August 15, 2012 • 26 mins
It's true: Women tend to vote more Democratic than men in the U.S. Join Caroline and Cristen as they explore the relationship between politics and gender, including how men and women see the role of government differently and the myth of the "pink vote."
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You?
From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And since it is August
(00:23):
of two thousand twelve, I think we can say that
the presidential election season, though it may be in November
taking place, is in full swing. Attack ads, fact checking campaigns,
baby kissing buttons, but political buttons, um And one big
(00:49):
theme of this election cycle has been the female vote.
For a while there, it seemed like everywhere you turn
it was it was just a vagina of vagina vagina people.
There were all these arguments about what birth control meant,
how we should be giving people birth control, whether we
(01:11):
should be giving people birth control, women's bodies, who has
control over them, et cetera, and who will provide the
most of these uh, these platforms that are typically associated
with women and our causes that we like to support,
um everyone, it seems like it's pandering for the female vote.
(01:31):
So the question we wanted to answer is whether or
not women really do vote all that differently from men.
Because I remember a few months ago, I posted something
on our Facebook page about how politicians recording the female vote.
I believe it was specifically how the Democratic Party was
(01:53):
targeting the female vote, And there were a lot of
commenters who took offense at women being seen as this,
you know, monolithic voting block. If you have a vagina,
you will vote such and so, because obviously it's not
it's not entirely true or else a politician political strategy
(02:16):
would be quite easier exactly. Well, you know, women as
a whole, I mean, if we are talking in terms
of blocks, women did not really vote in huge numbers
until kind of recently in our history. Yeah, and the
things really started to ramp up in the sixties, seventies,
(02:38):
and eighties, which coincides with the influx of women into
the workplace, UM and also the rise of second wave feminism,
which we tend to give hat tips to UM. And
it was around this time that that, yeah, we really
started to get more politically active, even though we had
(02:59):
had the right to vote in the United States since
nineteen twenty with the nineteenth Amendment. So in nineteen eighty
we have Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, Old Reagan coming in
with a lot of a lot of good messages you
know about about family values and such. But he was
also emphasizing during his campaign staunch opposition to the Equal
(03:24):
Rights Amendment, which was something that UM feminist especially wanted
to get past. It would be a constitutional amendment basically
saying that men and women have to be paid the
the same for the same work. UM. And he was
also vocally opposed to reproductive rights. And he also had
(03:45):
an aggressive policy of military containment of communism. So he's
kind of a pretty hawkish which is something that tends
to drive female voters away as well. And so the
combination of all of these platforms, uh had a strange
or at least a novel I should say not strange,
(04:06):
had a novel impact at the polls where for the
very first time, more women voted Democrat than men. Right, Yeah,
there was that gender gap that emerged, and according to
the Pew Research Center, in the two thousand and eight election,
that featured a seven point gender gap and men's and
(04:28):
women's support for the Democratic candidate, and that has been
steady since nineteen eighty. Now, even though I just mentioned
the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights as perhaps reasons
why there was this male female split in that nineteen
eighty election. According to UM a blog post from Real
Clear Politics was looking at this issue. UM, in that
(04:51):
nineteen eighty election, among white women specifically, only six percent
said the r A and abortion were issues that actually
mattered to them. So we have all of these these
pink end quote issues and platforms that we would assume
would get all these women out to the polls, it
might not actually make that huge of a difference among
(05:14):
all of these voting groups within the under the umbrella
of women voters. So, as political scientists for this podcast,
so let's continue to scratch our heads as to what
has shaped this this difference between men and women voting. Yeah,
because obviously it's like christ And said, it's not just gender.
(05:35):
There has to be more that it's affecting decisions because
some types of women go for some policies and platforms
that are radically different from what other women support. And
so obviously, I mean, isn't that we have opinions, We
have opinions. Did you know that men like different things too? Really,
we'll save that for another pot. That's a whole other podcast. Okay,
(05:58):
So to start off there, there are differences between men
and women, And no, I'm not about to go into
any sort of kindergarten discussion about the differences between men
and women. There's study that talks about the theories of
why men and women vote differently. And they talked about
the differences in the political socialization of men and women. Uh,
the link between women voters, growing autonomy, changing marital patterns,
(06:22):
rising divorce rates, the rising levels of feminist consciousness among
women since the sixties, and women's increasing participation in the
labor force. And so they looked at all these different things.
