Is there a widening gender gap in politics?

And a few book recommendations

US polling data show a widened split between male and female voters, especially the young.

Kamala Harris has opened up a slight overall national lead over Trump. But according to an ABC/Ipsos poll,

Harris leads by 13 points among women, 54%-41%, while it’s Trump +5 points among men, 51%-46%, for an 18-point gap.

And this gap appears to be even wider among younger voters. According to a NYT/Siena poll, two thirds of women under 30 say they’ll vote for Harris, but just over half of young men say they’ll vote for Trump.

It’s not hard to account for the surge in young women’s support for the Democratic candidate: they can be confident that she’ll defend reproductive freedom, and they can identify with her as potentially their first female president. Harris’s choice of running-mate, Tim Walz, was supposed to balance this out, but it may not be having much effect on younger male voters.

A podcast discussion about this between Katty Kay and Anthony Scaramucci (who reports having passed through Auckland en route to Sydney) focussed on young men feeling that they’re being left out, or feeling adrift. It’s also reported that they’re less politically engaged now than young women are – at least in America, but likely elsewhere too.

Older men still hold majorities in Congress, boardrooms and the like. But that kind of career goal is a long way off for young people of any gender, and only a few will make it to such exalted heights anyway. Most people have more immediate practical concerns and challenges.

Nonetheless, at least half of young American men are turning to the Trump/Vance duo as a model in which they have more confidence. This phenomenon has a wider scope, if we consider, for example, the appeal of conservative figures like Jordan Peterson, who’s spoken sympathetically about Trump – although conceding that he’s “divisive”.

Having talked with young men about Peterson, I get the sense that, for them, he’s an authoritative male voice of a kind they’ve been needing to hear – even though, in my opinion, he often lets himself down with over-confidence and prejudicial judgements. The philosopher Slavoj Žižek exposed, during their debate, Peterson’s lack of self-awareness that sometimes maybe he really doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

All the same, it’s as if many young men wished they’d had a dad or a school teacher who sounded like Peterson, and so they’ll take what he says on trust.

Trump’s ungoverned tongue and instinct for offence as his best defence earn him credit with sufficient numbers to keep him politically afloat, especially among young men. They’re hearing his voice, but not paying attention to his policies, which may not be better for them than Harris’s. There are many male leaders who set much better ethical examples than Trump, but none of them is running for president at the moment.

Even the former Republican vice-president Dick Cheney has said, “In our nation’s 248-year history, there has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump.” He vows to vote for Harris.

Historians will argue for centuries over how someone like Donald Trump – whose moral development stalled at the Bart Simpson stage – came to dominate the Republican Party, pushing aside principled conservatives and promoting sycophants. They will also ask how the cause of equality of rights (in this case gender equality, but similar questions apply across other social dimensions) produced such an aggressive reaction, as seen for example in the attacks on abortion rights in the Project 2025 document and in some new state laws.

While reproductive choices aren’t a major policy issue in New Zealand, there’s a similar gender gap in political-party support. The Roy Morgan polls split results by gender, and they’ve revealed that:

“On an overall basis, men heavily favour the National/ ACT/ NZ First coalition government on 63.5%, more than twice as popular as the opposition Labour/ Greens/ Maori Party on only 31% – a gap of 32.5% points. In contrast, a high plurality of women are behind the opposition Labour/ Greens/ Maori on 53.5% – clearly ahead of the governing National/ ACT/ NZ First on 43.5% – a gap of 10% points.”

The ACT Party is especially heavily skewed, with 5% of women supporting them and 15% of men. (Note: at this level of a survey, numbers are small, and hence margins of error are wider, but there were similar figures, 6.5 and 16%, the month before.) NZ First, however, is evenly supported by men and women.

Luxon’s choice of Nicola Willis as deputy party leader – and now Minister of Finance – was meant to appeal to women and to the liberal or centrist sector of their base.

A sizeable gender division across the political spectrum, however, is a genuine concern, not least because it may be both an effect and a further cause of deeper differences in values concerning inequality, community, environment and more. Before a minor culture war erupts on my comments section, however, let’s reflect that such changes have multiple causes, and no simple solutions. Many people may not even see it as a problem. But we can discern gendered “voices” across the left–right debate, as well as differing views about gender per se. Are there ways of talking about this without over-generalising and without patronising words?

Anyway, what have I been reading lately?

All of these books are highly recommended.

I’ve just finished Ian Kershaw’s Personality and Power: Builders and destroyers of modern Europe. It covers the political careers of 12 key figures and their impact on historical events, from Lenin through to Helmut Kohl. It asks what differences individuals have made. The chapter I learned most from was about Tito. But the one that made me think hardest was about Gorbachev – although Kershaw’s conclusions about his role (in perhaps the most dramatic of all changes in the late 20th century) were too conventional, I thought. In between were some usual suspects, including Mussolini and Thatcher.

On audio, I’m listening to Leonie Frieda’s Catherine de Medici, Renaissance Queen of France. I’ve just got to 1560 when she becomes, in effect, ruler of France, following numerous calamities including the accidental death of her husband Henry II and then the death of her son Francis II. The succession of a younger son, Charles IX, who was only 10, saw Catherine position herself as regent atop rival factions of dangerously stroppy French aristocrats. Not bad for an orphaned heiress from Florence. But religious war is about to break out.

I’m very pleased to have just purchased, from Unity Books, William Dalrymple’s The Golden Road: How Ancient India Transformed the World. You can hear Dalrymple interviewed about this book on the podcast series The Ancients. Historical research like this is changing how we think about the past. So far, it’s a delight to read.

My good friend Kai Jensen and I are working our way steadily through Ludwig Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. It’s a book I’ve known parts of for a long time, but at last I’m reading it from beginning to end, supported by regular discussion with Kai. It’s not as daunting as it may sound to those who aren’t philosophers by trade. After all, why can’t a dog simulate pain?

I have on loan from Kyrylo (Cyril) Kucherov a copy of Christopher Miller’s The War Came to Us: Life and Death in Ukraine. I will get on to it, Cyril!