Young Women Are More Liberal Than Young Men, and It's Affecting Dating Culture

Natalie, a 28-year-old in Arizona, collects screenshots of people’s dating app profiles in a folder on her phone, including one person’s list of qualities they don’t want in someone they’re dating: being vaccinated, being liberal, being bisexual, and not wanting kids.

“It seems like the apps are filled with very much mostly conservative men,” Natalie says. “Like not being super conservative is a dealbreaker right away.” Natalie considers herself independent, with more liberal views on reproductive rights and more moderate views on topics like immigration.

Natalie has pinpointed a trend: Young women are becoming ideologically more liberal, creating a stark contrast between themselves and young men, whose views are not changing in kind. According to a recent Gallup poll, only 25% of men between the ages of 18 and 29 identify as politically liberal, while 40% of women in the same age group do. The poll found that more young women identify as liberal today than in 1999, while the rate of young men identifying the same way has mostly stayed the same. This poll comes as young men’s interest in certain right-wing figures like Andrew Tate, a self-proclaimed misogynist, grows. And, as Natalie points out, this difference in opinion is manifesting on dating apps.