They ran some some scientific tests and studies and beakers
were involved, I'm sure, and they found that really the
workplace participation was the driving factor behind these voting differences. Yeah,
(06:49):
it was all about UM economic independence and how that
was shaping the way women perceived the role of government.
Because is with that you can attach to it um
perhaps pay in the workplace, pay equity in the workplace,
UM welfare, supporting children if they're single mothers. And to
(07:12):
boil it down to three major things. And it's coming
from Susan Carroll, who is out of Rutgers University at
their Center for Women in Politics, she She sums it
up nicely, saying, well, here's the deal. Women are more
likely to be poor old because we all live men
and single, especially single mothers. And um, with the steady
(07:36):
increase in proportion of women into the workplace, we're thinking
about all those factors even more as become become these
economic autonomous beings. Right. And so this study that I
was talking about, it's in the American Journal of Sociology
if you are curious. Um, So, all of a sudden,
women are being exposed to these gender equally inequalities at work,
(07:58):
and they're a little bit more economically independent. They're getting
out of the house, they're developing their developing thoughts, so
to speak. And not to say that if you vote
more conservatively that you aren't developing. No, No, absolutely not.
I was I was being silly. Um No, it's it's
(08:18):
absolutely that just as more women into the workplace, they
are sort of becomes this different perspective that develops. Yeah.
And then from a more philosophical standpoint, research from the
nonpartisan Pew Research Center have found that women tend to
favor a more active and altruistic role of government, whereas
(08:42):
men prefer to see the government as promoting individualism, not
being quite as heavy handed. And this actually reflects the
kinds of platforms that women would espouse way back when
we first got the vote, ring an era of progressive
(09:03):
maternalist platforms that sought to help out the poor, the children,
and the elderly. Yeah. We um. Basically, we think that
there should be more help for for women, families, men,
everybody in the public sector. And that is because we
tend to depend more as women on the public sector
(09:24):
for the social programs, for employment, for things like that.
And so we do say a higher percentage of women
say that the government should do more for the poor,
the children, and the elderly. Yeah. And this also ties
back to family, which we've already touched on a little bit. Um.
And the thing is, this was something coming out of
a two thousand ten BBC article. Uh, it's less so
(09:46):
much about staying home with the kids these days, but
about finding that work life balance. Um. And they were
talking to Rosie Campbell at University of London and she
offered the example of if I'm going to be out
in the workplace and I need the state to intervene
more to provide things like childcare, which again goes back
(10:06):
to maternalist platforms, which goes back to that altruistic um
framework of government. And we're not saying again were we
were talking women as a giant umbrella right now, we
will start to narrow this down and whittle this down
a little bit more. But as far as large trends go,
that is one of the big things. One of the
(10:27):
major trends that you knew we were going to get
around too was whether a woman is married or single.
And uh, in eleven of single women voters leaned Democratic,
just thirty one leaned towards the GOP. Among married women voters, however,
it was more evenly split to the right and forty
(10:49):
eight percent to the left. And actually, according to the
New York Times, I did not realize this. Uh, single
women are one of the country's fastest growing demographic group,
more than one point eight million more now than just
two years ago. So I don't know what's going on.
But anyway, we as single women make up a quarter
(11:10):
of the voting age population nationally. That's not necessarily people
who are registered to vote, that's just voting age population.
And these these single gals lean Democratic but tend to
be fickle about actually going and casting ballots. Yeah, a
lot of times we um, we will label ourselves as
independent voters or swing voters, will wait till the last
(11:33):
minute to decide who we like. Although I mean waiting
waiting a while to decide who you like. That's not
that's not bad. We're just making up our minds. Yeah, right, Yeah,
everything's fine. Fine, But of course marriage is not. Marital
status is not the only big variable here. Race is
a huge one. Um. We've talked a lot about how
(11:55):
Capital w women swing Democratic, or at least they have
since s nineteen eighty. But if you look at it
on a race racial along racial lines, Democrats have not
actually won white women since nineteen sixty four, which was
reported by the Washington Post. Um, non white women are
(12:17):
far more likely to to vote Democratic. So in this
New York Times article from two thousand eight, looking back
at the two thousand four election, the non white female
vote was twelve percent, So twelve percent of that female
vote was made up of non white women, if I
can say that and not sound confusing. Um, the non
(12:37):
white male vote was just ten percent. So they break
it down as women are as a voting block. Less
white than men were. That's in quotes, and non white
women are more likely to vote Democratic than white women
or non white men. Are you with me? So we
have a more racially female women and have a more
(13:00):
racially diverse voting yes. And in fact Clinton's re election
in marks the only year that Democrats have want a
plurality of the white female vote since nineteen eighty m
And in fact, white women are the largest block of
social conservatives. So there you go. We're a very diverse
(13:20):
group women. We are. We are entirely unpredictable. It seems
like as uh, this podcast goes forward. But one thing
that you can rely on women to do a little
bit more than men come election day in November. That's vote.
