At Oglethorpe University, outside Atlanta, Ashleigh Ewald says her conservative-leaning professors are all predicting a Trump victory this fall. But she thinks they’re overlooking a key factor.

“What they don’t understand is that Gen Z is a force to be reckoned with,” says Ms. Ewald, a senior studying political science. That’s especially true, she adds, when it comes to women in Generation Z like herself. 

Every U.S. presidential election since 1980 has had a gender gap. And with just weeks to go before November’s vote, this year is no different: Polls show a majority of female voters of all ages prefer Vice President Kamala Harris, while a majority of men overall prefer former President Donald Trump. 

Among the youngest subset of voters, however, that gap is looking more like a chasm. 

An August New York Times/Siena College poll of swing states found women under 30 years old favoring Ms. Harris by almost 40 points, while men of that same age group favored Mr. Trump by 13 points. Put another way, 67% of young women said they would support Ms. Harris, compared with just 40% of young men – a 27-point gender gap that outranks the divide for all other age groups.

A poll released this week by Harvard’s Institute of Politics found even higher support for Ms. Harris across the United States among women under the age of 30 – with 70% of them backing the vice president over Mr. Trump. That same poll reported 53% of men under 30 nationwide supporting Ms. Harris. 

Brynn Anderson/AP

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris react as she walks on stage at the beginning of a campaign event Sept. 20, 2024, in Atlanta.

Mr. Trump has been improving his margins among younger men who consider themselves “politically homeless” and are open to Republicans’ appeals on cultural issues and masculinity, says Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men. But young men’s drift to the right was predated by an even bigger shift of young women in the opposite direction, he adds.

Having come of age during Mr. Trump’s presidency, the #MeToo movement, and the overturning of Roe v. Wade, many young women say they are ready for a second wave of feminism to take back the nation’s politics. When Ms. Harris replaced President Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee, the party’s support among young women surged – something the Harris campaign has been quick to capitalize on through social media and what was dubbed the first “Influencer Convention” as she was nominated in Chicago this summer.  

Some analysts caution that polls represent only small slices of the electorate, and those slices shrink even further, sometimes to just a few hundred respondents, when zooming in on one demographic group within the poll results. Still, the widening gender gap among young people has appeared consistent across polls. It’s a trend that could impact far more than just this year’s presidential election – suggesting a future red-blue divide that may be shaped more by gender than by geography. If women in the rising generation are becoming dramatically more liberal while men stay closer to the middle or even move to the right, that could have profound implications not just for politics but also for dating, marriage, and social cohesion overall.

“I don’t think this is going to be one of those things we look back on and say, ‘Oh, we made a big fuss over this for nothing,’” says Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. 

Megan Varner/Reuters

Former President Donald Trump gives a campaign speech at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center in Savannah, Georgia, Sept. 24, 2024.

Shifting left on abortion, environment, guns

Although young people are typically less likely to vote than older generations (only 38% say they are “almost certain” they will vote in November, compared with 49% to 64% of older generations who say the same), Gen Z voters attend political rallies and volunteer at higher rates than older Americans. 

“I went to my first march with my mom, my sister, and my dance friends the year that Trump decided to run,” says Audra Clear, a senior at Gannon University in Erie, Pennsylvania, who was in eighth grade at the time. “That was the first time that I truly felt like I cared about anything other than myself.”

Recently, Ms. Clear has been helping to spread the word online about an upcoming Women’s Freedom Rally in the city of Erie, a critical swing county in what may be the most critical swing state this fall. Like Ms. Ewald, Ms. Clear says abortion rights is the top issue motivating her to vote in November.

A Gallup analysis from earlier this month found that women between the ages of 18 and 29 lurched leftward during the Trump and Biden administrations on the issues of abortion rights, the environment, and guns, helping to push their overall political leanings to the left. Between 2001 and 2016, around 30% of young women self-identified as “liberal,” a rate that was 3 to 5 points higher than for young men. Between 2017 and 2024, however, that number went up to 40% – 15 points above their male counterparts. 

The fact that young women, regardless of educational attainment or race, are citing specific policies like abortion as driving their liberal identity makes the shift “substantive,” says Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research at Gallup. 

“It’s not just a [new] comfort level with the term ‘liberal,’” says Ms. Saad. “They are adopting more liberal positions, and are doing so to a stronger degree.”

Beyond events such as the Trump presidency and the Supreme Court’s 2022 ruling that overturned a national right to abortion, Ms. Saad and her fellow researchers say it’s too early to know definitively what’s causing the shift. But Americans’ increasing reliance on social media for news may have “influenced young women differently,” they write.  

