of oppression. As the panel notes: it is striking how biologically essentialist the language is, despite the women’s otherwise highly progressive self-understanding.
One example is one of the participants in the study, a female activist in a pro-Palestinian group at a university. She experiences the women as emotionally engaged, while the men quickly move on to logistics and tactics. She interprets this as men’s selfishness and lack of empathy.
Criticism of young men’s political and moral engagement
Several young women in the study generally describe men’s engagement with social justice as opportunistic.
Men avoid feminist and broader issues of social justice unless it can provide them with visibility or sexual capital. They criticise sexism only if they are interested in the woman concerned. In everyday life, they tolerate—according to the women—racist and sexist jokes among friends.
This contributes to a strong personal disappointment and anger towards the young men, not merely towards an abstract “patriarchy”.
It is also noteworthy that young white women are more inclined than young women from minority groups to describe the United Kingdom as racist. Women from ethnic minorities are more inclined to say that they feel valued by the country, that they can improve their life opportunities, and so forth. In general, it is particularly young white women who do not see a positive future in the United Kingdom, do not feel national pride, and do not experience that the country offers them anything.
Here, gender, race, and class are linked into a broader narrative of an alienated, online middle-class generation of women who do not feel a sense of belonging to the nation.
Family and fertility
The study also shows that young women to a greater extent than young men respond that they never wish to have children. They believe that men do not assume sufficient responsibility. They are alarmed by politicians who say that women ought to bear more children, and they are alarmed by attacks on the right to abortion and by conservative family policy in general.
This reproductive restraint is described as a political symptom with potentially serious consequences for the long-term demography and cohesion of society.
Finally, there is the marked leftward orientation among young women. Labour is regarded as far too right-wing and nationalist—indeed, one has heard that as well!—and almost all of those interviewed speak of voting for the Green Party.
As the panel in the video points out, the problem is that many of the young women’s values are not subject to negotiation. This applies to harsh criticism of Israel, strong antipathy towards national pride, towards family policy, and towards traditional family ideals.
A generation of young women who have lost trust in men, in the nation, and in the future is a societal problem of the first order. But we do not hear much about that. Studies of the manosphere, on the other hand, readily fill the columns and airtime of the media—and cost the taxpayers thousands of kroner.