One of the most intriguing narratives arising out of the 2024 election is the growing gender gap in how men and women identify politically.
Men, especially young men, are becoming more conservative, and women are becoming more liberal. As The New York Times recently reported, men are also becoming more religious.
Media reports exist aplenty at this point, documenting the statistical divide.
Even political strategists are taking notice. Former President Donald Trump and Sen. J.D. Vance, so the story goes, are deliberately building a coalition around men. They appear on all the “bro” podcasts in hopes of channeling all the collective male energy to catapult them to victory. In contrast, Democrats are relying upon women, particularly pro-abortion women, to win in November. As a result, Vice President Kamala Harris has a massive shortfall when it comes to male support. The Democrats know they have a masculinity problem, which is part of the reason that the folksy Gov. Tim Walz was selected as Harris’ running mate. With all of his Midwestern schmaltziness, he adds to that his love for football (“Coach Walz”) and his love for hunting. He is meant to channel the everyday American dad. The masculinity gap also explains the origins of the “White Dudes for Harris” subgroup, which is as cringy and low testosterone as it sounds.
Why are Democrats now having to go to great lengths to get male voters?
Why is it that men are getting more conservative? There are cultural and sociological factors to consider.
Aside from all the ways that men play the role of American culture’s scapegoat (“toxic masculinity”), mainstream American life is deeply feminine (as is much of modern American evangelicalism). The feminine gaze is the operating assumption of modern life. To partake in polite society requires adopting a feminine instinct to operate in today’s mainstream. One must cater virtually every message to the whims of the most important demographic: suburban women.
Adding to the feminization of modern American life is the effeminacy, forced and unforced, of the dominant models of modern masculinity. By effeminate, I’m not referring merely to men who adopt feminine affectations in their dress or speech. I mean all the ways that elite American culture simultaneously mocks men who are unapologetic in their masculinity as simpletons and cavemen while upholding the gender-sensitive metrosexual or finely draped homosexual as the epitome of masculinity. If you want courageous masculinity profiled, you must go outside of the mainstream media to see it.
Of course, Biblical masculinity is more than a collection of cultural stereotypes. Rightly ordered masculinity does not collapse all gender distinctions into neat and impermeable zero-sum categories. King David was, after all, a singer, dancer, and warrior.
American culture, however, is deeply anti-male while simultaneously feminine, androgynous, and homosexual.
But allow me to explain the gender gap election phenomenon from a theological perspective.
The Democrats’ assault on Biblical creation order is the most significant explanation for their male voter problem. It’s the logical outcome of an entire worldview that is denatured and even anti-nature.
Progressivism is a worldview predicated on the rejection of natural order and difference. It does this by denying the central organizing logic of our existence: the Creator-creature distinction. Progressivism—and by that, the Democrats—repudiates Biblical ontology.
If humanity does not see itself as a created being, it sees itself as a creator. But it will use its faux sovereignty toward destructive ends. False self-concepts of sovereignty will produce false views of truth, which terminate in false uses of one’s freedom. One destructive end is the rejection of natural difference and embodied telos. That means an eventual failure to recognize distinction even among fellow creatures. It results in seeing humanity as an undifferentiated blob of sameness, but it does this coercively through ideology.
If all we are is our human will absent such things as reason, restraint, and the authority of our embodiment, humanity will give itself the license to raze itself to the ground and re-create itself in whatever image it wants. Culturally, that creates effeminacy, feminism, androgyny, and homosexualism.
If that worldview is pressed firmly enough, a lot of people who are not even Christians will react to it. Why? Because creation order and natural law find a way to resurface. That is what is happening right now. Average males are rejecting the ambient homosexualism of modern American life. It means they are rejecting the worldview of elite culture, which is synonymous with the institutions that Democrats dominate. The average male, unstained by ideology, knows the message of progressivism is the inversion of their instincts. The typical male is repelled by the notion that homosexuality is a matter of mere moral indifference, as if sodomy were no different than being left-handed. The question is whether they have the freedom to admit that out loud. Under progressive rule, they do not.
Will Democrats learn anything from this? No. Because it would require repudiating their entire philosophy.
Christians can offer a better alternative. We can be champions of common and saving grace. We can encourage men toward self-control, vocational excellence, and family formation. That will not save them apart from Christ, but Christians can be an aroma of Christ in the message of common grace that may be a bridge to saving grace.
Now is an opportunity for Biblically minded Christians to speak clearly and convictionally about healthy femininity and masculinity, a true femininity that welcomes children instead of aborting them and a true masculinity that does not see sexual conquest as the apotheosis of masculine power but its antithesis.
This article originally appeared at WORLD Opinions on October 8, 2024.
