This is why young middle-class women are so angry
The girls, I regret to inform you, are angry. We have heard much in recent years about disaffected young men, but an article in The New Statesman last week posited that we might have missed an equal and opposite phenomenon: young women are just as hacked off as their male counterparts. It is little surprise, I suppose, that the angry young men should have drawn more noisy and natural attention. Usually, you know a teenage boy is angry when he rants and raves and punches walls. You only find out a teenage girl is angry much later, when she has become small and sad, and turned against herself.
The picture The New Statesman presents is a depressing one. Students and young professionals line up to declare that they want to tear down society, that the fundamental nature of female existence is pain, and that they believe, deep down, that men just don’t like or respect them. They torture themselves over Gaza, over the government’s treatment of immigrants and disabled people. They believe the system is stacked against them. They are, in short, having a terrible time of it all.
Now look. Stop press: the students are grumpy and hold left-wing views. I know, I know. But the article is accompanied by new polling from Merlin Strategy, which shows that the phenomenon is much wider than a few hemp fanciers at the student union. At the headline level, young women are turning away from the mainstream parties in droves. Forty-four per cent of women aged 18 to 24 say they intend to vote Green: the same amount that say they will vote Labour, Lib Dem and Tory combined.
1
Andy Burnham plots property tax raid as he begins by-election campaign
Politics
Andy Burnham plots property tax raid as he begins by-election campaign
2
New
Camille Paglia: ‘The feminist establishment tried to dismiss me’
Books
Camille Paglia: ‘The feminist establishment tried to dismiss me’
3
New
Henry Slade: I live with type 1 diabetes. I’m worried my girls will develop it too
Parenting
Henry Slade: I live with type 1 diabetes. I’m worried my girls will develop it too
4
New
Midlife men and running: the rules for getting seriously fit
Health & Fitness
Midlife men and running: the rules for getting seriously fit
5
New
12 healthy habits that the gut scientist lives by
Health & Fitness
12 healthy habits that the gut scientist lives by
It is too neat, by the way, to say that young men are turning right as their female counterparts turn left. Yes, 12 per cent of young men say they would vote Reform, while only 5 per cent of women their age do. But still, among men aged 18 to 24, the Greens are way out in front, on 30 per cent. The central story for both genders is the same: a move away from the political mainstream.
Of course, this is happening across the country, but it is more pronounced among the young. To understand why, it’s worth looking at the root cause of their despair. Sure, social media plays a role, and it can’t help that these young people spent their formative years locked up during the pandemic.
But it’s striking that their malaise is a curiously middle-class disease. Per the Merlin polling, 32 per cent of C2DE (loosely, manual working-class or unemployed) women under 25 have a positive view of capitalism. Only 17 per cent of ABC1 (loosely, middle-class and professional) women do. The ABC1s are also more likely to say that the economy works against people like them.
1
New
How Andy Burnham is preparing for No 10 — with Starmer refusing to budge
Politics
How Andy Burnham is preparing for No 10 — with Starmer refusing to budge
2
New
Why Mona Lisa can teach us the art of respecting a fuller figure
Art
Why Mona Lisa can teach us the art of respecting a fuller figure
3
New
Police ‘struggle to build case’ against Andrew over Epstein claims
Royal family
Police ‘struggle to build case’ against Andrew over Epstein claims
4
New
Zack Polanski faces formal investigation over council tax payments
Politics
Zack Polanski faces formal investigation over council tax payments
5
New
Brussels rejects UK proposal to rejoin single market for goods
Politics
Brussels rejects UK proposal to rejoin single market for goods
What we are looking at here, then, is not a reflection of absolute economic devastation, but rather a crisis of expectations. We are seeing the collapse of the British middle-class lifestyle. Young women who have a degree and a professional job quite reasonably expect to have a certain type of life. This is a life that, in many cases, they will have seen their parents live: a stable job, a stable relationship, a stable home. You do not need me to rehearse the stats which demonstrate that these things are increasingly hard to come by.
The economic concept of loss aversion is well established. Time and again, studies have shown that losing £10 makes people much more miserable than gaining £10 makes them happy. If you are promised something, if you consider it yours by right, and then it is taken away, then the impact is significant. Young women actually earn more than their male counterparts now. They are more likely to have degrees. In short, they are following the rules. They are doing what they were told to do, so that they might live a life like their parents’. It isn’t working.
It is for this reason that I do not think we can blithely wave our hands and say that this cohort will grow out of their angry political views. People do not shift rightwards, and towards the centre, as they age because of something inherent in the ageing process. They do so because they gain a stake in society, the type of assets that conservatism seeks to protect. They buy a house. They earn enough to pay proper taxes. They get married and have children. But, if current trends continue, much of the next generation will do these things later, or not at all.
I see no reason as to why the trends will reverse. If anything, I’d expect them to get worse. With the economy faltering, and AI on the rise, graduate vacancies are down 45 per cent year on year. The age of super-low interest rates is long gone, and wages are once again stagnating. In the generation we are concerned with, 21 per cent of women under 30 hold a negative view of the opposite gender. This is true of just 7 per cent of men.
What should we make of this? I don’t think we should worry yet that, some distant time in the future, these women will vote our way into a communist dictatorship. Rather, these figures, these stories, should be seen as a bellwether for something that is happening right now. It is heartbreaking reading the words of these young women. They fundamentally believe that the world hates people like them.
This is no way to live. The economy is not working for a whole generation. This has made many of them angry and miserable. This matters, not because of what it does to their voting intentions, but because of what it does to their souls.
Nightmare weddings are the gift that keeps on giving
I very much enjoyed reading last week about the Kent wedding which ended in a court case, after the bride’s sister-in-law hurled black paint at her just as she was about to walk down the aisle and marry her childhood sweetheart.
This spectacular act of insanity was, it seems, vengeance for the sister-in-law’s claim that the bride tried to trip her up at her own wedding the previous year.
The sister-in-law received a ten-year restraining order, and had to pay £5,000 in compensation, split between the bride and the venue.
I’m afraid stories of weddings gone wrong are irresistible. There’s something about the pomp and prissiness, the frills, the sickly cake, the “best day of my life” of it all that makes them absolutely ripe for bathos. No wonder so many rom coms, from Bridesmaids to Four Weddings, emerge from this one life event.
I don’t feel too bad about enjoying tales of nuptial nightmares when they cross my path in normal life either. I’ve noticed that, for the couples involved, the thing that went wrong with their wedding — the inappropriate joke from the father-in-law, the food poisoning that swept through the hotel — can often develop into their fondest story to share. Even a perfect wedding only lasts for a day. A fantastic anecdote is truly a lifetime commitment.
Camilla Long is away