We get out to the polls. According to the Center
(13:43):
for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, for each
presidential election from nineteen eighty I mean that is the
watershed year for US nine to two thousand and eight,
our most recent presidential election, more women have cast ballots.
We get an out. We're rocking our vote. We are,
we are and citizens eighteen to forty four higher proportion
(14:07):
of women and men in that age group voted in
two thousand and two thousand four. However, the trend is different.
If you're sixty five enough, the pattern is completely reversed.
More older men, I guess or senior citizen men. Yeah,
and way more women are registered to vote period. Now.
I thought this was interesting though, that more women are
(14:28):
voting because and this is according to Linda Hirschman in
New York Times magazine, men consider it more important to
quote influence the political structure by voting. They have that
more uh vested interests in a way of casting their ballot.
And yet we are doing it in higher numbers than
(14:50):
they are. But again, you know, we do. We do
waffle a little bit more. We tend to be more
um independent and wait till the last minute. Were late deciders.
We are late deciders, um we do. As women make
up a higher number of undecided and swing voters, like
Kristen said earlier. And the reasons for this, they kind
(15:12):
of are their theories. They're all over the map. Are
we less informed about politics? Are we less invested than
men are? Are we more practical, less emotional? So there
are a lot of theories as to why more of
the undecided voters are female. Uh A look at undecided
voters in July blog on the New York Times website,
(15:33):
truly undecided voters tend to be in general less knowledgeable
about politics. But that's not always true, Yeah, I mean, unfortunately.
One of the things that they have cited in terms
of gender differences in voting and um, one of the
reasons why women might be more undecided than men is
that men do tend to take a greater interest in
(15:54):
hard news i e. Like more of the political news
and might keep tabs on it a little bit better
than we do, to which I say, come on, ladies,
read the newspaper or whatever digital thing you have in
front of you. Um. But right now, since we have
mentioned the current election season, according to the Pew Research Center,
(16:15):
President Obama has been doing pretty well among women, although
of course I take all of the polls that come
out every other week with a massive grain of salt,
just because I don't know, I don't trust a lot
of the the election polls seemed to change. Things seem
(16:36):
to kind of roll in waves as you get closer
to the election. Right and right now, it does seem
like a majority of female voters are leaning Democratic. Right now.
You know what, when we go back and re listen
to this episode in December. We might say, well, that
could be wrong, or we could say, yeah, that was right.
Who knows because we're so undecided, so many of us. Well,
(16:58):
even when when veters are undecided, Um, a survey, This
was in that New York Times blog that I mentioned.
A survey found that only thirty percent of undecided voters
are truly independent. So just because you're undecided doesn't mean
you're necessarily an independent voter. They found that forty of
undecided veters lean left and about lean right, So you
(17:20):
might still have a political leaning. You're just feeling kind
of not so hot about either candidate maybe. But one
of the things, um, that I feel like it's important
to hammer home with all of this because so far
the moral of the story is, you know, do men
and women vote differently, Yes a little bit, But do
women vote differently among themselves, yes a lot. But when
(17:42):
it comes to that large block of undecided and independence,
because right now independence are at an all time high,
both male and female. If a candidate is looking to
get those swing voters, let's say you can just toss
out being thumbs up or thumbs down on pink issues,
(18:07):
and yeah, I'm using pink just as the all you know,
kind of nausea inducing, uh stereotypical term for things that
little ladies like, like uh, birth control and such. Um,
you can't just toss out these platforms and expect for
women to go gaga if you just say one or
two things about reproductive rights and call today. Yeah, the
(18:30):
according to Pew, the male female divide on reproductive rights
is pretty small. Yeah, it's about I mean, men and
women the equal proportion oppose a and agree with it. Yeah.
