The first generation to have fully grown up online can seem confusing to older people. They dress like it is still the 00s, want to quiet quit and are “super woke” – or at least that’s how the cliches go. But according to new studies, that’s not quite the case.
Instead, generation Z is unique in being so divided, especially on the issue of gender. Studies suggest girls and young women are more likely to be “hyper-progressive” while young men and boys are more likely to feel negative towards feminism compared with baby boomers.
Daniel Guinness, who runs equality workshops for young men and boys in schools, universities and workplaces, says attitudes in this generation can be complicated. While many of the young men and boys he speaks to are keen to advance equality and support the women and girls they know, a small cohort feels alienated and disenfranchised by the conversation around feminism.
He tells Hannah Moore why a mixture of economic problems, the pandemic, increasingly online lives and the public conversation around feminist causes can lead to anxieties in young men, to which influencers such as Andrew Tate offer seemingly easy solutions.
Ione Gamble, who runs the feminist zine Polyester, explains why, in contrast, gen Z young women and girls seem so committed to feminist ideas, with 68% saying it is harder to be a woman than a man. She explores how the online world in which younger people spend so much time is playing into this rupture.
Photograph: Vadim Ghirdă/AP
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