The most underreported news story of the past 20 years is the radicalization of young American women: Whereas the ideology of young American men has remained remarkably consistent, millions of Gen Z women are racing to the radical left — and they’re not done yet.
If anything, the leftward march of Gen Z women is still accelerating.
This trendline now extends to religion. According to the latest Gallup poll, 42% of Gen Z men (ages 18 to 29) now say religion is “very important” in their lives — a 14-point spike over the last two years.
For young men, that’s the highest number in nearly a quarter-century!
In fact, at no other time in the past 25 years have young men moved (up or down) more rapidly — or in greater numbers. It’s statistically extraordinary.
Clearly, something culturally significant is going on right now with young men: There’s a religious revival in America.
Even The New York Times took note:
For several years, many pastors across the country have noticed young adults, especially men, filling their pews. Leaders have welcomed these new worshipers, even if their arrival has remained something of a mystery.
A new Gallup survey adds muscle to those anecdotal reports. The poll finds a sharp rise in the share of men under 30 who say that religion is “very important” to them: 42 percent in 2025, from 28 percent in 2023.
[…]
Gallup’s survey, which combined polling data across multiple years, seems to confirm that young men are indeed becoming more religious.
But not so with young women. They’re moving in the opposite direction.
Because, according to the same poll, Gen Z women (ages 18 to 29) who say religion is “very important” have dropped to just 29%.
It’s a stunning turnaround. From 2002 to 2003, 57% of young women said religion was “very important” in their lives. That was the long-established cultural norm: Women were much more likely to prioritize religion and attend church than men.
Only twice in the past 25 years have young men been more religious than young women.
As Gallup documented, Gen Z women are the ONLY demographic where men valued religion more. (For Americans aged 30 to 49 and 50 to 64, women are five points more likely to prioritize religion; for those 65 and older, women are 14 points more likely.)
Something very specific — and highly unusual — is happening to young American women.
And it’s not exactly a mystery. Here’s Gallup’s own analysis:
In 2024-2025, 48% of young men identified as or leaned Republican, compared with 41% who identified as or leaned Democratic. By contrast, among young women, only 27% identified as or leaned Republican, while 60% identified as or leaned Democratic.
Given the relatively large proportion of young men who are Republican, the upward trends in their religiosity have a significant impact on overall trends among young men. Even though young Republican women have also become more religiously engaged, they represent a relatively small proportion of all young women. As a result, the impact of changes in religiosity among young Republican women on young women as a whole is limited. [emphasis added]
For most of the last two decades, young men were more likely to identify as Democrats than Republicans. (Not by lopsided numbers, but it was still a statistically meaningful difference.) Then, in 2022 – 2023, more young men identified as Republicans for the first time in 20 years — and their religiosity suddenly skyrocketed.
That’s almost certainly not coincidental.
Here’s The New York Times’ analysis:
The survey has also found that young women, ages 18 to 29, are now the least religious across all age groups by far. They are less than half as likely as women over 65 to say religion is very important to their lives.
The reverse gender gap among young adults is “a very powerful historical finding,” said Frank Newport, a pollster for Gallup and one of the authors of the study.
“One of the most long-lasting and seemingly permanent findings in the study of religion going back to the 1950s was that women were more religious than men,” Mr. Newport added.
[…]
The survey suggests that much of the growth in religiosity is concentrated among Republicans. [emphasis added]
That last sentence says it all, doesn’t it?
The New York Times buried the lede 19 paragraphs down, but it’s key to understanding the story: America’s religious reawakening is mostly a Republican phenomenon.
It’s simple, straightforward math: The more Republicans in a group, the more the group values religion. Of all the metrics that Gallup tracked, party affiliation has emerged as the #1 indicator of an American’s religiosity.
This also explains why young women are moving in the opposite direction: Gen Z women are 60% Democrat and just 27% Republican. Conservatives are outnumbered 2-1.
There aren’t enough Republicans to offset liberalism’s hostility to religion.
The New York Times continued:
The reasons for the growing gender gap are complex, but the split mirrors a similar divide in their politics. Christian identity in particular has become increasingly associated with right-wing political beliefs.
[…]
More than half of young Republican men and women say they attend religious services at least monthly, an increase over the last several years… Young Democratic women were the only group not to see an increase in religious attendance. [emphasis added]
Religious affiliation is a deeply personal decision. It’s between you and God. Furthermore, if Gen Z women’s disavowal of religion was making them happier, healthier, and more fulfilled, it would be worth exploring why.
But if it was making them sadder, sicker, and more prone to suicide, it would be worth exploring, too.
Young women nationwide are struggling with their mental health — with many turning to self-harm as a way to cope.
Some 57% of female teens in the U.S. struggled with feeling “persistently sad” in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of the women surveyed, 30% considered suicide, 24% planned suicide and 13% attempted suicide.
Newsweek reported something similar last month: The Quiet Crisis Shaping Gen Z Women
Serena feels like the world is falling apart.
