Are Young Women in Malta Also Being Drawn towards the Populist Left?

I found this article extremely interesting. Usually, the mainstream media, including that in Malta, associates populism and far-right radicalism with men. However, this study shows that young men are not the only ones being radicalised. The study does not deny that young men are being radicalised, but its findings show that in Europe today, young women are being radicalised more than men. This represents a dramatic political shift. What is particularly interesting is that these women are being radicalised towards the left. My question, therefore, is this: are young women in Malta being driven towards the populist left?

According to a piece in New Statesman by the pollster and strategy and communications expert Scarlett Maguire, the world isn’t facing an onslaught of dangerously disenfranchised and radicalised young men:

A smaller percentage of young men voted for Reform (12%) than the general population (14.3%). Actually, 18 to 24 year-old men were far less likely to have voted for Farage than every other age cohort of men, and young men were still overwhelmingly more likely to vote for Left-wing or liberal parties (68% voted Labour, Lib Dem or Green) than they were for a Right-wing party (22% voted Conservative or Reform). If voting for a populist Right party is indicative of a more radical mindset, then by this metric young men were some of the least radical demographic groups of the whole country.

Instead, it seems that young women are radicalising at a much higher rate and they are heading Left:

Nearly one in four (23%) of 18- to 24 year-old women voted for the Green Party at the last General Election, compared to just 6.7% of the general population (12% of young men voted for the Greens). Greens performed far better with young women than with any other key demographic (just 10% of 25 to 49 year-old women voted Green, and only 4% of 50- to 64-year-olds). In [2024]’s General Election, young women moved to the populist Left considerably more than young men moved to the populist Right.

The trend is accelerating:

Recent data from More In Common show that one in three (33%) of young women now say they will vote for the Green Party. Meanwhile, young men, far from being more Right-wing than the population as a whole, are as likely to vote Green as they are Reform (20%) with Reform still significantly underperforming with under-25 males relative to other age groups.

This trend, she says, is reflected in other countries, and started replacing a conservative trend among young women in 2015:

In 2019, 18 to 25 year-old women voted for Jeremy Corbyn at more than double the rate of the general population (65% to 32.1%), dwarfing the still considerable 46% of young men who did the same.

The big question is why. Maguire argues that young women in Britain think they’re getting a raw deal, which is odd given the dramatic feminising of modern Western society which has seen women dominating more and more professions (see this YouTube Triggernometry interview with conservative commentator Helen Andrews):

Britain’s young women seem to feel more alienated from their country than their male peers, and are more likely to think that the country is treating them unfairly compared to older generations.

But it’s not just down to factors like the cost of food and housing which women allegedly care more about:

One in three (31%) of 16 to 25 year-old women say the conflict in Gaza is in their top three issues, placing it above things like taxes and immigration (just 22% of young men say the same).

Behavioural differences, as well as personal values, could be significantly shaping the gender divide. Online media consumption, higher education (the gender divide is starkest between women with university degrees and men without them, with 56% of university students now women) and even relationship status all seem to drive the increasingly different political outlooks from young men and young women.

In the end though, Maguire says it’s not clear what the reasons are. What matters are the consequences:

The extent to which young women are moving to the populist Left is dramatic and doesn’t show signs of changing anytime soon. This crucial gender divide will not only continue to shape our politics but could also alter our social fabric. … The consequences of an increasingly radical generation of young women could be dramatic and long-lasting.

Michael Deacon in the Telegraph wonders if “the current radicalisation of young Western women may well be bound up in this notion that to be Left-wing is simply to be caring and kind. Even if such an impression is somewhat at odds with the history of actual socialist societies. Neither the Khmer Rouge nor the KGB were widely noted for their gentleness and sensitivity. Still, perhaps that was only because men were in charge. It may be that a female Pol Pot would have liquidated bourgeois class traitors much more compassionately.”

One cannot help but recall George Orwell’s 1984, when he described Winston’s views about women (Chapter 1):

He disliked nearly all women, and especially the young and pretty ones. It was always the women, and above all the young ones, who were the most bigoted adherents of the Party, the swallowers of slogans, the amateur spies and nosers-out of unorthodoxy. But this particular girl gave him the impression of being more dangerous than most.