The somewhat informed reader will have heard of the reactionary turn among young men, who are already, on average, the most right-wing group in our society. They are more likely to vote for radical right-wing parties, to express anti-tax, authoritarian, and skeptical positions towards democracy, and above all, anti-feminist. In contrast, young women (in some dimensions) have moved to the left, which has opened a large ideological and values gap between men and women of the younger generations, with profound consequences.
To explain this dynamic, the focus is often placed on TikTokers and YouTubers that spread reactionary messages. Without denying the influence of social media, it's necessary to be skeptical of simplistic explanations. There's all kinds of content on social media, and if some are more successful than others, it's because they fit with what the audience wants to hear. We all selectively expose ourselves to information that fits with our ideas. Therefore, the popularity of reactionary figures on social media is a symptom, rather than the root cause, of what's happening.
That's why it's important to go further and ask the tough questions. What are the discontents that drive this segment of young people toward reactionary positions? It's not easy to clearly identify their causes, but we can say that young men face some unique structural tensions that fuel this discontent.
For example, in the labor market. The most masculinized jobs, especially manual ones, are the most vulnerable to robotization and offshoring. And this is already affecting other, more highly skilled, masculinized sectors, such as programmers, who are one of the most vulnerable groups to AI. In contrast, the most feminized professions generally tend to be linked to personal care, personal services, or customer service, and although they have traditionally had more structurally precarious conditions, they are less exposed to these threats.
On the other hand, there is the fact—self-interestedly exploited by reactionary discourses—that some gender equality policies in the workplace, necessary as they are, often involve a dynamic of intergenerational compensation. If quotas are established for access to certain professions or for promotion within jobs, for example, the costs do not fall on older, already established men, but on the young men who want to access them, who thus assume the costs of offsetting the effects of the privileges of previous generations.
However, the ideological divide is already evident in adolescents aged 13 and 14, before they enter the workforce, so we must look at what is happening in the education system. Boys have been falling behind in education for some time now. Although the data are improving, early school leaving is 6 percentage points higher among boys than among girls. More than 57% of students who took last year's university entrance exams were women, although they represent 47% of the 18-year-old population in Catalonia. In the 2023-24 academic year, 57% of girls entered Catalan universities. Except for engineering studies, where 70% are men, the predominance of women is very clear in all other branches: 73% in health sciences, 66% in humanities, 60% in social and legal sciences, and 53% in science courses.
It's not just access to education, but also grades. While in the University Entrance Exams (PAU) the results for boys and girls are almost identical, in high school there is almost half a point of difference in favor of girls. This is a very significant difference, which may be due to several factors: we know that boys tend to perform better in high-pressure situations, and that girls tend to be more consistent. But there is also much accumulated evidence that points to a systematic bias in assessment: many randomized experiments conducted in several countries have found that, for the same task, girls receive significantly higher grades than boys.
All of this, logically, has consequences for the subjective perception of the education system. Both assessments of the school experience and opinions of teachers are more negative among boys. These widening educational gaps have consequences in many dimensions, both material and cultural, because access to education transforms lives and consciences.
That's why it's important to carefully analyze what's happening to boys in the education system, and beyond. It's embarrassing to talk about it, because of the risk of the reflection being exploited by reactionary sectors. But it's essential to fully understand the root causes of the reactionary dynamic among a segment of young men, trying to counteract it beyond moralizing discourses, which are often counterproductive.
It is necessary to address the specific challenges and problems affecting young men in the educational, labor, healthcare, and leisure spheres. But also at the symbolic and discursive levels. It seems that there is a lack of a positive discourse about masculinity that most young people can identify with, without systematically associating it with negative connotations (toxicity, violence) or insisting on dismantling it. To renounce this is equivalent to leaving all the space to reactionary voices to positively define what it means to be a man today.
This, obviously, should not be detrimental to addressing the forms of discrimination and specific problems that young women suffer—from aesthetic pressure to sexual violence, job insecurity, unequal caregiving burdens, or the maternity leave penalty, among others. Moreover, to consolidate and deepen progress toward an egalitarian society, it is also essential today to understand and address the challenges and discomforts of young men.
