Why Young Men Are Moving Right
It's time we learn that alienating people isn't going to be effective if we want to accomplish our cultural, sociological, and political goals.
I know you’ve already seen a million takes, doomer posts, and post-autopsy-in-fighting about the fact that Trump readily and handily won the 2024 election, and Democrats are in disarray. Bernie Sanders — a capitalist, for sure, but someone who seems to see the forest for the trees — said that the DNC abandoned young people and the working class, and that feels accurate to me, but I’m already a commie.
However, one thing I can’t stop thinking about is the fact that the majority of men, including Gen Z, voted for Donald Trump. It seems that men of Gen Z are becoming more conservative than my millennial friends, or at least the ones who voted are energized by him. These people love Elon Musk, Andrew Tate, Russell Brand, and other “canceled” comedians or public figures who exert a sense of strong masculinity and patriarchy. Half of the blame, if not most, should go to social media tech companies who’ve given up the “liberal” ghost and blast algorithms at young men that are essentially brainwashing them into toxic ideology.
The other part, however, is a bit trickier. Suffice it to say, I think liberals have failed young men. I think we’ve bombarded them with messages calling them monsters, potential rapists, evil, toxic, corrupt, weak, unwanted, and cruel, just for having a gender that — according to my own views regarding gender essentialism and biological sex — isn’t their choice.
Just as women went through (and are still going through) decades of propaganda telling us that we are terrible the way we are, and we need to lose weight, be polite, lean in, learn to sew, take care of the house, raise children, have a successful career, have interesting hobbies, be great cooks, be virginal and sexual at the same time, do our nails, have perfect skin, wear certain clothes, shave everything from the neck down (just kidding, we also have to dermaplane our faces and wax and shape our eyebrows to the style of the moment), and of course, submit to the whims of men, I believe that young boys see overgeneralized liberal messaging toward patriarchal systems as messaging toward them as individuals.
For some, especially those who are gamers or otherwise “too online,” this can feel devastating and alienating. Basically? It hurts their feelings. Humans are very emotional creatures, including men, no matter how much they try to claim logos over pathos.
I’m a mom of two boys, married to two men, dating another man, have friendly relations with all of my male exes, run a podcast with two men, have a fantastic relationship with my father, and generally, have fulfilling relationships with people of all genders, but perhaps leaning “male” in the people who happen to surround me and talk to me daily. On the contrary, I was raised among women: my sister, mother, cousins, friends, and hugely influential grandmothers. So I think I have a pretty good feel for things here.
Being raised in a denomination that taught me men were the head of the household, abortion was evil, losing your virginity before marriage ruined you, women couldn’t preach, and that we had to have strict dress codes for ourselves to not tempt men, I believe we are certainly living under patriarchy. The creation story in Genesis portrays Eve as a pet for Adam because he was forlorn and lonely. And God chose to create man first, of course. Man is painted as God’s ideal, and women are the ones who led humanity into despair by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and if you believe in a literal creation? Oooh boy. That’s gonna fuck up your entire perception of gender.
Even among the “wokest” of men, like my husbands, I notice elements of sexism that still exist: a lack of attention to detail, especially when cleaning, an expectation for me to know what’s going on in the schedule for all family members at all times, all planning, and defensiveness if called out on those things. They do most of the chores and handle a lot! I have two of them, and they’re the most amazing people I know. But it’s still there.
As we are about to enter what will likely be the worst modern era for women in the United States, with gutted abortion rights, the removal of diversity and equity programs, a growing anti-birth-control movement led by tradcath, fundie, or hippie influencers, legal establishment of gender roles, and maybe even punishment for women in divorce, I hope it doesn’t come off as anti-feminist for me to say that I think we are doing a huge disservice to young men in our identity politics-first language. Because I’m quite aware of just how sexism still exists. While in my opinion, it wasn’t the main reason, I know that misogyny and misogynoir both contributed to Kamala Harris’ loss. Any leftist who says otherwise is wrong.
Some people, like Ezra Klein in his latest (incorrect) New York Times analysis, basically say that Democrats are “too woke.” Now, the name of this blog is Dirtbag Christian, as in the dirtbag left. I love raunchy comedy, I think we should reach out across the aisle, and I am typically more offended by people’s actions, not their words. I don’t remember every slight or stupid thing someone’s ever done or said, and I don’t think anyone needs to pass some sort of social test to be worthy of basic human dignity and having their material needs met. I have friends who talk and behave in ways that would get them destroyed on 2010s Tumblr, but they are incredible people who contribute deeply to society. So someone meeting that “woke” threshold isn’t necessarily my biggest concern to me considering them a friend or an ally. I probably wouldn’t fuck or date someone with political or personal views I found abhorrent, but I can certainly still talk to you, work with you, advocate for you, and treat you with kindness.
People have asked us for a decade to grapple with our privilege, one of those liberal concepts that I believe has merit, at least for a certain subsection of people, and that’s one of the most important considerations asked of me. My white privilege is real, and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it. Male privilege is very real too! And yes, men need to recognize it. I’m glad that men have been called out from every wave of feminism.
Women deserve the right to vote, say no, divorce, manage their own money, have safety nets, be protected from men, be protected from sexual assault, make the same amount of money for the same kind of work, get promoted, have children safely, get parental leave, make enough money to support themselves and their children, get abortions for any reason, access free birth control without restriction, adhere to beauty standards of their choice, wear what they want, and do anything that a man can do.