“People my age get their news from social media,” says Ms. Ewald. “And I think that social media is on Kamala’s side. Her speeches have turned into whole memes.” 

Jim Vondruska/Reuters

Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris attend a campaign event in Madison, Wisconsin, Sept. 20, 2024.

The social media effect

The youngest generation, not surprisingly, spends the most time online – with one survey finding that over 60% of Gen Z spends at least four hours a day on social media, and evidence suggesting that young women are even more glued to their phones than young men are. That’s especially true when it comes to TikTok. 

“This is being called the ‘TikTok election,’ so if we are going to look somewhere [to understand the Gen Z gender gap] we might want to start there,” says Zeve Sanderson, director of New York University’s Center for Social Media & Politics. 

Other social media sites like Facebook have a “social graph structure,” in which users follow friends and family and they exist in similar online spaces. But on sites like TikTok, algorithms dictate feeds, making the content more tailored – meaning young women often see totally different content than young men do. Often, the two aren’t even on the same sites. Young men spend more time in online spaces like Twitch or video game chat rooms, says Mr. Sanderson, where different conversations can be happening altogether. 

Recognizing an opportunity with young male voters (another Harvard poll this spring found that before Mr. Biden dropped out of the race, Mr. Trump was running just 6 points behind him among young men, after trailing by 26 points in 2020), the Trump campaign has leaned into these alternative spaces. Mr. Trump has appeared with influencers such as Adin Ross, Logan Paul, and Theo Von, who are popular among young men, including conservative-leaning ones in particular. 

But Mr. Reeves thinks Republicans’ incremental success with younger men has more to do with Democrats’ prioritization of young female voters and their concerns. 

“Right now on the cultural level, there is a sense that the right and Republicans are more attuned to men,” says Mr. Reeves. “Young men are struggling in ways that are different to young women. ... And it feels like there has been a decision among Democrats that they were going to win with the votes of women, so they are more reluctant to campaign on issues of importance to young men.”

Democrats could be doing more to highlight the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill, notes Mr. Reeves, and the jobs that it is creating for young men in particular. 

As successful as KamalaHQ (the Harris campaign’s TikTok account) has been in connecting with younger voters, Ms. Clear agrees that the vice president could do a better job reaching young men. She’s hopeful some young men will participate in the Erie Democrats’ women’s rally on Saturday. Despite the name, she says, it’s not meant to be a “women-only” event, but rather one that’s focused on one of the most important policy issues of the 2024 campaign. 

“I think there will be more men there than we think,” says Ms. Clear. “They may be husbands or boyfriends – they are there and getting educated.”

Stephanie Grooms/Marine Corps Heritage Foundation

Grace Zaczek (center) officially dedicates the respite room at the National Museum of the Marine Corps. The museum opened the space this year as a resource for visitors grappling with wounds of war.

At the National Museum of the Marine Corps, staffers are getting training in how to spot folks who might be feeling post-traumatic stress while visiting the very realistic installations. There is a brief recap of the best – and worst – ways to reach out.

“Who wants to run up and hug them?” asks Michael Murray, a retired Marine running the workshop on this late-summer day. A few hands go up. “Yeah, don’t,” he says. “Slow your roll.” 

Likewise, approaching museum guests from the front is confrontational, from behind a potential ambush. From the side, in their sightline, “with empathy,” he says, is the way to go.

And if they don’t want help, that’s OK, too. The key is “giving ground and then turning away, gently, slowly, warmly,” adds Mr. Murray, founder of the Liberty Organization for Veterans and Emergency Responders. “There’s a possibility that they will come back to you.”

The occasion for the training is the opening of what the museum has dubbed its “respite room,” designed for guests grappling with wounds of war, or simply in need of a quiet place to reflect on comrades, loved ones, and battles fought long ago. 

Some find it surprising that it’s an initiative of the Marine Corps, which takes great satisfaction from its cultivated image as the roughest and toughest of America’s fighters.

But creating a respite room, with the implicit acknowledgment of its need, can help act as a “shock absorber” for those who are suffering, says retired Maj. Gen. James Lukeman, president of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

Just having it on-site can also open up a conversation about post-traumatic stress, he notes.

Stephanie Grooms/Marine Corps Heritage Foundation

The respite room is not just for veterans but also for any noncombatants who may feel a need for its comfort and privacy, at the National Museum of the Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia.

