Young women are also moving closer to the far right, just more slowly than men

Young women are not moving away from the far right, but rather moving closer to it, albeit at a slower pace than men. This is the conclusion of the latest report by Javier Carbonell, a researcher specializing in inequality, the far right and youth, for the European Policy Centre, a Brussels-based think tank. “Far-right parties across Europe are eroding what was once a pronounced gender divide in their electorates,” he asserts, focusing on a “significant minority” of women who are shifting towards these parties, “rejecting feminism and embracing traditional gender norms.”

The analyst reviewed data from the CIS, Eurostat, and the European Election Study (EES), along with various papers. He identifies three reasons for this shift: the social-conservative turn across all age groups, dissatisfaction with the labor market, and the far right’s ability to politicize that dissatisfaction.

Carbonell cites the recent German elections as an example. In 2025, 26% of men under 25 voted for the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, while 35% of young women voted for the left. However, he points out that while only 5% of young women voted for the AfD in 2021, that figure tripled by 2025, with 14% of young women opting for Alice Weidel’s party.

Anti-establishment sentiment is also reflected in voting patterns. In Spain, after eight years of progressive government, both groups are shifting to the right, with men doing so much more intensely. A 40dB poll conducted in March shows that 25.8% of Generation Z women intend to vote for the ultranationalist party Vox and 2.1% for Se acabó la fiesta (The Party’s Over), led by the anti-system figure Alvise Pérez. However, just a year earlier, in March 2025, 15.1% would have voted for Vox, while Pérez’s party would have remained stable at 2.1%. Conversely, Carbonell, who is also a professor at Sciences Po University in Paris, shows that in the United Kingdom, the Green Party is attracting young people, which he attributes to 13 years of conservative government.

Although women outperform men by more than 13% in university graduation rates, according to Eurostat data, and the gender pay gap has narrowed among young people (it widens when women have children), Carbonell emphasizes that these women belong to a generation that, as a whole, feels worse off than their parents. They see a broken social contract, because after studying, the job market offers fewer guarantees, less purchasing power, and less stability than before. This dissatisfaction translates into extreme distrust in the political system, “which no longer seems capable of generating significant changes in public policies or improved living conditions,” he explains. The researcher points out that “the precarious job market, the rising cost of raising children, and the housing crisis make traditional female roles outside the labor market seem less risky and more attractive.”

He points to the emergence of messages whose most obvious caricature is the “tradwives,” influencers who post about their daily lives as devoted mothers and wives, preparing home-cooked meals and maintaining demanding beauty standards. For Carbonell, it’s an appealing image, which doesn’t mean there’s necessarily a wave of women quitting their jobs to dedicate themselves to their homes, but rather that they are consuming these videos and gravitating towards political parties that promote these values.

Although social media are not the ones to light the fuse, they provide fuel. The researcher notes that there is a lot of feminist content online, but that the manosphere is more successful at getting its misogynist message across. Partly it is because algorithms favor conflict, and partly because people are attracted to whatever sounds “against the system.”

In this arena, the far right “has mobilized this frustration, idealizing a fictional past that functions as a sharp critique of an unaffordable present,” according to the analyst. “No woman would want to return to a time when they couldn’t vote or open a bank account without their husband’s permission,” he adds. For the researcher, “the fact that they are false doesn’t make these idealized, nostalgic projects any less appealing. Nostalgia is powerful not because it accurately describes the past, but because it emphasizes what’s wrong with the present.”

Femininity and superwomen

This shift is also visible in attitudes toward the feminist movement. Carbonell explains: “There is criticism of the economic system, and therefore criticism of the political system that sustains it. For many people, especially in Spain, feminism is part of the current political system, one of its main rallying cries.” The analyst believes that equality is accepted among young people and that “it is not true that young people are more sexist than older generations. What is true is that they are more anti-feminist.” He believes the movement is in a cycle of demobilization, just as it went through a period of mobilization with the massive march of 2018 and the #MeToo movement.

Carbonell outlines some key elements of the far-right’s strategy, including promoting female figures, such as Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni or AfD leader Alice Weidel, “symbolic leaders to defend themselves against accusations of sexism.” They also blame migrant populations for violence against women, as if inequality were solely a foreign issue. Furthermore, he highlights the successful formula of combining traditional feminine ideals with freedom and equality in an archetype of “superwomen: simultaneously feminine, professional, and seemingly capable of balancing domestic duties with a career.”

Among the researcher’s recommendations is addressing “the broader economic stagnation that is radicalizing his generation; improving job security, wages, and long-term wealth accumulation.” The campaign of Zohran Mamdani, the newly elected mayor of New York City, is cited repeatedly as a success story for attracting a broad range of young people by addressing their concerns, regardless of ideology or socioeconomic status. The researcher also proposes creating spaces for socialization and activism for a demobilized and fragmented youth: “Youth are highly volatile and can return if there is a campaign focused on the cost of living that resonates with them.”

He does not recommend, however, that the major parties moderate their feminist commitments. For him, it would be “not only a moral error, but also a strategic one” because they would stop mobilizing their supporters and would fail to attract new ones. He proposes that the feminist agenda “articulate tangible social and economic alternatives” while incorporating men.

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