Funding for “To the Contrary ” provided by the E. Rhodes and Le Carpenter Foundation, the Park Foundation, and the Charles A. Frueauff Foundation.

Coming up on “To the Contrary, ” The Great Divide.

Why are Gen Z men and women continuing toward different sides of the political spectrum?

Then what the Democrats win this week in the race to fill George Santos's former U.S. House seat means for immigration politics.

Intro Music Hello, Im Bonnie Erbé.

Welcome to “To the Contrary, ” a weekly discussion of news and social trends from diverse perspectives.

Up first, gender politics and differences of opinion.

The battle of the sexes may be escalating, although it began in 1980.

Since the mid 00s differences have been increasing.

Women are leaning liberal, men are veering conservative.

triggered by movements such as MeToo and issues, including abortion rights.

This split is said to exacerbate inside the echo chamber of social media.

There, people are continuously fed content that reinforces their beliefs.

Others argue that educated women now earn more college degrees than men and are pushing for political solutions to address systemic imbalances.

Those include the rollback of abortion and reproductive rights.

Still, other scholars blame it on decreasing marriage rates and the rise in the percentage of single working mothers.

This growing divide is not just apparent in the U.S., but in other countries such as the U.K., Germany, South Korea and Poland.

Joining us today are former Maryland Democratic Representative Donna Edwards, Center for Equal Opportunity chair Linda Chavez, Independent Women's Forum, VP for Policy, Hadley Heath Manning, and Sam Bennett of the New York Amsterdam News.

Donna Edwards, why don't you tell us if you believe that there really is an increasing gender divide?

And if so, what's driving it?

Well, I do believe there is a divide and then you can see it not just in the United States, but really around the world.

I think if you look at some of the issues that are coming to the forefront here in the U.S. around gender politics, abortion rights, most pay equity that, you know, women are really trying to drive this conversation.

I think increasingly we have more single women who are out there who are in the in the workforce, who expect, you know, that equal pay for equal work.

And I think that this younger generation, the Gen Z, who are really highlighting that the divides are showing us that the future looks very different for young women than it did for their four sisters.

In what way, though?

Well, I think it looks different because I think the younger women have an expectation that the workforce will be more equal.

Younger women have more of an expectation that they're going to be able to take care of themselves on their own now.

That hasn't matched the reality in terms of pay equity and other kinds of rights, but the expectation is there for this this younger generation, and they feel that they can do these things independently of men or partners in their lives.

Linda, your thoughts?

You know, Linda, you and I go way back and I was just thinking about when I read this story, which is all based on new books, new reports, I thought, wait a minute, this already happened in the eighties.

And in fact, the first gender divide, as I'm sure you know, very well, emerged out of Ronald Reagan's first election in 1980, where for the first time there was an eight point difference between the way men and women voted.

So is it worse now than it was back then?

Well, I do think it's worse.

And by the way, it was a real concern during the 1984 election when there was real expectation that there was going to be this huge gender gap.

But I do think it's worse today, and I think it's worse today because there's kind of a bifurcation that is taking place.

Women are doing better.

Women are more likely to go and graduate from four year colleges than men are.

They are going into the workforce now.

That's an expectation.

You know, back in my day and even in your day, because you're younger than I am, you know, that was not necessarily an absolute preordained decision by women.

But today I think men are doing really badly.

And you see that that men are not going on and in completing their education.

And this partisan divide we see is not just by gender.

It's also by class and by education.

And because Democrats now, not in the old days, not when I was growing up, it was the working class party.

Now, the working class, many of them are supporting the GOP, and that's largely because of Trump.

I don't think that's been good for the nation, and I don't think it's been good for men.

What about this that you mentioned that the it's not just by gender, but it's also by education, income level, etc.. What about race?

Somebody.

Somebody else, Please just jump in here.

Is that driving the political divide?

I don't know if that race is driving it.

We've done a lot of work at Amsterdam News, of course, the largest and oldest continuously most influential black newspaper.

I don't know if race is so much a dynamic here.

Of course, declining college enrollment by men cuts across all races.

But I think, for example, the black community has been remarkably has become essentially the backbone of the Democratic Party, men and female.

The Hispanic Party more mixed, of course.

The thing I think is important about the point you're making, Bonnie, is if we put it in historical context.