It has more to do with your background, your religion,
your political leanings, all this stuff than it does with
your gender. So just because you're a woman doesn't mean
(18:51):
you're gonna be all like YEA abortion, YEA, birth control,
YEA condoms. You know you're you're going to not follow
along gender lines for those issues and for all of
the discussion that has gone into birth control access with
the healthcare reform. Interestingly, and actually not so surprisingly, um,
(19:14):
according to a Gallop Pole, that issue of birth control
and the religious exemption to employers having to provide birth control, etcetera.
Is not at the top of anybody's list in terms
of what they're looking for into candidate because you know what,
when you're in an economic recession, guess what matters more jobs,
(19:37):
gas prices, healthcare in general, Yeah, the deficit money, things
like having a house and stuff like that, the survival
of the American government. Yeah. One thing that doesn't tend
to sway women either, and we we saw this in
the last election is women aren't going to automatically vote
(19:57):
for a female candidate. Nope. We actually a two thousand
eight Northwestern study found that women might actually hold female
political candidates to a higher standard and instead end up
opting for the male opponent. Yeah. The um they had
this Northwestern study had participants basically free associate candidate qualities
(20:20):
based on like a picture of an attractive fictional male,
attractive lady, and the women in the study said that
they would be more likely to vote for an approachable,
seeming male candidate than an attractive female candidate. But then
we could go on and on about how, you know,
the inferences that we make in terms of leadership and
(20:42):
what leadership looks like. Yeah, because they said that all
of the people in the study would go for the
person who seems more competent. But what makes you think
that someone is more competent, an approachable guy that you
would want to have a beer with, or an attractive
woman or vice versa. Well, and unfortunately, with the state
of politics the way it is, a lot of that appearance,
you know, snap judgment. I feel like, you know, does
(21:05):
it matter if you could have a beer with it?
God help you if you pick the wrong thie color
for your speech. Yeah, it's true. But um, you know,
it's it's telling that we that we based so much
just off how somebody looks. Uh So, do men and
women vote differently? Yes? Do women vote differently among themselves? Yes?
(21:25):
We women vote for women maybe, I think that. And
this is one of those these situations where we have
not so much clarified the question as confounded even more. Well,
I think it would be interesting to hear from our
female listeners who maybe have gotten guph from other women
for the way they vote, whether they lean left or right.
(21:48):
If you maybe have been made to feel like you're
making the wrong decision because you should stand with your
fellow women on some issue. Yeah, and I think, um,
even though I mean, I think it's a good thing
that there isn't a clear answer of women vote this
way because that is one of the most frustrating things
I think for women who are informed and who are
(22:08):
politically active, that there is an assumption that we are
a giant voting block where that's really not the case
at all. America is huge. Yeah, we all we vote
according to what is important to us and based on
your religion, your background, your family, anything like that. What
how do you feel about education, whatever you're You're going
(22:30):
to vote according to what you believe is right and
what will help you. So that's different for everybody. Not
what kind of underpants you're wearing. Really really okay, I'll
cross that off my list, although I do not have
empirical data to beck, So send us your thoughts on
gender and voting. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(22:53):
where you can send your letters, or you can head
over to Facebook and leave us a comment there. In
the meantime, we got a couple of letters. The first
one is in response to your podcast a little while
ago about the Roma also known as Gypsies. I'm just
(23:13):
gonna share a few tidbits from Malia, who sent us
a detailed letter about stuff that she knows about the
Roma and the Romani. The Roma Romani she says, I
have a few notes to add to your information. First
of all, the word Roma or Romani does not refer
to Romania. Rom is the word for a man in Romani,
(23:36):
and the naming of the Roma or Romani people pre
dates the naming of the country of Romania. In fact,
many Romanians are outraged that others would confuse them with
the Roman people. Second, while perceived discrimination maybe lowest among
Roma in Romania, saying that Romania has the best record
regarding gypsies is misleading, as the EU M d US
(24:00):
report cautions, segregation is higher in Romania and Roma people
may be less aware of their majority counterparts opinion. Isabel
fin Seka also wrote about violence against Roma in Romania
following the fall of communism and the direct or indirect
complicity of law enforcement officials. While certain countries and sectors
have made progress, discrimination against Roma throughout Europe remains entrenched also,
(24:24):
and I thought this was this was a good point
to share. Third, the great majority of Roma are not nomadic.
