Is politics now a 'battle of the sexes'?
Jake Weston reports on our latest Freedom Forum in London. PLUS: join us for our Xmas Balloon Debate Bash next week.
On 24 November, Living Freedom hosted a special forum titled ‘Battle of the sexes: the new political divide’ with Poppy Coburn, Emma Gilland, Nicholas Stephenson and Jake Weston.
Here, Jake Weston reflects on the discussion.
Building on our session at the Battle of Ideas festival, ‘Right-wing boys and progressive girls: war of the sexes?’ (see video links at bottom), Living Freedom hosted, ‘Battle of the sexes: the new political divide’ to further explore the issue.
We started with Nicholas Stephenson – the author of Onward’s report, Ballot of the Sexes – who reminded both the panel and the audience that the divide is international. In fact, he argued, it is even more intense in Germany, the US and South Korea.
Much of the data cited by Nicholas supported conclusions made at our previous event: that social media allows for groups to disengage from one and another, as they increasingly occupy their own political spaces. Engagement between the two is limited, as not only do women and men have differing opinions on key issues, but they also differ on what is considered a key issue.
Yet, similarity between the sexes is found in a shared dissatisfaction with the status quo, a conclusion which I agreed was rational in the context of the ever-worsening economic prospectives of Gen Z. I tried to diagnose the gender divide by drawing from my own experience at university. I argued that academia overwhelmingly leans to the left, creating a culture in which certain political beliefs are normalised whilst others are marginalised. Voting Green then reflects conformity, whereas voting Reform is rebellious.
As evidence, one only needs to look to recent campus controversies, where extreme progressive positions were openly celebrated, whereas conservative groups often meet in secret.
Finally, I returned to why, explaining that as women make up a greater share of university students - particularly in the humanities - and score higher on agreeableness, they are more likely to align with dominant campus values rather than dissent from the status quo. If we can restore universities to genuine intellectual openness, then I believe we can go a long way in healing the gendered political divide.
Poppy Coburn, although wary of how often social media is used to explain political phenomena, thought that in this case, it may be a key source of tension exacerbating the divide. She reflected on the social context, as women have not historically been more left-wing than men. So, the gender divide can only be explained by something new.
Politics now operates in different spaces, making ideological segregation easy. Individuals can control what information they consume and protect themselves from dissenting views. As women and men now even use different platforms to consume political content, they consume alternate media from each other, widening what may have been marginal differences in opinion.
To heal the divide, Poppy raised whether marriage would bring people together – as the sexes will have to compromise politically to find a partner. Audience members agreed with this sentiment to some extent, but voiced concern with finding a partner themselves in a polarised dating ‘market’.
Emma Gilland introduced a wider sociological lens, drawing attention to the economic, cultural and relational shifts reshaping how men and women interact. She pointed to the decline in relationship and marriage rates – first observed dramatically in South Korea and now echoed across the West – as evidence of a broader transformation in the relationship between men and women.
Changes in the labour market, alongside rising individualism, have altered the foundations of partnership. With women no longer economically dependent on men, expectations around communication, emotional labour and the quality of relationships have increased. What sociologists call the search for ‘pure love’ has made modern relationships feel more precarious, more demanding and ultimately more difficult to form.
In this climate of insecurity – and with young people increasingly focused on financial stability and self-development – fewer Gen Z men and women are entering long-term relationships. With intimate connection breaking down, opportunities for genuine dialogue between the sexes are declining, deepening political misunderstandings and further fuelling the divide.
Other strong audience contributions throughout the evening centred around female dissatisfaction, how the return of Christianity could impact men and women differently, and questioned how much of an impact politics really has in a dating pool which is much less political than those who attend Living Freedom events.
VIDEOS
At the Battle of Ideas, our Living Freedom panel – ‘Right-wing boys and progressive girls: war of the sexes?’ - featured three other speakers with their own diagnoses. Watch clips using the links below.
Elliot Bewick, host of The Next Generation:
Georgina Mumford, a writer at spiked:
Chloe Combi, author of Generation Z, a speaker and columnist:
LIVING FREEDOM XMAS BASH BALLOON DEBATE 2025
Thursday 11 December, 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm, Westminster
All under 30s are invited to our annual Christmas party – a balloon debate posing the question: ‘What is the best cultural representation of freedom?’
We are delighted to be joined by…
· Ada Akpala, writer and commentator; head of content, The Equiano Project
defending nudity in art and beyond.
· Freddie Attenborough, research manager, Committee for Academic Freedom
defending the work of playwright and writer Joe Orton.
· Sonia Gallego, reporter, Al Jazeera English
defending tbc
· Reem Ibrahim, communications officer, Institute of Economic Affairs
defending Hamilton: An American Musical
· Jasper Robbins, writer; alumnus, Living Freedom; history and politics student
defending Top Gear (2002-2015)
· Kevin Rooney, religion, philosophy and ethics teacher; editor, irishborderpoll.com
defending Alan Bennett’s The History Boys
· Jake Weston, project assistant, Academy of Ideas
defending gambling culture
HOST
Alastair Donald, convenor, Living Freedom
The event is free, but you need to register in advance. Sign up here.
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