Our nation’s youngest voters are increasingly spearheading progressive activism. In The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy, Melissa Deckman explores the world of youth-led progressive organizing, highlighting the crucial importance of gender and sexuality. The book takes readers inside Gen Z’s fight for a more inclusive and just future, sharing stories of their efforts to defend reproductive rights, prevent gun violence, stem climate change, and win political office. This Q&A offers insight into the recent surge in activism among Gen Z women and the Gen Z LGBTQ community.
Q: What is the reverse gender gap in political participation among Gen Z?
Melissa Deckman: Throughout U.S. history, politics has been the province of men. Strict social codes in the nineteenth century even mandated “separate spheres” for men and women, with home considered the woman’s domain and men generally deemed best suited for public life. The norms that kept many women at home began to dissolve with the onset of the women’s rights movement in the 1970s, as economic conditions led more mothers to work outside the home to maintain a middle-class living. Still, men continued to dominate political life well into the early twenty-first century, though women caught up with men around 2010 in terms of overall political engagement levels. During the Trump presidency, however, Gen Z women—that is, women born after 1996 and before 2013—participated in politics at higher levels than Gen Z men—a historic “reverse” gender gap.
Q: What explains the surge of activism among Gen Z women during the Trump presidency?
Deckman: The reverse gender gap among Gen Z women came about for both political and cultural reasons. Generation Z women came of age politically as Donald Trump was elected president. Many Gen Z women I spoke with were shocked that the United States would elect an outspoken misogynist, particularly over the nation’s first major-party (and highly qualified) female nominee. In 2018, record numbers of younger and more diverse female candidates, such as Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, had a profound role-model effect for many young women, too. Gen Z women also came of age as the Me Too movement highlighted persistent problems with gender discrimination in society, which had the effect of prioritizing gender equality as a defining political value for many Gen Z women. Culturally, in the past few decades, a larger, communal sense has emerged that girls and women continue to face disadvantages, and programs have been implemented to tackle those disadvantages and build young women’s self-esteem. One need look no further than popular organizations such as Girls Who Code, Girl Scouts, Girl Up, or a host of similar groups founded in local communities around the country that have developed programming to train girls to become leaders in politics, business, or science-related fields. Combined with the explosion of social media—another cultural milestone—many progressive Gen Z women had the drive and ability to organize effectively as political leaders and activists in ways that previous generations of women could not.
Q: How does LGBTQ identity pertain to political participation among members of Gen Z?
Deckman: Generation Z is far more likely to identify as part of the LGBTQ community than older Americans are. One in four Zoomers are queer; among Gen Z women, that level rises to about one in three. The process of navigating their own gender identities and sexual orientations has prompted many LGBTQ Gen Z young adults to take political action, particularly because state legislatures in more conservative states have been curtailing rights for LGBTQ citizens and have adopted curriculum changes in some schools that omit references to LGBTQ Americans. As a result, I find LGBTQ Zoomers are also outperforming their straight counterparts in terms of overall levels political engagement. For both LGBTQ Zoomers and Gen Z women, challenges to their rights and a commitment to build a more inclusive democracy are fueling their participation in politics.
Q: Are Gen Z women distinctively feminist and, if so, how does that shape their politics?
Deckman: While feminism is a loaded term with negative connotations for many Americans, Gen Z women are far more comfortable identifying as feminist than women from older generations—and far more comfortable than Gen Z men. My analysis shows that average levels of political engagement among Gen Z women are highest among self-proclaimed feminists, far higher than those who merely express support for women’s equality more generally. Moreover, Gen Z women are the group of Americans most committed to legal access to abortion, and holding strong pro-choice views is positively related to higher levels of political engagement among Gen Z women. These patterns also exist among LGBTQ Zoomers, who exhibit higher levels of political engagement if they are feminists and strongly support abortion rights. Views on feminism and abortion, however, are largely not linked to Gen Z men’s decision to participate in politics. In wake of the Dobbs decision, abortion has become an even more salient issue to many Gen Z women, particularly in driving their voting decision.
Q: How might this surge of engagement among Gen Z women help shape U.S. politics in the decades to come?
Deckman: To be clear, no generation is politically monolithic—my book features interviews with Gen Z political activists and focus groups from across the political spectrum—but the highest levels of political activism being undertaken by this generation are in progressive spaces. The impact of Gen Z, especially Gen Z women, on the U.S. political system will likely be felt sooner rather than later, given that Gen Zers vote at higher levels than earlier cohorts of young Americans. Since 2020, an additional 8 million Zoomers have become eligible to vote. Moreover, in all 3 federal elections held since Donald Trump was elected president, the youth vote—led by Gen Z women—has broken hard for Democrats. While forecasting the political future can be a risky, the current incarnation of the Republican Party will struggle to attract the votes of Gen Z women and LGBTQ Zoomers in the near future.
