The 2024 election felt like greater than only a victory for President Trump. It felt like a victory for a conventional view of gender roles.
Mr. Trump definitely shares that view. Throughout the marketing campaign, he declared that girls preferred him as a result of he was their “protector.” He known as the satellite tv for pc radio host Howard Stern a “BETA MALE” after Mr. Stern criticized him. In a 2021 interview, Mr. Trump’s operating mate, JD Vance, disparaged girls with out youngsters as “childless cat girls.”
It appeared that what Mark Zuckerberg lauded as “masculine power” was on the rise — fueled by a “manosphere” of podcasters and a subculture of girls, the so-called tradwives, who’ve embraced homemaking and domesticity.
However in a manner, all that was simply anecdotes and impressions. Now we’ve the info to match. Surveys from 2024 present that assist for conventional gender roles is growing. Maybe unsurprisingly, that is occurring primarily amongst Republicans. Maybe extra surprisingly, it’s occurring amongst Republican girls in addition to amongst Republican males.
Put one other manner, the rise in gender traditionalism derives extra from politics than it’s does from gender.
It’s vital to notice simply how new this development is. For many years, gender traditionalism was in decline. In American Nationwide Election Research surveys, the proportion of People saying that “girls’s place is within the house” decreased steadily — from virtually 30 p.c in 1972 to six p.c in 2008. As a substitute, extra individuals embraced the view that “girls ought to have an equal function with males in operating enterprise, business and authorities.” This query was really dropped from these surveys after 2008.
Pew Analysis Middle surveys documented an analogous development. From 1987 to 2012, fewer individuals endorsed the concept that “girls ought to return to their conventional function in society.” As of 2012, there have been no vital variations between Democrats and Republicans. Pew additionally stopped asking that individual query. Its final graphical show of the decline in gender traditionalism was known as “No Turning Again for Girls.”
More moderen information, nevertheless, present growing assist for conventional gender roles amongst each Republican males and Republican girls. For instance, within the Views of the Voters Analysis Survey, the proportion of Republican males who agree that girls ought to return to their conventional roles elevated from 28 p.c in Might 2022 to 48 p.c in November 2024. Amongst Republican girls, there was a rise from 23 p.c to 37 p.c. The views of Democrats, however, didn’t change a lot.
There has additionally been a rise in Republicans’ assist for conventional notions of masculinity. Within the Views of the Voters Analysis Survey, Republicans have develop into extra prone to agree that “what it means to be a person has modified and I don’t assume that has been good for society.” About three-fourths of each Republican males and Republican girls endorse this view.
Equally, in surveys accomplished by the Public Faith Analysis Institute, an growing proportion of Republican women and men agree that “society as an entire has develop into too tender and female.” The share of Republican males who endorse this concept has elevated from 68 p.c in 2011 to 79 p.c in 2024. The rise amongst Republican girls is even bigger — from 41 p.c to 67 p.c. Democrats, particularly Democratic males, have develop into much less prone to agree with this.
Be aware that this development has developed over a number of years, with the earliest adjustments seen in 2016 in contrast with 2011. Not all of the credit score or blame may be laid on the ft of podcasters, tech moguls or the tradwives of TikTok.
One final information level exhibits this growing Republican assist for conventional gender roles. In Pew Analysis Middle surveys, the proportion of Republicans who agree that “society is simply too accepting of males who tackle roles usually related to girls” has elevated from 18 percent in 2017 to 28 percent in 2024.
There are not less than two believable explanations for these adjustments. One is that some Republicans are altering their minds in response to new info from opinion leaders and media sources. One other is that a few of them had conventional views all alongside and now really feel extra comfy expressing them.
We predict that altering minds is the extra seemingly rationalization. One cause is that we aren’t seeing related adjustments in different forms of attitudes about gender. For instance, the Views of the Voters Analysis Survey asks a number of questions that measure perceptions of discrimination towards girls. Respondents are requested to agree or disagree with statements like “Girls usually miss out on good jobs due to discrimination” and “Girls who complain about harassment usually trigger extra issues than they remedy.”
Though there are predictable partisan variations within the responses to those questions, these variations didn’t improve very a lot from 2016 to 2024. If it have been merely turning into extra socially acceptable to specific conservative views about gender, we might anticipate quite a lot of views to alter. However the adjustments appear restricted to questions on gender roles, not about gender discrimination.
Whereas these adjustments in public opinion are notable, there are causes to be cautious about what they imply going ahead.
First, different sides of public opinion don’t counsel an embrace of masculine power. Majorities of People, together with many Republicans, nonetheless say that People don’t place sufficient worth on males who show stereotypically female qualities, like being affectionate or caring. Giant majorities of People, together with majorities of each events, reject stereotypically masculine behaviors like preventing, getting drunk, sleeping round and speaking about girls in a sexual manner. And most People reject Mr. Vance’s view of childlessness and say that it’s effective if a pair chooses to not have youngsters.
Second, views expressed in surveys don’t at all times translate into real-world habits. Merely stating assist for conventional gender roles might not imply that somebody resides out these roles.
There may be not a lot proof, for instance, that an awesome variety of girls have gotten tradwives. Actually, labor power participation amongst prime-age girls has never been higher. Charges of marriage and childbirth are additionally down amongst girls general, especially girls with much less formal schooling.
Males aren’t adopting historically male roles, both. The U.S. authorities repeatedly conducts a “time-use survey” that asks respondents to assemble detailed diaries of how they spend their time every day. Analysis based mostly on that survey shows that married women and men have gotten extra related within the time they spend on issues like housekeeping and procuring (though girls nonetheless spend extra time on them). The researchers conclude that “males seem to have an elevated proclivity for doing extra historically female work.”
It’s doable, then, that any rising gender traditionalism could also be a response to societal developments and never a trigger of those developments. If something, the societal developments are in the wrong way.
Nonetheless, the rise in Republican reverence for conventional gender roles marks a breakdown of the obvious consensus of a decade in the past. It’s but another manifestation of an underappreciated reality about gender and politics. Though there’s numerous give attention to the longstanding gender hole between women and men in voting, the 2 events are literally divided much less by gender than by their attitudes about gender.
The extra vital distinction between Democrats and Republicans isn’t whether or not they’re males or girls. It’s how they assume women and men ought to behave.
Michael Tesler is a professor of political science on the College of California, Irvine. John Sides is a professor of political science and Colette Marcellin is a doctoral candidate in political science, each at Vanderbilt College.
Graphics by Aileen Clarke.
The Occasions is dedicated to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to listen to what you concentrate on this or any of our articles. Listed below are some tips. And right here’s our e mail: letters@nytimes.com.
Comply with the New York Occasions Opinion part on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