“I don’t see it as any kind of admission of weakness. It’s, ‘Hey, we’re leading the way in taking care of our own.’

“Once a Marine, always a Marine. Whether you’ve served four years or 40 years, we love you,” he adds, “and we’re going to take care of you forever.”

Recognizing the need for care

The exhibits here are designed to be immersive – cooler temperatures to represent mountainous climes, recordings of explosions, and flashing lights help paint a picture of epic fights. During the Korean War Battle of Chosin Reservoir, for example, 15,000 American troops, mostly Marines, were cut off from supply lines, knee-deep in snow, and surrounded by 120,000 Chinese soldiers.

Frostbitten forces batted back grenades with shovels as the bolts on their rifles froze in blizzards. Medics momentarily warmed their hands in their injured comrades’ spilled blood. 

“I’ve been cold ever since,” recalled a Navy doctor, one of the vets who referred to themselves as the Chosin Few.

Still, they kept fighting and executed a remarkable retreat despite heavy losses. “All right, they’re on our left; they’re on our right; they’re in front of us; they’re behind us – they can’t get away this time,” legendary Marine Lt. Gen. Lewis “Chesty” Puller is rumored to have remarked.

These stories of characteristic Marine Corps bravado – relayed with a wink and a smile, but at the heart of the service’s ethos – make the respite room a notable, and necessary, addition to the museum, experts say.

Wounds of war have been alternately acknowledged and shrugged off throughout military history. “I started to work on combat trauma in the late ’70s, and there was no post-traumatic stress disorder,” says Terence Keane, director of the behavioral science division of the National Center for PTSD, who spoke at the respite room’s opening. 

But in the years since, health professionals say there has been growing recognition of the condition, and of the fact that veterans and fighting forces respond well when care is provided. “The progress has been simply astounding,” Dr. Keane says.

The respite room is across the corridor from the museum’s new Afghanistan and Iraq War permanent exhibits, opening in October.

These installations will bear witness to big Marine Corps battles of recent decades – Fallujah, Ramadi, the hard exit from Afghanistan. In doing so, they may also stir up emotions and even memories of moral injury – which can happen when soldiers see or take part in events that go against their values and moral beliefs – Mr. Murray says.

Veterans of America’s most recent wars have not yet had the time to process their experiences that, say, Vietnam-era forces have had, adds David Vickers, a retired Marine and deputy director of the museum.

The hope is that the respite room will be a “subtle but meaningful way” to do that.

A spot for healing

A former restroom transformed by warm wood accents, cozy armchairs, and succulents, the respite room has relaxing spa music designed to soothe and provide some noise-canceling privacy. 

It also has tissues, a mirror, and a sink, where visitors can splash a little water on their face if the need arises.

It used to have a heavy metal door that slammed shut – “not the feeling we want to give” to visitors averse to being trapped in, General Lukeman says. 

Today, that has changed. There’s a new opaque glass door with an "occupied" sign but no lock, because those had occasionally proved problematic for museum guests in crisis. 

“Sometimes we had to get security to open the door,” he says. 

The room is not just for veterans, but for noncombatants, too, caught up in the tragedy of war. Mr. Vickers recalls giving a tour years ago when “an older Vietnamese lady came up, just crying her eyes out.”

Her dad had been a councilman for the Vietnamese city of Hue, and communist adversaries had put him on a list to be shot. She was hurt and hiding with her family as a little girl when Marines found them and got her care. 

In one of the museum’s realistic displays, a child roughly her age at the time was shown injured in the same spot on the body.

“I wish we would have had a respite room at the time,” Mr. Vickers adds. “I would’ve said, ‘Hey, come on. Let’s take a moment.’ It was extremely emotional for her.”

Often veteran visitors are inspired to share stories that they've never shared before. When this happens, it helps, Mr. Vickers adds, to have a quiet place where they can go and talk and families can record the stories for posterity.

“You’re in the business of capturing – of bringing forth – memories,” Martha Corvea, clinical research director with Mr. Murray’s Liberty Organization, tells the museum staff. 

“You’re in the right business to take a moment in their lives – to take a piece of themselves and an experience that they’ve been through – and to make it a healing one.”

“Junior” meanders down a residential sidewalk in Sierra Madre, California, unbothered by whoever is recording his stroll from the safety of a car. The viral video of the large black bear is the latest in what seems like a steady stream of bear encounters in the greater Los Angeles area.  

Junior got his name from a couple under whose home the bear has decided to nest, and this week uniformed officers were checking out the property while local news outlets reported from the couple’s front lawn about whether the bear will be removed. 