Through a combination of pressures from the state, modernist modernization
in general, and personal choice, most Roma have settled. So
thanks so much to Malia for sharing all that information.
With us. Here's one from Rachel about Manic Pixie dream Girls. Uh,
(24:48):
she said, the trope of the mp d G reminded
me of one of my favorite books. The book is
Paper Towns by John Green, and it surrounds a lackluster
guy nicknamed Q and his infatuation with his neighbor Argo.
In the book, Margot takes him on a wonderfully illegal
nighttime adventure to seek revenge on an ex boyfriend of hers,
and then disappears without a trait. Q then spends the
(25:09):
rest of the book searching for her and ultimately discovering himself.
Before you guessed it, she flutters away in a sprinkle
of pixie dust. I I really hope that's literal. I
know you only mentioned cinema and television, but I thought
it was interesting that the MPDG exists in literature as well.
So it's called Papertown Papertowns by John Green. I mean,
(25:30):
something else to check out for very late summer reading. Yeah,
so that's all we've got for you. My mom's stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
You can also head over to Facebook like us sleeve
us in message being nice follow us on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast, and you can also read the article
(25:52):
do men and women vote differently? By yours Truly Christen
Conger over at how stuff works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com brought to you by the reinvented
two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You?
From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And since it is August
(00:23):
of two thousand twelve, I think we can say that
the presidential election season, though it may be in November
taking place, is in full swing. Attack ads, fact checking campaigns,
baby kissing buttons, but political buttons, um And one big
(00:49):
theme of this election cycle has been the female vote.
For a while there, it seemed like everywhere you turn
it was it was just a vagina of vagina vagina people.
There were all these arguments about what birth control meant,
how we should be giving people birth control, whether we
(01:11):
should be giving people birth control, women's bodies, who has
control over them, et cetera, and who will provide the
most of these uh, these platforms that are typically associated
with women and our causes that we like to support,
um everyone, it seems like it's pandering for the female vote.
(01:31):
So the question we wanted to answer is whether or
not women really do vote all that differently from men.
Because I remember a few months ago, I posted something
on our Facebook page about how politicians recording the female vote.
I believe it was specifically how the Democratic Party was
(01:53):
targeting the female vote, And there were a lot of
commenters who took offense at women being seen as this,
you know, monolithic voting block. If you have a vagina,
you will vote such and so, because obviously it's not
it's not entirely true or else a politician political strategy
(02:16):
would be quite easier exactly. Well, you know, women as
a whole, I mean, if we are talking in terms
of blocks, women did not really vote in huge numbers
until kind of recently in our history. Yeah, and the
things really started to ramp up in the sixties, seventies,
(02:38):
and eighties, which coincides with the influx of women into
the workplace, UM and also the rise of second wave feminism,
which we tend to give hat tips to UM. And
it was around this time that that, yeah, we really
started to get more politically active, even though we had
(02:59):
had the right to vote in the United States since
nineteen twenty with the nineteenth Amendment. So in nineteen eighty
we have Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, Old Reagan coming in
with a lot of a lot of good messages you
know about about family values and such. But he was
also emphasizing during his campaign staunch opposition to the Equal
(03:24):
Rights Amendment, which was something that UM feminist especially wanted
to get past. It would be a constitutional amendment basically
saying that men and women have to be paid the
the same for the same work. UM. And he was
also vocally opposed to reproductive rights. And he also had
(03:45):
an aggressive policy of military containment of communism. So he's
kind of a pretty hawkish which is something that tends
to drive female voters away as well. And so the
combination of all of these platforms, uh had a strange
or at least a novel I should say not strange,
(04:06):
had a novel impact at the polls where for the
very first time, more women voted Democrat than men. Right, Yeah,
there was that gender gap that emerged, and according to
the Pew Research Center, in the two thousand and eight election,
that featured a seven point gender gap and men's and
(04:28):
women's support for the Democratic candidate, and that has been
steady since nineteen eighty. Now, even though I just mentioned
the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights as perhaps reasons
why there was this male female split in that nineteen
eighty election. According to UM a blog post from Real
Clear Politics was looking at this issue. UM, in that
(04:51):
nineteen eighty election, among white women specifically, only six percent
said the r A and abortion were issues that actually
mattered to them. So we have all of these these
pink end quote issues and platforms that we would assume
would get all these women out to the polls, it
might not actually make that huge of a difference among
(05:14):
all of these voting groups within the under the umbrella
of women voters. So, as political scientists for this podcast,
so let's continue to scratch our heads as to what
has shaped this this difference between men and women voting. Yeah,
because obviously it's like christ And said, it's not just gender.