But almost all of the above benefits men too — and men deserve the same kinds of rights as women. You won’t hear me say “Ugh, men are the worst” “I hate men” or “Men suck” even though those thoughts do cross my mind occasionally. When they say this, most people are just venting, and trust me, I get it. But then I ask myself if that’s fair to an entire gender, and it’s not. I ask myself if it’s fair to the men and boys in my life, and it’s not. I bristle when I hear people complain about women, Christians, or polyamory wholesale, and I don’t want to add to that negative feedback.
Besides, what people are really mad at isn’t the entire gender. It’s the circumstances that our system seems to allow and encourage. As with everything else, a systemic issue requires a systemic approach.
Recently, I’ve become aware of the Korean 4B movement in which women are boycotting men in every single way in response to the rising right-wing movement among their gender. I support it in the sense that it punishes men who would harm women and the circumstances in which this movement arose, but I disavow it in the sense that it doesn’t actually solve the issue. If anything, it just pushes men toward other women who might be more vulnerable to violence and dependence in the first place. We have to reckon with men. We cannot just sweep this under the rug. We cannot ignore half the population.
The #MeToo movement was effective until it wasn’t. People started putting rape and sexual assault on par with a man asking them out on a date at work as being “harassment.” And meanwhile, the rest of the population ended up growing numb to it all, and began to ignore the rape and sexual assault. Now it feels like women are back to square one. Especially now. I’m grateful for Harvey Weinstein and Bill Cosby in jail. But Donald Trump is still the president, and he was (is?) just as much of a predator.
Bad men are not created in a vacuum. They are a product of patriarchal religion, a capitalist society that values aggression and rewards cruelty, a family that demonstrates toxic behaviors, an education system that often cannot handle neurodivergence and other problems that are more likely to arise in young boys, and the onslaught of money-making macho media figures who tell men they need testosterone supplements, lots of red meat, a gun, a six-pack, excess wealth, an interpretation of religion that values power rather than humility, and above all else, a submissive woman by his side.
If a man wants to see an alternative to that culture, he often has to sidestep entire swaths of a population that hates him. It’s one thing to ask them to look inward. Every progressive movement I’ve been part of requires that, from deconstruction to communism to polyamory. But it’s another thing to make them think they are irredeemable and unsafe individuals. I don’t want my boys to hate themselves; I want them to hate the fact that terrible things are happening to marginalized people. When they feel empowered rather than unwelcome by their political movement, they are more inclined to take positive actions toward creating a more just society.
I used to feel uncomfortable by the far left’s wholesale rejection of identity politics, and I still don’t accept it fully: your race, gender, religion, and sexuality have a huge impact on how you experience life, even among other classes. Being wealthy can indeed mitigate some of the side effects of bigotry, but not all. However, I have, since Trump’s first election win in 2016, watched as progressive organizations have shot themselves in the foot over and over again by focusing on the wrong group of people to be angry at.
I don’t find it helpful to be angry at groups of people in general. It’s much more efficient to be angry at the side effects and the system that allows it. Angry at Trump voters? Get curious about why they voted that way, and stay curious about how they came to believe he was the answer to their prayers.
We need these people on our side to overthrow a system — not a gender — that harms women, people of color, the poor, and LGBTQIA+ people. I know you don’t think we do, but we do. Maybe some would remain reactionary, but I believe when folks have their material needs met, they are more likely to hear us out. That goes for men or anyone else. They may hate the phrase, but Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan create a “safe space” for men who feel rejected by women (not just sexually, but altogether) and liberalism. So many former liberals came to conservatism through being called out (almost always for good reasons) but found themselves isolated and excluded from their communities.
Have we lost the art of changing people’s minds? When we reject, wholesale, another person or group of people entirely, we give away the potential to change their minds. So much of the 2024 election boiled down to “We didn’t need you in 2020, we don’t need you now.” And it turns out that Democrats did need all the people they ignored, whether it was young people, leftists, Latinos, Arab Americans, or men. I’ve said it so many times in so many ways: we need each other. The “go educate yourself” mantra from liberals sick of dealing with an ignorant populace failed. Sorry, but we do have an ignorant population. Conservatives and tech/media companies were more than happy to “educate” those people we left on the wayside. And here we are.
I’m a feminist, and I surround myself with men who are feminists as well. For years, feminists were depicted as man-hating feminazis by the right, and this was an unfair stereotype because women are held hostage by men, pregnancy, religion, politics, and lack of income all over the world every single day. But men are people, and people crave connection, community, and safety just like anybody else.
Over the next several decades, we have an opportunity to reach out and be a voice among a sea of macho dipshit podcasters and TikTokers who shout “Your body, my choice” at female strangers. People are rightfully agitated to hear such a phrase, myself included.
But I say to get curious: where are they hearing that? Do they know what that means? What do they mean by it? Why do they enjoy saying it? How did they get to a place where they feel comfortable saying something like that, and what do these people enjoy about the shock value of it all? Once you consider that, you can ask yourself — what would we need to change about a world that got them to that place? Imagine the ideal world-building here. It’s just an exercise, after all.
More than that, I want us to all ask ourselves, especially those of us who are surrounded by men and double especially those of us raising boys: how can we drown out those voices, and how can we reach out to a group of people who are suffering and seeking answers in all the wrong place? For me, and not to get too “evangelical youth group pastor” here, Jesus is the kind of man I find the most admirable, and those are the qualities I love to see in people. But there are also Che Guevara, Malcolm X, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Buddha, Nelson Mandela, Tim Berners-Lee, and other great men throughout history. They weren’t all perfect, but they all made significant impacts.
Men are still capable of great things. We need them on the side of the working class.