I remember as a girl watching my mother read The Feminine Mystique for the first time, and of course, Betty Friedan's work was about these young women emerging from Brown expecting to be paid equal to men, expecting to be able to have careers, and finding nothing like that was happening for them.

That was the whole premise behind the book.

So I think we had this new generation, quite frankly, my daughters and their friends coming in.

And not only do they have that expectations actually being met many times.

So we have this empowered generation of women who aren't.

When I used to knock on doors when I was running for political office half the time in Pennsylvania, knock on the door, ask the woman who she's voting for, she said, I'm voting with my husband.

That effect is rapidly diminishing.

So women are standing and have their own agency.

They're standing up for their own rights.

And I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

I think what we're in the middle of is this big, hundred year long social correction where women couldn't really, even if they voted, have their own opinions, and now they're increasingly coming into full flower.

Obviously, that has some social media puts people in their own silos, right?

So we have that unfortunate dynamic of young men and young women being further pulled apart.

Certainly, we can talk about the sex divide in politics.

I think that's been around for a few generations.

But what's big and different today is the story around marriage, marriage, marriage, marriage.

So single people, that's where we see this big divide between single young women especially and single young men willing to either side polarizing.

And there's been a lot of handwringing about what this means for the future of marriage.

Will those people be able to partner if their worldviews and their politics are so different?

But I think it's actually a chicken and the egg problem.

I think we're seeing more polarization, in part because people are not getting married as much as they used to.

And marriage has a moderating effect.

Know, I don't think that it's necessarily the case that married women today are taking orders from their husband about how to vote.

But I do think that when you live with someone of the opposite sex and when you forge a life together, both for women and men, that marriage means you're having to consider their point of view, their world view.

And in a way that's a microcosm of what we need more of.

I think, in our society as people being exposed to different ideologies, different points of views, and not retreating to those bubbles and silos where they only think with people who think alike.

So, Hadley, you mentioned the marriage rate, and what that made me think of was all these women either know or read about in the media or do interviews in the media.

First of all, way more women going in alone to have kids, either artificial and set segmentation or friend insemination or however they do it, the financial wherewithal maybe not to provide a, you know, high income for their children, but enough to live on and raise a child or children.

Is this contributing?

And that's a whole other society from the one we were living in 50 years ago.

So is this contributing to a political divide?

Are men angry about this?

One thing that hasn't changed, Bonnie, is that desire among women in surveys, there's many people both men and women say they want to have children, but there's some kind of problems that we're encountering in the dating world and family formation world.

It could have to do with our divergent worldviews between single young men and single young women.

It could have to do with women's increased economic prospects and our ability to earn more versus men's decreased economic prospects.

All of these are contributing factors, but we've got to figure out some solutions to these problems or else we can't have the furtherance of healthy families, the basic unit of any healthy society.

And what about the so-called echo chamber of social media, Donna?

We haven't really talked too much about that.

But where you can go, whatever political view you have, you can sign up or go to websites or take that feeds or what have you that reinforce your belief is that really adding to the political differences between men and women?

Well, I mean, I think that you can point to these both social, social media echo chambers and the ability to separate yourselves based on your prevailing worldview, whether you're men or women.

But that's actually true across generations, not just, you know, confined to young people.

I do think that we have to do a reality check on this, that women still make less than men, even though they're making more now.

Women still occupy fewer positions in the C-suite as they as they ever have.

Women still hold fewer political elected seats than ever before, even though it's still more.

And so the reality that men are facing in some ways is almost in their own heads that they're falling behind, because all it means is that women are increasing in some of these areas, but by no means even close to sweeping forward ahead of men.

Linda, your thoughts because you raised the issue of men not doing well.

Well, I think when it comes to education, these are absolute numbers.

Women outnumber men in four year colleges and they outnumber men in earning four year degrees.

And that is a huge shift.

Now, what it's.

Also but let me just jump in here because it's also community colleges are what used to be called community colleges are really especially for technical.

Right.

Training, are replacing the four year degrees and are, quite frankly, more influential on your ultimate long term income than are four year degrees.

I think if you check the stats on earnings with a four year degree and earnings with a two year degree earnings with a four year degree are still higher.

Now, we may not see that ultimately 20 years from now because women do make other choices, they may decide to drop out of the workforce and raise a family.