(05:35):
There has to be more that it's affecting decisions because
some types of women go for some policies and platforms
that are radically different from what other women support. And
so obviously, I mean, isn't that we have opinions, We
have opinions. Did you know that men like different things too? Really,
we'll save that for another pot. That's a whole other podcast. Okay,
(05:58):
So to start off there, there are differences between men
and women, And no, I'm not about to go into
any sort of kindergarten discussion about the differences between men
and women. There's study that talks about the theories of
why men and women vote differently. And they talked about
the differences in the political socialization of men and women. Uh,
the link between women voters, growing autonomy, changing marital patterns,
(06:22):
rising divorce rates, the rising levels of feminist consciousness among
women since the sixties, and women's increasing participation in the
labor force. And so they looked at all these different things.
They ran some some scientific tests and studies and beakers
were involved, I'm sure, and they found that really the
workplace participation was the driving factor behind these voting differences. Yeah,
(06:49):
it was all about UM economic independence and how that
was shaping the way women perceived the role of government.
Because is with that you can attach to it um
perhaps pay in the workplace, pay equity in the workplace,
UM welfare, supporting children if they're single mothers. And to
(07:12):
boil it down to three major things. And it's coming
from Susan Carroll, who is out of Rutgers University at
their Center for Women in Politics, she She sums it
up nicely, saying, well, here's the deal. Women are more
likely to be poor old because we all live men
and single, especially single mothers. And um, with the steady
(07:36):
increase in proportion of women into the workplace, we're thinking
about all those factors even more as become become these
economic autonomous beings. Right. And so this study that I
was talking about, it's in the American Journal of Sociology
if you are curious. Um, So, all of a sudden,
women are being exposed to these gender equally inequalities at work,
(07:58):
and they're a little bit more economically independent. They're getting
out of the house, they're developing their developing thoughts, so
to speak. And not to say that if you vote
more conservatively that you aren't developing. No, No, absolutely not.
I was I was being silly. Um No, it's it's
(08:18):
absolutely that just as more women into the workplace, they
are sort of becomes this different perspective that develops. Yeah.
And then from a more philosophical standpoint, research from the
nonpartisan Pew Research Center have found that women tend to
favor a more active and altruistic role of government, whereas
(08:42):
men prefer to see the government as promoting individualism, not
being quite as heavy handed. And this actually reflects the
kinds of platforms that women would espouse way back when
we first got the vote, ring an era of progressive
(09:03):
maternalist platforms that sought to help out the poor, the children,
and the elderly. Yeah. We um. Basically, we think that
there should be more help for for women, families, men,
everybody in the public sector. And that is because we
tend to depend more as women on the public sector
(09:24):
for the social programs, for employment, for things like that.
And so we do say a higher percentage of women
say that the government should do more for the poor,
the children, and the elderly. Yeah. And this also ties
back to family, which we've already touched on a little bit. Um.
And the thing is, this was something coming out of
a two thousand ten BBC article. Uh, it's less so
(09:46):
much about staying home with the kids these days, but
about finding that work life balance. Um. And they were
talking to Rosie Campbell at University of London and she
offered the example of if I'm going to be out
in the workplace and I need the state to intervene
more to provide things like childcare, which again goes back
(10:06):
to maternalist platforms, which goes back to that altruistic um
framework of government. And we're not saying again were we
were talking women as a giant umbrella right now, we
will start to narrow this down and whittle this down
a little bit more. But as far as large trends go,
that is one of the big things. One of the
(10:27):
major trends that you knew we were going to get
around too was whether a woman is married or single.
And uh, in eleven of single women voters leaned Democratic,
just thirty one leaned towards the GOP. Among married women voters, however,
it was more evenly split to the right and forty
(10:49):
eight percent to the left. And actually, according to the
New York Times, I did not realize this. Uh, single
women are one of the country's fastest growing demographic group,
more than one point eight million more now than just
two years ago. So I don't know what's going on.
But anyway, we as single women make up a quarter
(11:10):
of the voting age population nationally. That's not necessarily people
who are registered to vote, that's just voting age population.
