2y ago

High school boys are trending conservative

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/6895873

While many believe young people are becoming more liberal, data shows that 12th grade boys are nearly twice as likely to identify as conservative compared to liberal. Around 25% of high school seniors identify as conservative while only 13% identify as liberal. In contrast, the share of 12th grade girls identifying as liberal has risen to 30%. Many factors may contribute to this trend, including the rhetoric of Donald Trump which appealed to disaffected young men, and the focus of progressive movements on issues of gender and racial equality which some young men perceive as a "matriarchy." However, most high school seniors claim no political identity, and many boys in high school do not actively discuss

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trashhalo @beehaw.org

2y ago

High school boys are trending conservative

thehill.com /blogs/blog-briefing-room/4125661-high-school-boys-are-trending-conservative/

81 comments

It's a confusing time to be a man. Things are shifting in society. A lot of women are deciding that most men aren't offering them anything they want or need. Unfortunately, when you're having difficulty figuring out your place in society, and what it means to be a man, you are vulnerable to extremism. Being told your rightful place is on top, and that women, minorities, and LGBTQ are to blame is powerful messaging.
- A lot of women are deciding that most men aren’t offering them anything they want or need.
  I doubt that's an accurate description of reality, but I guess that's a good portrayal of what is perceived by these confused men.
  
  Supposedly it actually is.
  If you think about it it’s not that surprising. Sexism was basically a way to subsidize substandard men and guarantee them a sexual partner. If you can’t open a bank account without a man, you find a man, even if he’s an angry ball of mush.
  
  A lot of women are deciding that most men aren’t offering them anything they want or need.
  I think this is the case for some women and isn't just a perception. There are surveys that are showing that single women are the happiest and most satisfied with their life while married women are the least. The old threat that you will die single and alone isn't working anymore. The helpless men (the ones who can't cook, can't clean, can't support emotionally) used to skate by since women needed men. They don't anymore and they are scared.
  It's sad because the expectations to be a "good" partner are so low for most men and most still don't meet it. Most women I know want someone with a job, whose clean and nice to them but can't find someone who fits all three.
  As a demographic men need to step it up and as a society we failed them. It's so sad the number of men who can't cook a single meal or clean anything. These are important life skills that their mothers and fathers didn't prepare them for because of outdated gender roles. Mother's prepared their daughters for these changes but didn't their sons. That is the issue
  
  The problem is that churches and religious zealots have a LOT of money and are willing to spend it on things that make our world more like a Handmaid's Tale.
  I found this video to be really well put together analysis of these religiously-funded redpill outlets staffed by young religious single guys or multiply divored religious assholes who are trying to be experts on love and dsting despite being absolutely horrible people.
  https://youtu.be/9ewTLFKRPmQ
  The key takeaway is that a lot of what appeals to these American Taliban types is the idea of being able to hold women captive and under control, because they know they are awful and that given free will no woman wants to be with a controlling asshat, so they work to enact "enforced monogamy" and to eliminate divorce.
  
  You would think the answer would be obvious, but I guess some men just refuse to offer women what they actually want.
- There's all the wrong heros out there for boys. My 9yo was asking about Andrew Tate the other day.
  
