Democratic women are substantially more likely than conservative women to blame men for the challenges they face, while fewer than one in four young Republican men say women are responsible for their problems, according to a recent survey.
The divide was especially pronounced among Democratic women aged 18 to 29. Sixty-six percent said “the challenges that women face in American society” were “a great deal due to the behavior or actions of men,” the Survey Center on American Life reported.
Young Democratic women were also more likely to say women experience “a lot” of discrimination in the United States, according to the poll.
Among Republican women, however, only 18% attributed their problems in the US to men.
The partisan gap narrowed with age. As women got older, fewer Democrats blamed men, while the share of Republicans who did so increased.
Among women aged 30 to 49, 54% of Democrats blamed men for their problems, compared with 33% of Republicans. In the 50-to-64 age group, the figures were 47% and 25%, respectively.
Even so, the differences remained substantial. Democratic women aged 18 to 29 were 50 percentage points more likely than their Republican counterparts to fault men. The gap was 30 points among women aged 30 to 49 and 20 points among those aged 50 to 64.
The pattern reversed when men were asked about the problems they face in American society. Republican men were more likely than Democratic men to blame women.
At least 26% of Republican men aged 18 to 29 said women were responsible for their problems. That figure was 21% among Republican men aged 30 to 49 and 21% among those aged 50 to 64.
Although Republican men were far less likely than women to blame the opposite sex, the partisan differences among men were still notable.
Republican men aged 18 to 29 were 20 percentage points more likely than Democratic men in the same age group to blame women. A similar gap appeared among men aged 30 to 49.
The difference narrowed to 10 points among Republican and Democratic men aged 50 to 64. The views of the two groups began to converge only among those over 65, when 15% of Republican men and 11% of Democratic men blamed women.
The findings add to a growing body of research suggesting that men and women across the political spectrum are becoming increasingly divided. The trend also appears to extend beyond the United States.
An April survey by the New Statesman similarly highlighted negative views of the opposite sex among younger women. It found that 21% of Gen Z women under 30 held negative views of men.
By comparison, just 7% of Gen Z men expressed a negative view of women, while 72% said they viewed women positively.
A 2025 study by the universities of Göttingen and Jena in Germany found that 47% of left-leaning women would rather remain single than date someone with opposing political views.
Right-leaning women reported a similar reluctance, with 41% saying they would choose to stay single rather than pursue a relationship across the political divide.