Sierra Madre, which sits in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains on the eastern edge of LA, is a “hot spot” for human-black bear interactions. Police in this 3-square-mile suburb received 307 calls about bears in 2023 – triple that of the year before; and there were 91 from March through May this year, the Los Angeles Daily News reported in June. 

A less formal survey (internet search) highlights an abundance of LA-area bear videos: One bear cools off in a backyard kiddie pool in Monrovia, also in the San Gabriel foothills, on a 108-degree day. Another, a little farther west, rummages through trash cans in Pacific Palisades. And just last Sunday the Los Angeles Times ran a Page 1 story about bears’ ability to open doors.

National Park Service/AP/File

A 210-pound black bear was caught in a natural area of the Santa Monica Mountains near Los Angeles in May 2023. It was the first National Park Service capture and radio-collaring of a bear in that urban national park, where mountain lions have been studied for decades.

Generally speaking, says a spokesperson for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, trash is the greatest lure. And bears will return to places where they’ve been successful before – one bear, for instance, has been traveling back and forth for months between the San Gabriel Mountains and Malibu, where the county meets the sea. 

With 40 million people, and between 50,000 and 80,000 bears roaming the state, human-bear encounters here are not novel – more than 6,000 incidents of bear-human conflict were reported from 2017 through 2022, more than doubling in the last two years of that period.   

Officials say it may just be as much increased awareness – through improved reporting, home security cameras, and social media – as it is an increase in bear-human encounters.

Yet seeing one up close hasn’t lost its wonder.

More bear sightings means preservation success

Thirty-five miles across the county, where I’ve recently moved to the western edge of the San Fernando Valley, I glance up at my 11-year-old bichon frise, Rocky. He’s curled up on a blue velvet chair, sleeping in a sunbeam, oblivious to the wild creatures that share these streets with us. When I moved in over the summer, the first thing my neighbor suggested is that I carry pepper spray on my walks. Coyote protection, he said – everyone here has it. 

Courtesy of Audra Donahue

Junior, a sizable black bear, has been living in the crawl space of a Sierra Madre, California, home near this scene. Audra Donahue had walked across this sidewalk just "two seconds" before she noticed Junior lumbering by, she says. This is a screen grab of the video she took from the safety of her car.

My neighborhood, along with dozens more, is nestled in the Santa Monica Mountains – the world’s largest urban national park, which runs about 40 miles through the middle of Los Angeles to the Pacific Ocean. Just a few minutes away, the nation’s largest wildlife crossing is being built over U.S. Highway 101, opening the door for more animal migration. And they have space to move around: 35% of Los Angeles County is preserved wildland. That’s 900,000 acres – close to the size of Rhode Island.

The idea of Los Angeles as a wildlife preserve disrupts its image of glitzy urban sprawl. But the topography of the Wild West rises up through a web of concrete roads dotted with clusters of glass high-rises. Drive down any of LA’s broad four- or six-lane boulevards lined with strip malls, and you appear to be heading into the base of a mountain range.

The wildlife that lives here should inspire us to be grateful, says Steve Searles, a bear expert who sees the prevalence of bears as good news. “If you have mountain lions, gray fox, bears, I think it’s the coolest thing in the world because it gives me some hope that [we haven’t destroyed it all].”

Mr. Searles spent decades working for Mammoth Lakes, in the Sierra Nevada, as a wildlife specialist, and advises communities throughout North America on how best to live alongside bears. He’s also written a book about it: “What the Bears Know.” 

California Department of Fish and Wildlife

A black bear captured on a California Department of Fish and Wildlife camera pauses near a door to a crawl space in which he has taken up residence. The owners of the Sierra Madre home, Bob and Susan Nesler, named him Junior.

It takes me a beat to understand the import when he starts talking about his recent trip to the Mojave Desert – yes, the desert – where bears have moved into a wind farm. Along with the windmills came huge underground tunnels and large ponds for cooling systems – habitat and water to the bears. Plus, people moving to the area to work the wind farm brought additional garbage. That’s bear food.     

“The bears are really happy we’re here,” he says. “They’re really happy we’re developing lands. They think we’re great neighbors until they catch a bullet.”

Mr. Searles is still angry about Victor, a bear euthanized by wildlife officials on Aug. 21 in Mammoth Lakes after it injured a woman in a picnicking group that was taking selfies with the bear in the background. Officials decided Victor was too comfortable with humans. They discarded the bear in a landfill, leading to outrage. The local Paiute Tribe then collected the body for a Native burial.  