At 26, most of her friends have tried enough antidepressants to tell you if Lexapro or Zoloft or Prozac works better. Half are unemployed, and the other half are waiting for pink slips they believe are all but certain. The dating scene is a “dumpster fire” that has normalized treating romantic prospects like they’re “expendable.
[…]
A 2025 Gallup survey showed just how burdensome life in America has become for [Gen Z women]. While only 19 percent of men aged 15 to 44 want to permanently leave the country, a whopping 40 percent of women of the same age expressed a desire to migrate, marking the widest gap recorded since analysts began measuring this trend in 2007.
What’s paradoxical is that Gen Z women did everything the mainstream media told them to do: They studied. They went to college. They voted Democrat. They supported every left-wing cause. They rejected the rigid rules of the “patriarchy” — like marriage and motherhood.
Instead of having babies, they became over-educated “girl bosses”:
According to data from the Pew Research Center, 47 percent of women now hold a bachelor’s degree, compared with 37 percent of men. Higher education, however, has added more to their financial woes than it’s done to alleviate them. Women hold about two-thirds of the nation’s student loan debt while continuing to earn roughly 17 to 18 percent less than men. And their degrees are not closing that gap.
[…]
For the first time in history, there are more women starting their own businesses than men—a flip being driven by Gen Z. A 2025 report from Gusto Insights found that women started 52 percent of new Gen Z and millennial-owned businesses, but only 36 percent of baby boomer-founded businesses and 47 percent of Gen X-founded businesses.
Curiously, none of it made young women any happier. Despite the “blessings” of education, financial opportunities, and being “liberated” from the burden of motherhood and marriage, they became the saddest, most miserable generation in recorded history.
And the gender difference that looms largest of all? You got it: political affiliation.
Gen Z women are one of the most liberal demographics in the country. In the 2020 and 2024 elections, 67 and 61 percent of Gen Z women cast their ballots for Democrats Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, respectively. At the same time, their male counterparts are shifting right. Between 2020 and 2024, President Donald Trump grew his support among young men from 41 percent to 49 percent.
If you’re still not convinced, consider this: In most of the world, young people are actually getting happier. It’s only in English-speaking Western nations — namely the U.S., Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — where young people are so miserable.
The New York Post: American Youths Are Miserable — Despite Happier Young People in the Rest of the World
Turns out that Gen Zers aren’t universally unhappy — they’re just sullen in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Outside those four countries, people under 25 reported increasing feelings of happiness over the last decade, according to the 14th edition of the World Happiness Report, released Wednesday [March 18, 2026].
[…]
“We still don’t know why the youth happiness drop has been so much larger in those countries than elsewhere,” report founding editor John F. Helliwell, an emeritus professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, told The Post about the US and the three other cheerless countries.
“It is not because social media use is much higher there than elsewhere, as it is almost universal everywhere among Gen Z,” he added. “Some of the increase may reflect differences in how social media are used in those countries, all of which are in the English-speaking orbit.” [emphasis added]
Today, social media is the delivery system for liberal indoctrination. That’s why it’s so strongly associated with sadness and misery. But it’s not the root cause.
The root cause is liberalism itself.
Which, interestingly enough, also suggests the opposite: One of the keys to happiness is conservatism.
American Affairs: How to Understand the Well-Being Gap Between Liberals and Conservatives:
Academic research consistently finds the same pattern. Conservatives do not just report higher levels of happiness, they also report higher levels of meaning in their lives. The effects of conservatism seem to be enhanced when conservatives are surrounded by others like themselves. However, in an analysis looking at ninety countries from 1981 through 2014, the social psychologists Olga Stavrova and Maike Luhmann found “the positive association between conservative ideology and happiness only rarely reversed. Liberals were happier than conservatives in only 5 out of 92 countries and never in the United States.”
[…]
Conservatives are more likely to be patriotic and religious. They are more likely to be (happily) married and less likely to divorce. Religiosity, in turn, correlates with greater subjective and objective well-being (here, here, here). So does patriotism. So does marriage. Consequently, some have argued that the apparent psychological benefit of conservatism actually comes from feeling deeper connections with one’s country, one’s family, and the Divine. [emphasis/underline added]
God. Family. Country. Patriotism. All four are associated with conservatism far more than liberalism. And with a religious revival now underway throughout the American heartland, look for these trendlines to expand.
Meanwhile, Gen Z women are still racing in the opposite direction — and they’ve never been sadder.
One Last Thing: 2026 is a critical year for America First. It began with Mayor Mamdani declaring war on “rugged individualism” and will reach a crescendo with the midterm elections. Nothing less than the fate of the America First movement teeters in the balance.
Never before have the political battle lines been so clearly defined. Win or lose, 2026 will transform our country.
We need your help to succeed!
As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commenting privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, Twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING!
And if you CLICK HERE and use the promo code FIGHT, you’ll receive a Trumpian 60% discount!
Thank you for your consideration.