And these these single gals lean Democratic but tend to
be fickle about actually going and casting ballots. Yeah, a
lot of times we um, we will label ourselves as
independent voters or swing voters, will wait till the last
(11:33):
minute to decide who we like. Although I mean waiting
waiting a while to decide who you like. That's not
that's not bad. We're just making up our minds. Yeah, right, Yeah,
everything's fine. Fine, But of course marriage is not. Marital
status is not the only big variable here. Race is
a huge one. Um. We've talked a lot about how
(11:55):
Capital w women swing Democratic, or at least they have
since s nineteen eighty. But if you look at it
on a race racial along racial lines, Democrats have not
actually won white women since nineteen sixty four, which was
reported by the Washington Post. Um, non white women are
(12:17):
far more likely to to vote Democratic. So in this
New York Times article from two thousand eight, looking back
at the two thousand four election, the non white female
vote was twelve percent, So twelve percent of that female
vote was made up of non white women, if I
can say that and not sound confusing. Um, the non
(12:37):
white male vote was just ten percent. So they break
it down as women are as a voting block. Less
white than men were. That's in quotes, and non white
women are more likely to vote Democratic than white women
or non white men. Are you with me? So we
have a more racially female women and have a more
(13:00):
racially diverse voting yes. And in fact Clinton's re election
in marks the only year that Democrats have want a
plurality of the white female vote since nineteen eighty m
And in fact, white women are the largest block of
social conservatives. So there you go. We're a very diverse
(13:20):
group women. We are. We are entirely unpredictable. It seems
like as uh, this podcast goes forward. But one thing
that you can rely on women to do a little
bit more than men come election day in November. That's vote.
We get out to the polls. According to the Center
(13:43):
for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, for each
presidential election from nineteen eighty I mean that is the
watershed year for US nine to two thousand and eight,
our most recent presidential election, more women have cast ballots.
We get an out. We're rocking our vote. We are,
we are and citizens eighteen to forty four higher proportion
(14:07):
of women and men in that age group voted in
two thousand and two thousand four. However, the trend is different.
If you're sixty five enough, the pattern is completely reversed.
More older men, I guess or senior citizen men. Yeah,
and way more women are registered to vote period. Now.
I thought this was interesting though, that more women are
(14:28):
voting because and this is according to Linda Hirschman in
New York Times magazine, men consider it more important to
quote influence the political structure by voting. They have that
more uh vested interests in a way of casting their ballot.
And yet we are doing it in higher numbers than
(14:50):
they are. But again, you know, we do. We do
waffle a little bit more. We tend to be more
um independent and wait till the last minute. Were late deciders.
We are late deciders, um we do. As women make
up a higher number of undecided and swing voters, like
Kristen said earlier. And the reasons for this, they kind
(15:12):
of are their theories. They're all over the map. Are
we less informed about politics? Are we less invested than
men are? Are we more practical, less emotional? So there
are a lot of theories as to why more of
the undecided voters are female. Uh A look at undecided
voters in July blog on the New York Times website,
(15:33):
truly undecided voters tend to be in general less knowledgeable
about politics. But that's not always true, Yeah, I mean, unfortunately.
One of the things that they have cited in terms
of gender differences in voting and um, one of the
reasons why women might be more undecided than men is
that men do tend to take a greater interest in
(15:54):
hard news i e. Like more of the political news
and might keep tabs on it a little bit better
than we do, to which I say, come on, ladies,
read the newspaper or whatever digital thing you have in
front of you. Um. But right now, since we have
mentioned the current election season, according to the Pew Research Center,
(16:15):
President Obama has been doing pretty well among women, although
of course I take all of the polls that come
out every other week with a massive grain of salt,
just because I don't know, I don't trust a lot
of the the election polls seemed to change. Things seem
(16:36):
to kind of roll in waves as you get closer
to the election. Right and right now, it does seem
like a majority of female voters are leaning Democratic. Right now.
You know what, when we go back and re listen
to this episode in December. We might say, well, that
could be wrong, or we could say, yeah, that was right.
Who knows because we're so undecided, so many of us. Well,
(16:58):
even when when veters are undecided, Um, a survey, This
was in that New York Times blog that I mentioned.