And if they do that, that's going to have an impact on their earnings.

But look, there is a real divide and men aren't doing well.

Well, I'd like to point out something a little bit different from what Donna raised.

But women are doing incredibly well.

And again, it's a small percentage of women, but young women, women of color have realized, hey, I'm not going to waste 20 years in a corporation with millions of competitors trying to get a promotion and get a high salary.

I'm going out on my own.

And women have really taken to startups of all kinds, everything from makeup to lingerie to high tech items and they are really doing well in that in that direction.

So does that mean that they're catching up in a way, particularly young women, that young men are don't know what to do in reaction to that?

Well, I don't want to be the Donna Downer here.

But again, the reality check that while it is true that, you know, the growing number of entrepreneurs among women is substantial, especially among women of color, but their ability to raise capital in capital formation is still lagging way behind that of men, doesn't create some independence.

Absolutely it does.

And it enables women to realize dreams that they haven't had before.

But if we really are going to feed this beast, then we need to do it by feeding capital formation, access to capital, the ability to really take those that entrepreneurial spirit and really turn it into an economic engine.

And this point, I think I would disagree respectfully that men are doing poorly.

What I would say is what we're in the midst of, again, are these vast corrections we're in the middle of For a long, long time.

We measured success by four year degrees right.

When in fact, to Bonnie, to your point, there's a growing body of research that shows, in fact, those to your technical degrees can lead to higher incomes over time.

So this default that a four year degree is the be all and end all.

I think we're experiencing a correction around that.

We're experiencing a correction around women voting with their husbands, which was the norm 50 years ago, no longer the norm today.

We're also experiencing a correction in what does marriage mean.

It was always the default that the only way to have a household and a family.

And of course, I'm married.

Hadley happily married for 30 years, three kids, grandchildren, the whole nine yards.

But I think we're in right smack in the middle of a number of corrections that we're all experiencing in real time today.

Very good point and a good point to close on from Gen Z's political divide to shifts in the immigration debate.

Democrat Tom Suozzi, his win in the special election to fill disgraced former U.S. Representative Jorge Santos's seat not only shrinks the Republican majority in the House, it offers Democrats hope and showcases a strategic approach to immigration.

Suozzi's victory came as he doubled down on immigration and energized the Democratic base with ads targeting abortion and former President Trump.

Suozzi embraced the immigration issue rather than shying away from it, recognizing its political significance.

He took a firmer stance on border security, supporting legal pathways to citizenship and democratic leaders are already saying Suozzi campaign provided a blueprint for their party nationwide.

Now, Linda, it's no secret that Donald Trump is a lot harder right on immigration than and in many cases downright anti-immigrant on racial basis, plural.

So is Suozzi's kind of gentle move to the right enough to get people who's number one issue is immigration and things that they don't like.

It is doing to the United States is Suozzi's gentle move going to persuade a whole lot of them to come over and vote Democratic in November?

I think the administration has to confront the fact that Americans are concerned about what they're seeing at the southern border.

And I think what Suozzi did was actually very, very smart.

First of all, you had a debate last night, not too long ago, recently in the Senate, about changing our immigration laws.

A lot of what Republicans say about, well, you know, Biden could just do this if he wanted to.

No, that's not the case.

Asylum laws right now allow people to step on U.S. soil any place and to do so within a year of stepping on U.S. soil to go and turn themselves in and claim that they want asylum.

Those laws have to be changed.

If you want to change the numbers and the Democrats and the Republicans got together, they debated this.

Jim Lankford, one of the most conservative members in the United States Senate, a Republican from Oklahoma, helped come up with a compromise and passed the Senate.

But now the House won't even let it come to a vote.

So I think that Bill and the Suozzi campaign do present a blueprint.

But I also want to say something about that a lot of people haven't noticed, and that is that last week, the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office came out with a report and said, economic things look better going forward.

And one of the reasons why because in 2022, we had an infusion of immigrants.

albeit, not legal immigrants with high skills, but nonetheless, what the CBO said was that they will contribute 7 trillion dollars to the GDP of the country and a billion dollars in extra revenue for the time period that they were looking at.

And I think a lot of people just don't recognize that.

One of the reasons we've had slower growth in recent years, particularly since the pandemic, was because we had less flows of people in to take jobs and they can be a net benefit.

