My activist group is about 80% women. Where did all the men go – and how can we get them back?
I
n Donald Trump’s first term, my Brooklyn-based activist group had the peculiar dynamic of being started by two men while being composed of about 65% women. Since November 2024, our group has doubled in size, and the gender imbalance has tipped even further: we are now about 80% women.
Almost 18 months into Trump’s second term, it is abundantly clear that the appetite for anti-Trump, pro-democracy activism has not dimmed at all. And yet, there is a substantial portion of the populace that, in my experience as an activist, seems to have lost its fervor for the fight.
If I see two other men’s faces at one of my group’s events, it feels like we’ve had a pretty good masculine turnout. Bigger events like the No Kings rallies feature more men, but nearly everywhere we go under Trump 2.0, there is a notable paucity of men. “When we look at the demographics of Resistance 2.0 there is overwhelming consistency,” writes Dana R Fisher, who studies civic engagement at American University. “Participants are predominantly white, highly-educated, female, and middle-aged.” During Trump’s first term, things were similar: Laura Putnam and Theda Skocpol reported that women comprised “70% of the participants and most members of the leadership teams”. There is also a well-documented gender gap in Trump support.
