You only have to read a little to know that misunderstandings and conflicts between men and women have been part of the human condition since the time of Achilles and Helen of Troy.
But today everything indicates that a war of the sexes is coming, never seen before in terms of equality, noise and confusion.
I say this, or suspect it, following a series of investigations cited in a recent Financial Times article.
His conclusion is that the famous polarization that defines our era extends with unexpected speed to the field of gender.
The results of surveys carried out on all continents show that a great ideological gap has opened between young women and men, specifically among those who belong to Generation Z, those born at the end of the last century or at the beginning of the 21st.
Until just six years ago there were no significant political differences between women and men between 18 and 30 years old, but since then the gap has been widening.
Women tend more and more to the left, men to the right.
A survey in Spain, for example, indicates that more than 64% of Vox voters are men, while only 35% are women.
In Argentina, more men voted for Javier Milei than women.
In the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany there are 30 percent more women with progressive ideas than men.
In China, South Korea and even Tunisia the difference is even greater.
Around the world, the Financial Times finds, this divergence in political values or sympathy is much more pronounced among youth than among people aged 30 and up.
Everything indicates that tens of millions of young men and women who share the same cities, universities or workplaces identify with radically opposite ideas on issues such as immigration, racial justice, the distribution of public money and, of course, feminism. .
Contrary to what one would have expected, surveys also say that it is easier to find a man over 60 in favor of feminism than one of 25. Generation Z is, in effect, not one generation but two, divided by chromosomes.
What's going on?
There are several theories about it.
One, this ideological bifurcation coincides with the appearance seven years ago of the #Metoo movement, a feminist revolt against machismo that inevitably found much more echo among girls than boys.
They radicalized, or at least took a turn to the left, while they either stayed where they were or hardened their positions and counterattacked by taking a turn to the right.
We can assume that social networks have consolidated the trend.
People concentrate on their ideological silos, communicate with those who reinforce their ideas and do not listen to opposing opinions.
Or, rather, he doesn't even know that other opinions exist.
Influencers such as the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate, a former British-American boxer, have conquered the hearts of many millions of male followers with messages that promote male solidarity in the face of the perceived #Metooist onslaught or that directly advocate a return to the happy and far from distant times when men ruled and women focused on the home or polishing their sexual charms.
Beyond the internet, in the real world, men of Generation Z have been witnessing – many would regret “suffering” – a revolution in the world of education.
What has never been seen in the history of humanity, in country after country, women get better grades in school and today occupy more university positions than men.
It's no surprise that the boys are on the defensive;
that they are attracted to more and more figures who want to turn back time like Javier Milei or Santiago Abascal or Donald Trump.
Changes in the power relationship between genders are advancing at dizzying speed.
In the blink of an eye, social structures that had remained firm since when men went out to hunt for food and women cooked it, while giving birth to children and caring for them, have been inverted or seriously altered.
Almost 50 years ago, when I was contemplating which university to go to, there was one that really attracted me for the simple fact that it had the highest proportion of girls in the entire country, 35 percent.
In the end I went to another where for every woman there were five men.
It was assumed that when looking for a good job, women would offer minimal competition.
Today the situation will not be exactly the other way around, but we are on that path.
The response that contemporary Orthodoxy demands is “How good!
Justice is finally done for women!”
And, yes, there is plenty to celebrate.
But there are dangers ahead.
On the one hand, a world in which politics becomes more and more a frontal clash between genders is not presented as very healthy.
Will we come to war between men and women?
Let's hope not.
But before reaching an extreme that today smacks of science fiction, what is presented as an imminent reality is that relationships are going to become even more complicated than has been usual since the story began to be written. .
In the best of cases, they will provide a lot of comedy.
At worst, we will see a drastic decline in the reproduction of the species.
Finding a partner in a context of growing divergence of values between men and women will be a challenge.
As it will also be if the gap continues to widen in educational terms, in intelligence in the traditional sense of the word, measured in studies and knowledge.
What is clear is that a period of readjustment is coming in the sexual field.
After a while it is assumed that a new balance will be achieved.
But in the meantime, perhaps for a couple of generations, men will be perplexed and frustrated and more than one woman will wonder if the conquests achieved were worth the price, if they will be completely happy in a world of victorious Barbies in conflict with confused Kens, frustrated and -according to ancestral canons- emasculated.