And I know, Bonnie, you and I disagree on this a lot of the time, but that's what the CBO says.

Well, but be that as it may, I heard on the radio within the past couple of days that New York City now has 60 thousand This is just immigrants who who've been shipped out from places like Texas with a Republican, very conservative governor.

They're shipped out by bus and God knows what else to the northeast, because that's where a lot of liberals reside.

And he wants to make the point, look, these people are.

You got to house them, feed them, Do all this stuff, and it is costing New York City alone billions.

Billions, not millions, not millions, billions per month.

to house these people, And if I were living in New York City and if I were, God forbid, homeless, I'd be thinking, why?

I need a home.

You have not changed law to give them the right to be able to work.

That's right.

Give them the right to work under a new asylum law, which is what the Senate passed.

They would their claims would be adjudicated.

People who didn't have a legitimate claim would be sent back and those who did would be given the right to work.

And then they do not become a burden.

They become a contributor and that's what's needed.

And we work in New York City, Amsterdam News We've been there, you know, for a hundred since 1909.

And the current administration Mayor Adams is facing a crisis, Bonnie, on the cost of housing.

But that was all precipitated by this political nonsense around.

To Linda, your point, Linda, I am with you 5 thousand percent You could no one could have said it better.

Immigrants has been proven over and over again.

Immigration is a net benefit to the United States.

It's why our birth rate is higher than any of the other rich nations.

It's why our economy is larger than any of the other rich nations.

The thing you're seeing in New York City is a blip because so many other states and communities were kicking people out.

New York City stepped forward in a very activist way and said, okay, we'll give you a home for a while, hoping.

To your point, Linda, that legislation would be corrected, allowing them to work.

So what we're really experiencing to Linda's point is we don't understand how important immigration is to the United States economic as an economic powerhouse and as a growth nation.

So very important.

Linda, brilliant work.

Thank you, Linda.

Brilliant.

I really do want to cosign what Linda has said and Sam, as we reinforce.

And it is that, you know, in the back to your point, Bonnie, around the Tom Suozzi race, that the reason that he was able to run on a a positive note on immigration, on a solution note on immigration is precisely because Joe Biden really opened the door by moving on immigration in a way that allowed Jim Lankford and others to negotiate what I think is one of the strongest immigration bills that we've had in a couple of decades now was everything that I would have wanted if I had been in Congress.

No, but it's almost like Republicans were given what they asked for.

And then the hypocrisy of rejecting that.

And I think Suozzi was able to capitalize on a political environment nationally where immigration was a focus, where there was a a pathway toward communicating that.

And I do think it offers a blueprint for Democrats going forward about a way to position themselves on immigration.

I'd love to see a shakeup on the politics of immigration, because what I see at the elite level of conversation sometimes on this issue necessarily books, people in one of two camps, either you're anti-immigrant and you want better border security or you're pro-immigration and you want open borders and chaos.

And I don't think there's a lot of people in either one of those camps.

I think most Americans are generally welcoming towards immigration relative to the rest of the world.

I think we're one of the most immigration friendly countries in the world.

Certainly our society, our culture is our government.

Our laws should reflect that We can have a pro-immigration legal system and better border security.

We can have both of those things.

And so I hope our leaders will work towards that end and reflect what the American people want.

Is that does anybody think that's an impossibility in today's political climate?

Well, that was certainly what the legislature was, and it really broad bipartisan support.

I mean, there were 22 Republican senators who voted for that bill when it came out of the Senate.

The only reason that it stalled is because of the hypocrisy of Republicans in the House of Representatives.

If that were to come to the floor, I bet you could find the now what do we need three Republicans in order to vote to get it to get it out of there?

Well, the other thing, too, of course, why it failed is that Donald Trump wanted it to fail because he wants this to be a divisive issue and to use it to campaign on in the election.

Which is unfortunate.

And a very important reality is every single year that Gallup has done this international poll for over 50 years, what is the one place everyone in the world wants to go to?

HADLEY To your point, the United States.

So we are still the place everybody wants to come to.

But I agree 100 percent with you However, we need to have legislation that makes this all manageable.

And I was horrified when Trump turned it into a political game card for his own potential race.

All right.

That's it for this edition.

And thank you all for a great conversation.

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