But bear attacks are rare. Since 1900, black bears have killed 61 people throughout North America. The first fatal bear attack in California was just last year. Bears are a thousand times stronger than humans, but they avoid conflict, says Mr. Searles.  

And if you bump into one? “Say a prayer,” he says. “Be grateful, not fearful.”

Of all the options for a night out in Boston, an immigration lawyer’s office probably doesn’t rank high on many lists. Yet that’s where Hayley Licata and Renee Tracy found themselves last fall. The two recent college grads had such a blast that they’ve opted to repeat the experience.

Tonight, they’ve arrived at a barbershop. This location was a secret – just as the law office had been. A man at the door checks that they’re on the guest list. Then he welcomes them to Don’t Tell Comedy.

Every weekend, in over 200 cities around the world, Don’t Tell Comedy hosts secret shows by stand-up comedians. Venues range from boxing gyms to boats. For one night only, this dimly lit salon in Somerville, Massachusetts, has been transformed into a pop-up comedy club. In one corner, a microphone stand basks in the flat halo of a spotlight. Forty folding chairs have been set up between work stations sporting arrays of electric razors. The audience is primed for cutting wit.

“This is our girls’ night,” says Ms. Tracy. “It’s more of an event than just putting something on the TV. We like to get out and try new things, see new places. When else would I go to this barbershop?”

Brooke Holder/The Christian Science Monitor

Hayley Licata (left) and Renee Tracy attend a Don't Tell Comedy show at Barber's Den, Sept. 14, 2024, in Somerville, Massachusetts. Audience members are not emailed the location of the event until the morning of the show.

“I wanted to know if we’d be sitting in, like, the barber chairs,” says Ms. Licata.

Founded in 2017, Don’t Tell Comedy has had a success that reflects the remarkable boom of live comedy since the pandemic. In large part, the demand for stand-up has been fueled by filmed specials on streaming platforms and funny clips on TikTok and YouTube. But, paradoxically, it’s also a reaction to those media. Events such as Don’t Tell Comedy are inspiring people to get off their couches, because online entertainment is no substitute for participating in intimate, in-person events.

“It feels a little bit like magic,” says Brendan Eyre, the headliner among the five performers at the barbershop. “There’s something about the experience of being in the room. It’s generally you’re packed in kind of tight. You’re sharing an experience with strangers. You’re laughing at the same thing. They’re laughing at the same thing, which brings people together. You feel a sense of community.”

Comedy’s cultural influence has never been higher. The top 30 comedy tours of 2023 grossed over $513 million. This year’s grosses are expected to be even higher, according to Pollstar, the trade publication for live entertainment. The likes of Nate Bargatze and Kevin Hart play 19,000-seat arenas. Gabriel Iglesias can fill stadiums. In an era of siloed entertainment with fewer mainstream movies, TV shows, and albums, comedy appeals to wide swaths of people from disparate backgrounds. Jesse David Fox, a humor critic at Vulture, says that comedy is the art of taking serious things not seriously. Perfect for the times we’re in.

Brooke Holder/The Christian Science Monitor

Headliner Brendan Eyre waits his turn to perform at the Don't Tell Comedy show at Barber's Den in Somerville, Massachusetts.

“It relieves tension. It eases conflict. It smooths the edges of people who think, ‘Oh, we’re opposed [to each other],’ and then they laugh together,” says Mr. Fox, author of “Comedy Book: How Comedy Conquered Culture.” “I do think life has felt heavy for a lot of people.”

In an era when many people can’t seem to watch television without constantly checking their phones, the audiences for both sets at the barbershop are fully unplugged for more than 70 minutes. Attendees may even become part of the show. For instance, one comedian cracked a joke about first-timers Gilbert Paredes and Kelly Emmons.

“If you sit at the front, they might give you attention,” says Ms. Emmons. “But that’s part of the fun. If you wanted something that was one-way, you would stay at home and watch your TV.”

Mr. Paredes had never attended a live comedy show before. He’s now a convert. Ms. Emmons has previously attended larger shows by the likes of Jared Freid, Matteo Lane, and Mr. Hart. For her, part of the appeal of the inexpensive Don’t Tell Comedy event is discovering talents she hasn’t heard of before. The lineups are a secret prior to each show. (Very occasionally, big-name acts such as Jeff Garlin and Michael Che will drop by to road test new material.)

Tonight, audiences are especially enamored with comic Janet McNamara. She tells the audience about her audition for Season 9 of “American Idol.”

