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When Donald Trump strutted on to the stage at the Republican national convention last month, it was to a raucous cover of James Brown’s It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. The song credits men with inventing cars, trains, lights, boats, toys and commerce. The message was not subtle. At least, not to Melissa Deckman.

“This idea of America needing someone who is a strong masculine figure – I think the Republican campaign this year is doing it even in a more pronounced and overt way than it did in 2016,” said Deckman, CEO of the Public Religion Research Institute. “You have a lot of younger men admiring the strength of Trump – or what they think is strong.”

Deckman would know. In her forthcoming book The Politics of Gen Z: How the Youngest Voters Will Shape Our Democracy, she dives into the deep political divides between gen Z women and men and explores how they feel about growing up in the Trump era. Based on interviews with roughly 90 gen Z political activists, numerous focus groups and extensive polling, Deckman has identified what she calls a “historic reverse gender gap”.

She has found that gen Z men are becoming more conservative as well as increasingly indifferent to politics, bucking longstanding trends, dating back at least to the 1970s, that saw young people across the board voting liberal and men being generally more involved in politics than women. Meanwhile, gen Z women have not only become the most progressive cohort in US history but are also expected to outpace their male peers across virtually every measure of political involvement, such as donating money, volunteering for campaigns, registering people to vote – and, of course, voting.

Young women were outstripping men on political engagement well before Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of Kamala Harris, setting the internet ablaze with memes and teeing up yet another presidential contest between Trump and a woman. Now, with Harris the presumptive Democratic nominee, a generation already riven by a canyon-wide political gender gap is watching a contest between a woman who could become the nation’s first Black and south Asian female president and a man who likes calling women “nasty”.

“For me, the question come November is gonna be: to what extent do attitudes about gender influence the vote for Trump?” Deckman asked.

Polls indicate that young men’s views on gender, femininity and masculinity are rapidly shifting. In 2022, 49% of gen Z men said that the United States had become “too soft and feminine”, Deckman found. Just a year later, 60% of gen Z men said the same. Deckman found that those who agreed with the statement were far more likely to have voted for Trump in 2016 – even after controlling for political party.

No matter their age, women have long voted at higher rates than men – but that is the only political activity where they have consistently exceeded men. Men historically donated more, volunteered with campaigns more and otherwise participated in political life more. This year, Deckman believes young women will surpass young men not only at voting, but in all political activities.

Democrats have historically had a firm grip on voters under 30 – a grip they may now be losing. Gen Z men, Deckman noted, have “reverted to the mean of men”: while they’re not necessarily more conservative that most men, they are more conservative than their millennial counterparts.

Not all men

These trends are even more pronounced among white gen Z men. If you combine the number of independent gen Z men who lean Republican with those who identify as Republicans, Deckman said, young white men “look very conservative compared to even older white men”. She believes Trump will probably win young white men.

In 2020, 49% of white men between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for Biden, according to an analysis of AP VoteCast data by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Meanwhile, 42% voted for Trump.

The damage that could do to Harris, however, is mitigated by the fact that white men make up a shrinking segment of gen Z. About half of gen Z is white, making it the most diverse generation in US history. Several polls have suggested that Trump could win among young Black and Latino men – a claim that Deckman eyes with suspicion, especially since Harris has entered the race and the GOP seems unable to stop themselves from making racist comments about her. Some Republicans have started calling Harris the “first DEI president”.

Deckman’s surveys have found that gen Z men are less likely than their female counterparts to say that racial equality is important to them, but 45% do believe that it’s important, including 52% of Black gen Z men.

“If Donald Trump uses misogynistic, racist language toward Kamala Harris, I think the net effect for young men will be more off-putting than not,” Deckman said. “The end result for him is a net negative. It’s also, of course, wrong.”

‘They don’t care’

Another mitigating factor could help Harris: young men don’t seem all that interested in politics, period.

“They don’t care,” Deckman said. In surveys, “I asked them: what are you passionate about? What issues are critically important to you? There’s like 20% gaps between young men and young women on everything.”

In addition to caring more about issues like LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, as might be expected, gen Z women care more about economic issues like inflation, jobs and unemployment, which are typically thought to be more important to men. (LGBTQ+ zoomers also cared equally or more about every issue than straight zoomers.) Even men who agree that the US is too “soft and feminine” don’t feel more motivated to act. Instead, it is Democratic women who reject that notion who tend to get more involved in politics.

While young men fall behind women in political engagement, women have, over the last few decades, gone to college and joined the workforce at higher and higher rates. These trends are not unrelated. The more education and money you have, the more likely you are to be invested in politics.

Feeling like your rights are under “direct threat” also increases political involvement – and in the age of Trump, #MeToo and the fall of Roe v Wade, plenty of gen Z women feel like their rights are under threat. Gen Z men just don’t feel the same urgency.

Surprisingly, there is one area of political involvement where young men and women feel similarly: they are both deeply uninterested in running for office. Women have long been less interested in running for office than men. But as of 2022, Deckman found, only 6% of gen Z men said they definitely planned to run for office, while 4% of gen Z women said the same. Despite women’s political enthusiasm, zoomers as a whole remain unconvinced that joining government is worth it.

“Gen Z is far less likely to be confident in the federal government, in the media, in organized religion, in the police, in the criminal justice system,” Deckman said. “This is just endemic to a generation of young people who have grown up in one crisis after another.”

Carter Sherman is a reproductive health and justice reporter at Guardian US