There Is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the Twenty-First Century

by Fiona Hill

This gender wage gap, combined with the central role that women play in supporting their families, would in turn help to explain some of the grim political trends that swept the world in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. It was certainly emblematic that in the 2016 American presidential election, almost 40 percent of women voters would opt for Donald Trump and his promise to blow up the existing social system, despite his open and unabashed misogyny during the campaign. In the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and every other country, the obstacles to opportunity—to accessing an education, finding a job, earning sufficient money to thrive, not just survive—no matter what form they come in, contribute to economic hardship. Over time the reality as well as the perception of being unfairly disadvantaged in some way and denied social mobility hardens into political grievance. People want their government to do something to address their difficulties. They want their political system to deliver some relief and to level the playing field. In the early 2000s, all the gaps and discrepancies that had built up in the 1980s and 1990s in advanced societies would push those who were most affected (and thus disaffected) toward politicians who promised to change the situation in some dramatic fashion—even, in the Russian case under Vladimir Putin, at the cost of curtailing their political freedoms.