“You know how they have ‘bad people’? I was one of the bad people,” Ms. McNamara tells the room, which erupts with laughter. “I went on as, like, a goof to make my friends laugh. But then it didn’t occur to me that it would be on TV.”

Ms. McNamara, who mercifully didn’t sing during her set, performed at the first-ever Don’t Tell Comedy show. It was staged in a backyard in Los Angeles in 2017. She says fringe stand-up venues aren’t a novel concept – shows in laundromats predate Don’t Tell Comedy – but what the company does especially well is showcase fast-rising stars on its YouTube channel. Case in point: Susan Rice, a septuagenarian comic from Portland, Oregon.

Brooke Holder/The Christian Science Monitor

Comedian Glennis LaRoe performs her second show of the night at a barbershop in Somerville, Massachusetts, Sept. 14, 2024. All performers’ identities are kept secret from the Don't Tell Comedy audience until it arrives at the venue.

“Her set really just did well,” says Don’t Tell Comedy’s chief operating officer, Brett Kushner. “It’s over a million [viewers] now. She’s now taping her special down in LA from that momentum.”

Even so, the company’s focus remains converting home viewers into live-show customers. It tends to draw a lot of first-timers, and its audiences are often younger than at traditional comedy clubs. For millennials and Generation Z, humor is one of the main ways they connect with others.

“[Their] relationship to comedy is like what music was to previous generations,” says Mr. Fox. “It is how they express themselves.”

When young friends Vincent Ho and Bee Hou emerge from the barbershop, they’re still laughing. Mr. Ho came across Don’t Tell Comedy via its YouTube channel.

“If you’re able to go in person, actually being there ... it’s more fulfilling than just being at home,” he says.

Mr. Hou adds that even though social media is supposed to bring people together, there’s always an unbridgeable digital distance.

“People just need to experience life,” says Mr. Hou. “Go out!”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Hayley Licata’s first name in a photo caption.

AP

Women and children gather in a Buddhist monastery in Naypyitaw, Myanmar, after a recent flood, Sept. 15.

In September, the junta that has ruled Myanmar since a 2021 coup began to draft young women into the army. That may seem like an embrace of equality. It is not. The military top brass still reflects deep patriarchal traditions. The coup leader has criticized women for wearing pants during past protests for democracy.

Women account for nearly 1 in 5 of those killed by the junta since the coup. About a fifth of political dissidents in detention are women, notably Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi, whose elected government was overthrown nearly four years ago.

The military is drafting women out of desperation for new soldiers. Young men are fleeing a widening net of forced conscription, or soldiers are defecting from the ranks. One reason: The civil war is slowly being won by armed militias of a pro-democracy coalition formed after the coup. The military now controls fewer than 100 of Myanmar’s 350 towns.

Yet another reason may be that one of the world’s longest-running violent conflicts is focused on civic equality. The promise – and lately the reality – of equal treatment for women has proved to be a great motivator in the fight for a civilian-run democracy.

“A young generation, particularly women, are at the forefront of Myanmar’s armed and non-violent resistance,” stated the International Crisis Group in a report earlier this year, “challenging longstanding age and gender norms and hierarchies.” The war’s outcome may be uncertain, the report found, but “Changing norms within the anti-military resistance may well shape politics and society more broadly.”

Whether women operate in all-female militias or in support roles, their participation in the pro-democracy groups governing much of the country is unprecedented in Myanmar’s history. Gender discrimination is still evident in much of the resistance. Only about a fifth of the Cabinet members in the National Unity Government that controls parts of liberated territory are women. Still, “Norms have been challenged and women feel more empowered to take part in politics,” one woman in the Bamar People’s Liberation Army told Crisis Group.

Radio Free Asia reports that many women have taken up arms because they “could no longer tolerate the unlawful killings and arrests of their gender.” One young woman killed during the postcoup protests in 2021 – in which an estimated 60% of demonstrators were women – was Kyal Sin, also known as Angel. For some reason, Angel wore a T-shirt on the day she was shot that read, “Everything will be OK.” The phrase has since become a motto in the pro-democracy movement.

In a public tribute to Angel last year, activist Thinzar Shunlei Yi of the group Sisters 2 Sisters asked rhetorically if this phrase was just naive optimism. “Not necessarily,” she said. Angel knew that all things change. “This is the wisdom of a young person. We know that we will change, and we are determined to have a political system that allows us to breathe and thrive.

“When we hear a young person say, ‘Everything will be ok,’ let us listen to them, let us hear their voice, and let us help them gain the representation that is their birthright.”