They doubt they're 'good enough': Inside the dangerous MAGA shift among young women

As a young girl growing up in the 2010s, my peers and I were brought up watching ad campaigns like the one from Always in 2014 called “#likeagirl”. It portrayed young girls and women pushing back against the narrative of women being weak and the advertisements showed examples of women’s strength, education, and bravery.

At just 10 years old, they made me feel like I could do or be anything. But fast forward a decade later, and I walk in my local mall to see trendy adult shirts with the saying “I’m just a girl.” Peers around me in class refuse to do certain things, proclaiming, “I am just a girl.” I can’t help but wonder: Why are the women I grew up with, the same women (and men) who came of age surrounded by themes of women’s empowerment, suddenly letting their womanhood be a topic to laugh at?

Studies have shown women already are less likely to hold public office — not because they lose more, but because they doubt they’re “good enough,” a belief shaped by growing up in a patriarchal system. The “Like a Girl” campaign represents that patriarchal system, the difference between how young girls and older women understood what the operative phrase meant. While young girls found it empowering, adult women recognized that it had been used to demean them their whole lives.

Despite growing up in an era of girl-power campaigns and feminist rhetoric, young women today are becoming disengaged because progressive political outreach has failed to meet them where they are. Meanwhile, conservative politicians have coaxed them into a social conservative shift, taking advantage of younger generations who do not remember a time where we did not have a woman running for the presidency, the rights granted to all of us by Roe v. Wade or the #MeToo movement.

This isn’t just a feeling, but a fact. According to Tufts University’s CIRCLE research center, young women turned out for Democrats 65% in 2020 with Joe Biden on the ticket, but only 58% for 2024 with Kamala Harris on their ballot.

Weeks before the election, Turning Point Action hosted a Bring Your Own Ballot party with Donald Trump Jr. at Varsity Tavern on Mill Avenue in Tempe. Walking across the Arizona State University campus on Election Day expecting to see maroon and gold, I only saw a sea of red MAGA hats worn by students excited to vote, many for the first time.

Arizona’s upcoming 2026 election will place our statewide candidates up for re-election, the first line of defense we have between Arizonans and Donald Trump’s policies. His administration, while having promised no federal abortion ban, has been getting an increasingly more amount of criticism on the issue.

We can and must fight back. The grassroots organization Keep Arizona Blue is doing just that, texting hundreds of thousands of young voters, calling tens of thousands more, and hiring 16fellows across the state to make real peer-to-peer connections. Created and led by students, this type of organizing allows for a pulse on young people and effective outreach to them.

Yelling out “I am just a girl” and laughing with friends may seem funny at the moment, but it bolsters the mindset driving far-right policies like the SAVE Act, infringement on reproductive rights and elimination of the Gender Policy Council. Ultimately, those things may just be what turns that laughter about being a girl into action that protects girls and women.

Candidates must do better at reaching out and listening to young people to better implement tangible policies they will feel the effects of in their day-to-day lives. If not, we will continue to see conservative extremists rise to power through an election decided by the size of a classroom.

Arizona Mirror is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Arizona Mirror maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jim Small for questions: info@azmirror.com.