Young women are easily ignored and forgotten in politics, but in Australia that’s changing.
While globally there’s been a focus on young men drifting to the right, here in Australia progressive young women have the potential to become the bigger wrecking ball of politics, threatening both Labor and the Coalition’s hold on critical seats.
In the inner-city, they could be among the key voters who hand traditional Labor seats to the Greens, and in the suburbs and regions they could turn conservative electorates red.
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New voices allowed into lock-up
In the lead-up to this federal election there have been new voices in the political conversation: informed, engaged and highly influential female content creators.
They are loud and, in some cases, brazenly partisan.
At the federal budget lock-up this year, an event generally reserved for journalists from traditional media outlets, a new cohort of mostly women were given a spot.
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They are Gen Z and millennial content creators and the faces of new online media groups who broadcast mostly on social media, YouTube and podcasts.
There’s been some blowback, after media reports that Labor had financially supported some of these individuals to attend the budget lock-up.
As traditional media grapples with declining audiences and slumping revenues, these new players have emerged. This election they are a part of the conversation and the focus of political parties, which are desperate to speak to young and female voters.
Some of them, like Cheek Media’s Hannah Ferguson, who was allowed into the budget lock-up, and influencer Abbie Chatfield, who didn’t go to the budget, but interviewed Anthony Albanese in February, have repeatedly attacked the Coalition.
Their influence will be tested at the election, but they are only adding to the struggle of the Coalition to connect with young women.
Results from the 2022 Australian Election Study suggest the Coalition had its worst ever vote amongst women across all age groups.
Women around the world embrace the left
In the US, media reported an historic shift of young men towards Donald Trump and the Republican party, creating a gender divide amongst the country’s youngest voters.
This was partly attributed to male content creators and podcasts hosts who aligned with Trump and promoted his views on their platforms with enormous audiences.
But there’s another story to learn from in Poland, where men also lurched to the right at their last national poll, but young women embraced the left and contributed to the end of a conservative government and brought the moderate opposition to power.
This was a generation of Polish women who had seen their reproductive freedoms scaled back as a result of strict anti-abortion laws under the Law and Justice (PiS) party that had ruled the country since 2015.
In Australia, some young Liberals told the ABC young women are turned off right-wing parties because of the rise of Trump and the attacks from conservatives on women’s rights.
At a pub in the Illawarra, south of Sydney, a group of women were asked by the ABC their thoughts on the election.
One by one, they expressed their concerns of a Coalition victory, but one specific clarification was made by one of them.
“I want anyone in but Peter Dutton, I can’t stand him,” she said with her nose scrunched.
There lies a major problem, with Gen Z and Millennials now outnumbering baby boomers, losing the vote of women, could mean losing an election.
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A progressive cohort
Millennial and Gen Z women, were born between 1981 to 2012 – are more educated, more independent and, according to some surveys, seemingly more progressive than recent generations.
According to data from the 2022 Australian Election Study, Gen Z is more progressive than prior generations at the same age, with young women sitting furthest left on the political spectrum.
This wasn’t always the case, in fact in the post-war period around the world women were generally expected to be the most conservative voters.
This was thought to be because women were more likely to be religious and many home-bound with less exposure to new ideas, or work-based trade unions.
In Australia today, women are more likely to finish high school and get a university degree than their male peers, yet data shows they’re still less likely to become chief executives.
They are still expected to earn less across their lifetime, have smaller superannuation funds and are more likely to be victims of violent crimes.
These are the girls and women who have seen, but may not even properly remember, Australia’s one female prime minister.
These details aren’t lost on this group, also living through a cost-of-living crisis and feeling the pinch as much as anyone else in the country.
A study published by the Australian National University last year, found young women were almost twice as likely to be undecided about who they wanted to vote for.
It suggested 12.1 per cent of women compared to 6.7 per cent of males, were still making up their minds.
This might not mean they are disengaged entirely but perhaps are paying attention to the weeks of campaigning ahead.
A lesson from last election is we often underestimate the anger of woman, and this generation of woman have a lot to be angry about.
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