By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Young Democrat women are substantially more likely than Republican women to say the behavior or actions of men are a major cause of challenges facing women in American society, according to newly highlighted data from the Survey Center on American Life.
The Survey Center analysis found that 66% of Democrat women ages 18 to 29 said the challenges women face are due “a great deal” to the behavior or actions of men.
Among Republican women in the same age group, 18% gave that response.
The partisan difference remained substantial across every age group examined, although Democratic women ages 18 to 29 stood out as the group most likely to attribute women’s challenges to men to a great degree.
Among women ages 30 to 49, 54% of Democrats gave that response, compared with 23% of Republicans.
Among those ages 50 to 64, the figures were 47% for Democratic women and 25% for Republican women.
Among women 65 and older, 48% of Democrats said men’s behavior or actions were responsible “a great deal,” compared with 16% of Republicans.
The wording is significant. Respondents were not asked whether men were responsible for every problem in their personal lives. Women were asked, “To what extent are the challenges that women face in American society due to the behavior or actions of men?”
The underlying survey offered five substantive responses: “a great deal,” “a fair amount,” “hardly any,” “none at all” and “unsure.”
Across women of all political affiliations and ages, 37% answered “a great deal” and another 42% said “a fair amount,” according to the underlying Survey Center questionnaire. Nine percent said “hardly any,” 2% said “none at all” and 9% were unsure.
Men were given a mirrored question asking how much the challenges faced by men in American society were due to the behavior or actions of women.
Sixteen percent of men overall said “a great deal,” while 37% said “a fair amount.” Twenty-three percent answered “hardly any,” 8% said “none at all” and 14% were unsure.
The Survey Center separately reported that young Republican men were more likely than young Democratic men to say women were responsible to a great degree for challenges facing men, but even among young Republican men the figure was 26%.
The results therefore show both a gender difference and a partisan divide in the degree to which Americans attribute problems affecting one sex to the behavior of the other.
The Survey Center also found that more than two-thirds of young women believe women face “a lot” of discrimination in American society, with Democratic women substantially more likely than Republican women to perceive significant prejudice against women.
The figures were published by the Survey Center on Sept. 22, 2026, but the underlying polling was conducted more than a year earlier.
The Civility and Morality Survey interviewed 5,451 U.S. adults from July 25 through Aug. 1, 2025, using Ipsos KnowledgePanel, a probability-based panel designed to represent the U.S. adult population.
Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. The results were weighted for demographic characteristics including gender, race and ethnicity, education, region, household income and 2024 presidential vote.
The reported margin of sampling error for the full survey was plus or minus 1.59 percentage points at the 95% confidence level, although margins of error for narrower groups such as young Democratic or Republican women would be larger.
The large differences by political affiliation fit a broader pattern documented by the Survey Center in previous research showing that Democratic and Republican women often hold markedly different views about gender inequality, discrimination and social expectations.
Those differences are particularly pronounced among younger adults.
The Center has previously found younger women more likely than older women to identify as feminist, perceive continuing gender discrimination and favor changes to traditional gender roles.
The latest figures focus on a more specific question: whether men’s conduct itself accounts for a substantial share of the challenges women face.
Among young Democrat women, two-thirds answered that it does to “a great deal.”
Among young Republican women, fewer than one in five agreed to that extent.
The contrast narrows somewhat among older women but never disappears. Even among women 65 and older, Democrat respondents were three times as likely as Republicans to give the strongest response, 48% compared with 16%.
The polling comes amid broader debate over changing expectations for men and women, relationships, work and family life.
A separate Economist/YouGov survey conducted from July 31 to Aug. 3, 2026, asked Americans whether, if either option were available, they would rather pursue a career outside the home or stay home to care for their family.
Women overall were evenly divided: 43% chose a career and 43% said they would stay home to care for their family, while 14% were unsure.
Party differences were also visible, although the often-cited 52% figure applied to Democrats overall rather than specifically Democratic women. Fifty-two percent of Democrats said they would choose a career outside the home, compared with 45% of Republicans. Republicans were more likely to favor staying home, 44% to 30%. The Economist/YouGov poll surveyed 1,609 U.S. adult citizens and reported an overall margin of error of approximately 3.6 percentage points.
Taken together, the surveys illustrate substantial divisions in how Americans view gender roles and the sources of difficulties experienced by men and women.
The Survey Center findings are especially notable because those divisions do not simply separate men from women.
They also divide women sharply by political affiliation and age.
Among Democrat women under 50, majorities said men’s behavior or actions contribute “a great deal” to the challenges women face in American society.
Among Republican women in every age group, fewer than one-quarter said the same, with the exception of those ages 50 to 64, where the figure reached 25%.
The reverse question produced less willingness among men to assign the strongest level of responsibility to women.
Only 16% of men overall said women’s actions account “a great deal” for the challenges men face.
The result does not establish why individual respondents answered as they did or which specific challenges they had in mind. The question did not ask respondents to identify particular problems such as employment discrimination, relationships, violence, family responsibilities or economic inequality.
Instead, it measured a broader perception of how much responsibility members of the opposite sex bear for challenges affecting men or women in American society.
On that question, the Survey Center found its sharpest divide among young women: 66% of Democrats ages 18 to 29 selected the strongest level of attribution to men, compared with 18% of Republicans their age.
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