Last month, in the final stretch of the presidential campaign, the New York Times reported landmark findings from a 2023 poll by the American Enterprise Institute. For the first time in modern history, young American men are more likely to identify as religious than women of the same age. Nearly 40 percent of women in Generation Z describe themselves as religiously unaffiliated, compared to 34 percent of Gen Z men. Young American men are increasingly disillusioned about everything from higher education to job prospects to the state of gender relations, a trend reflected in the massive popularity of motivational (and, according to many, misogynistic) social media influencers like Jordan Peterson. In a period marked by social gains for women, the promotion of traditional gender roles in many Christian communities offers purpose to young men confused about their role in society.
Meanwhile, the significant Evangelical Christian presence in the Republican Party and the influence of “post-liberal” Catholic intellectuals—embodied by Senator JD Vance’s ascension to the Republican presidential ticket—are having a marked effect on mainstream conservative rhetoric. Republican candidates for office seem to have few qualms calling for an explicitly Christian approach to policy-making, and former President Donald Trump himself recently assured an audience in Florida that Christians would no longer have to vote if he were elected because his presidency will “have it fixed so good [they are not] going to have to.” The campaign has since characterized his remarks as a joke, but Democrats have fixated on the comment as an alarming promise to implement sweeping changes altering the structure of the federal government—like those outlined in the Heritage Foundation’s infamous Project 2025. While Trump and Vance have publicly distanced themselves from the project, mainstream American conservatism has nonetheless affected a rhetorical turn in favor of traditional gender roles with Christian overtones in the hopes of soothing the fears of young men. This effort has widened the gender gap at the expense of the growing population of young women who are increasingly rejecting the very expectations that attract their male counterparts.
It is important that this generation of young women has come of age in a turbulent moment for American gender relations. The last decade has seen the ascension of Trump over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the presidency amidst a barrage of sexual misconduct allegations, the successful appointment of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the explosion of, and subsequent backlash to, the #MeToo movement, and, perhaps most importantly, the fall of Roe v. Wade. Amidst what many young women perceive as attacks on their autonomy, the Southern Baptist Church—one of the denominations attracting a disproportionate number of young men as new congregants—recently made headlines for its condemnation of in vitro fertilization. The church’s statement of faith maintains that a woman’s role in marriage is “to submit herself graciously to the servant leadership of her husband.” Is it really such a surprise that a generation of women self-identifying as progressive en masse could drift from this kind of organized religion?
America’s ideological and religious buffer across gender lines may stem in part from the remarkable social and economic progress made by American women in the decades since the heyday of second-wave feminism. In 1970, two years before the passage of Title IX outlawed sex-based discrimination in higher education, only about 40 percent of college students were female. Less than 30 years later, women had not only caught up to their male peers in higher education but also significantly outpaced them: In 2019, about 57 percent of bachelor’s degrees in the United States were earned by women. By 2022, the college-educated labor force was made up of more women than men for the first time.
Increased opportunities have coincided with political transformation for young women. Women ages 18 to 29 are now the most progressive group in modern American history, with over 40 percent self-identifying as liberal. This is more than mere labeling: Young women consistently voice support for progressive stances on specific issues like abortion, gun control, and climate change. Women are also more likely to be politically engaged across the board—over seven million more women than men are registered to vote in the United States, and in recent elections, women have displayed notably higher turnout rates among Black, white, and Hispanic voters.
If young women have made great strides, young men are suffering in comparison. Their educational outcomes and measures of social satisfaction have worsened to the point that many journalists and commentators have declared an “epidemic” of male loneliness. A New York Times article focusing on Grace Church in Waco, Texas, a Southern Baptist community that attracted many new, mostly young male congregants in recent years, illustrates some men’s response—a return to religion. The appeal of religious community to a group suffering from a lack of social connectivity is intuitive: Churches can offer young men a place to make friends, share in a common cause, and feel that they are improving themselves.
Men ages 18 to 29 are undergoing a political metamorphosis, too: They’re often voting to the right of their grandfathers. Commentators frequently stress that Democrats are losing ground with young male voters, pointing to the presence of popular masculinist social media figures like Adin Ross and Theo Von in the orbit of Trump’s 2024 campaign as evidence that Trump’s efforts to cultivate young male voters are succeeding. This explicit cultural appeal to young men comes alongside an unapologetic call by Republicans for the Christianization of government. In July, in a fiery speech at the National Conservatism Conference, rising Republican star Josh Hawley called for Christian principles to be enshrined in law: “Some will say that I am advocating Christian nationalism,” he noted. “And so I do.” This combative rhetoric has been accompanied by fear-mongering about the state of the American family, of which JD Vance’s infamous “childless cat ladies” comment is only the tip of the iceberg.
That male politicians are the loudest voices touting the decline of the family speaks to the motivating emotion behind their sweeping rhetoric: fear. The freedom of increasingly liberal and secular young women to defer or opt out of traditional family structures, enabled by their socioeconomic mobility, threatens the “traditional” social order of the male-breadwinner nuclear family. This development could leave men, who typically rely on their partners for social and emotional support, adrift. By directly evoking Christianity, traditional gender roles, and the centrality of the family to American life, the Republican Party is seeking to offer a home to the same kinds of men who are increasingly attracted to organized religion. But the strategy may engender unintended consequences with women voters, who are already distancing themselves from the party. Republicans are attacking advances in reproductive rights that have contributed to women’s socioeconomic freedom in the name of pro-family values while attempting to avoid responsibility for restricting those very freedoms.
Voters are far from stupid, and a recent attempt by Vance to present a less combative face of conservatism during the vice-presidential debate doesn’t seem to have made inroads with women: So far, their overwhelming support for Vice President Kamala Harris has stayed constant. Given that it was Trump’s Supreme Court that overturned Roe v. Wade, it is difficult to believe him or his vice-presidential candidate when they attempt to embrace a softer line on abortion bans. Republicans’ hostility to the essential components of women’s socioeconomic gains may reassure men seeking solace in the continuity of the traditional family structure, but it risks alienating women who are no longer receptive to these ideas. Though some loud female supporters of traditional gender roles—social media “tradwives,” pro-life elected officials—are promoting the new conservative strand of Christian nationalism, increasing numbers of women recoil at the notion of wifely submission and are likely to vote accordingly in November.