There is a problem that creates a hostility towards feminism as it stands now and minorities.
Look at how positive discrimination has progressed.
The goal is roughly 50/50 representation. But to get there from where we were we have positively discriminated in favour of girls and women.
Desirable entry level jobs do not end up in a 50/50 hire pattern because the starting point was skewed to begin with. Hiring over represents women.
Leadership and management often needs a correction from 100% male to 50%.
That means promotions favour women.
But it goes further back. Educational programs, university places etc. As well as other areas of life. Sport funding, healthcare interventions.
All these areas we’re correcting for social injustice against women and we aren’t impacting those who are already at the top of the ladder.
Instead we’re disproportionately helping women up the ladder to eventually get to equality.
That’s justifiable looking at society as a whole. I’m not generally against positive discrimination.
But add on to that the same mechanisms to help minorities and you do have a weight of advantages that can lead to an overcorrection or at the very least feel like one.
Then take it another step.
In the UK there was a program which targeted additional funding for disadvantaged children in education. It recognised girls and helped them, it recognised minorities and helped them.
The program was designed to be agnostic and look at demographics and attainment to determine where funding would go.
At the point at which the metrics used to determine funding pointed to white working class boys, after the pendulum had swung, the Conservatives cut funding for it.
There is privilege. There are reasons to correct for privilege and ways to do that to make a more equal society.
But the way we’ve chosen to get there as quickly as possible has reversed privilege in small, key areas, rather than eliminating it.
In a world where we have a generation that has spent their entire political lives pulling up the ladder. That right wing generation has found support amongst the young in promising to pull up the ladders only put back down for the select few.
The most desirable jobs and areas for social mobility have been targeted for positive discrimination. To try and create representation of the unrepresented as the first step.
There is increasing inequality overall.
There are those who cannot get onto the ladder seeing the left help people not like them. Just because they aren’t women and aren’t a minority themselves.
The left has fundamentally failed to target root causes of inequality and lack of social mobility.
Who are you going to vote for. The side taking away your privilege while doing nothing for you?
Or the side who promises not to take that privilege from you?
If the left wants young men’s votes it needs to tackle inequality and social mobility directly. Otherwise it may be the correct, albeit distasteful, conclusion, that a culture war benefits young white men. After that it’s only a matter of cognitive dissonance to justify the harm to society as a whole for personal benefit and young men vote right wing.