  It's amazing that Tate, a failed athlete turned failed reality TV show participant turned literal sex-trafficker has any pull anywhere...
  But the reality is that rich assholes like Peter Thiel want him and his radically regressive beliefs to be popular so they fund him and give him top spots on their platforms (e.g. Rumble, which is owned by Thiel and has him as a featured channel next to Newsmax and Alex Jones).
- A lot of women are deciding that most men aren’t offering them anything they want or need.
  A lot of women wish that men would offer what they want and need.
  Shockingly, most women are straight. They want to have sex with men. They want companionship, love, romance etc.
  The old vestiges of toxic masculinity mean that women would rather go without: that's how bad the old ways are.
  Modern men do not have these problems, it's just relics of the past snatching youth when they all feel like everything is confusing.
  Being a teenager is inherently confusing and volatile. It doesn't take much to plant the poison.
- Well I think a interesting thing this article kind of hide with the title is that in men who identify as conservative are mostly holding steady over time with women shifting liberal and unaligned is growing.
  So it makes sense that young women are not buying what conservatives are selling while young men still are at relative rates. This makes the relative difference greater overall but it's driven mostly by one side
- It's kind of both ways - there's a lot of messaging out there about 'low value' women... and that's before a lot of messages out there against single moms and aged women.
- There's a gap in roles for boys.
  Maybe it's my filter bubble, but I don't hear a lot of people saying "if you want to be successful, study and go into a trade/profession." That leaves boys without a plan, which leaves them without a future.
It's not just boys, it's white boys. That's an important distinction.
- *Black Americans
  Conservative rates among Asians, Latinos and middle easterners is rising globally, as are rates for black boys in Africa.
- Good thing white folks dont hold a majority in this country.
  /s
High school boys especially white ones are essentially assholes. Many will grow out of this phase. Others will be assholes and idiots their entire lives. Go to a high school reunion for examples.
I would like to caution folks against concluding that these boys are simply following a longstanding trend. Looking at the numbers over time definitely shows that liberal identification among male high school seniors has reached an all time low (based on the Monitor the Future dataset) since 1976. I would also say that there does not seem to be very much conversation regarding outreach so as to reverse this decline.
This just in, white boys are largely morons. Film at 11.
thehill, right wing rag wishful thinking
- Eh... it tracks well enough I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand. Right wing talking heads push so hard at young men, it's fucking exhausting. And the slightest attempt to engage with or learn about current events and politics tends to lead to social media algorithms jamming alt-right nonsense down your throat, because that reactionary, provocative/offensive content generates more engagement. And so much of it is trying to frame the normal struggles of growing up (sex and sexuality, responsibility and expectation, growing independence (fiscal and otherwise) etc, etc) as things being inflicted on them by others, things thay can be simply solved by stripping power from these groups. (Immigrants, women, people of colour, LGBTQIA+, etc.)
- I consider The Hill to be centrist and I've seen many conservatives call it a left wing rag. The good news here is that high school boys are probably more unlikely to vote than HS girls.
  
  The hill is right wing. It’s not far right wing so the fascists hate it but it’s been an establishment right wing rag for its entire existence. Establishment right wing just seems centrist since it’s the tent pole of American politics.
- Both mediabiasfactcheck and allsides.com show The Hill as Centrist rather than right-wing
  https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-hill/
  https://www.allsides.com/news-source/hill-media-bias
  
  Worth noting also that The Hill also has a ranking of Mostly Factual from mediabiasfactcheck. In this case they are summarizing data from this study https://monitoringthefuture.org/. Considerations about the truthfulness of the information presented should take into account the accuracy of both sources.
No small part of this is economic: income inequality has done a real number on white men (it's done a real number on everyone, but bear with me, I have a point, here).
The economic ladder's largely been pulled up, starting with Gen-X and accelerating through the millenials and zoomers. This has taken away a lot of status from men--especially white men--who, for a long time, have had a fair amount of privilege, and the loss of that privilege, combined with an actual loss of status and mobility, stokes the embers of fascism.
The problem is that the Right is so, so much more willing and able to speak to these feelings of frustration and angst. They have an entire playbook centred around validating and nuturing angst and inadequacy and impotent rage; they don't explain it, they don't try to ameliorate it, but holy shit do are they good at validating it: "Yes, you are being disadvantaged", "Yes, your rightful place is being taken from you", "Yes, it's shitty that you're made to feel bad for your privilege" and finally "Yes, it's the fault of these gays and blacks and Jews that your rightful place has been taken from you". It's insidious and disingenuous (especially since the shitheels that promulgate it are doing so for a fucking tax cut and some sweet deregulation) but goddamn does it work.
It's also ironic because the Left actually has better solutions for the problem: economic opportunity, regulation, a social safety net that addresses basic needs. But the Left is utter crap at speaking to feelings, and I'm not sure if it's because they find it distasteful, or because the actual message isn't palatable or (and this is my theory) that since neoliberalism ate the Left, rich progressives don't really want to talk about economic justice at all, and would rather play identity politics instead.
Frankly, it's scary. I have a couple of pretty smart boys around this age, and I can see that they're, frankly, receptive to the idea that progressive identity politics that aren't helping them at all, and if they weren't genuinely good kids, I could see some neo-Nazi messaging being appealing, but it's really hard to explain to them why they should care about rainbow flag day when they see the social safety net fraying and their prospects for, eg, owning a home or having a decent job getting further away.
I wonder if the fact that they have the anchors set to "very conservative" and "very liberal" has an effect. If you had asked me in high school whether I was a liberal, I would have said no. Because I am/was a leftist, not a liberal.
Well, it's the start of their crazy college years. In a little over a decade the smart ones will disavow all knowledge of their earlier 'experiments'
Suck it up, son-of-mine Change is blowing up your horizon

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