A survey found that only thirty percent of undecided voters
are truly independent. So just because you're undecided doesn't mean
you're necessarily an independent voter. They found that forty of
undecided veters lean left and about lean right, So you
(17:20):
might still have a political leaning. You're just feeling kind
of not so hot about either candidate maybe. But one
of the things, um, that I feel like it's important
to hammer home with all of this because so far
the moral of the story is, you know, do men
and women vote differently, Yes a little bit, But do
women vote differently among themselves, yes a lot. But when
(17:42):
it comes to that large block of undecided and independence,
because right now independence are at an all time high,
both male and female. If a candidate is looking to
get those swing voters, let's say you can just toss
out being thumbs up or thumbs down on pink issues,
(18:07):
and yeah, I'm using pink just as the all you know,
kind of nausea inducing, uh stereotypical term for things that
little ladies like, like uh, birth control and such. Um,
you can't just toss out these platforms and expect for
women to go gaga if you just say one or
two things about reproductive rights and call today. Yeah, the
(18:30):
according to Pew, the male female divide on reproductive rights
is pretty small. Yeah, it's about I mean, men and
women the equal proportion oppose a and agree with it. Yeah.
It has more to do with your background, your religion,
your political leanings, all this stuff than it does with
your gender. So just because you're a woman doesn't mean
(18:51):
you're gonna be all like YEA abortion, YEA, birth control,
YEA condoms. You know you're you're going to not follow
along gender lines for those issues and for all of
the discussion that has gone into birth control access with
the healthcare reform. Interestingly, and actually not so surprisingly, um,
(19:14):
according to a Gallop Pole, that issue of birth control
and the religious exemption to employers having to provide birth control, etcetera.
Is not at the top of anybody's list in terms
of what they're looking for into candidate because you know what,
when you're in an economic recession, guess what matters more jobs,
(19:37):
gas prices, healthcare in general, Yeah, the deficit money, things
like having a house and stuff like that, the survival
of the American government. Yeah. One thing that doesn't tend
to sway women either, and we we saw this in
the last election is women aren't going to automatically vote
(19:57):
for a female candidate. Nope. We actually a two thousand
eight Northwestern study found that women might actually hold female
political candidates to a higher standard and instead end up
opting for the male opponent. Yeah. The um they had
this Northwestern study had participants basically free associate candidate qualities
(20:20):
based on like a picture of an attractive fictional male,
attractive lady, and the women in the study said that
they would be more likely to vote for an approachable,
seeming male candidate than an attractive female candidate. But then
we could go on and on about how, you know,
the inferences that we make in terms of leadership and
(20:42):
what leadership looks like. Yeah, because they said that all
of the people in the study would go for the
person who seems more competent. But what makes you think
that someone is more competent, an approachable guy that you
would want to have a beer with, or an attractive
woman or vice versa. Well, and unfortunately, with the state
of politics the way it is, a lot of that appearance,
you know, snap judgment. I feel like, you know, does
(21:05):
it matter if you could have a beer with it?
God help you if you pick the wrong thie color
for your speech. Yeah, it's true. But um, you know,
it's it's telling that we that we based so much
just off how somebody looks. Uh So, do men and
women vote differently? Yes? Do women vote differently among themselves? Yes?
(21:25):
We women vote for women maybe, I think that. And
this is one of those these situations where we have
not so much clarified the question as confounded even more. Well,
I think it would be interesting to hear from our
female listeners who maybe have gotten guph from other women
for the way they vote, whether they lean left or right.
(21:48):
If you maybe have been made to feel like you're
making the wrong decision because you should stand with your
fellow women on some issue. Yeah, and I think, um,
even though I mean, I think it's a good thing
that there isn't a clear answer of women vote this
way because that is one of the most frustrating things
I think for women who are informed and who are
(22:08):
politically active, that there is an assumption that we are
a giant voting block where that's really not the case
at all. America is huge. Yeah, we all we vote
according to what is important to us and based on
your religion, your background, your family, anything like that. What
how do you feel about education, whatever you're You're going
(22:30):
to vote according to what you believe is right and
what will help you. So that's different for everybody. Not
what kind of underpants you're wearing. Really really okay, I'll
cross that off my list, although I do not have
empirical data to beck, So send us your thoughts on
gender and voting. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is
(22:53):
where you can send your letters, or you can head
over to Facebook and leave us a comment there. In
the meantime, we got a couple of letters. The first
one is in response to your podcast a little while
ago about the Roma also known as Gypsies. I'm just
(23:13):
gonna share a few tidbits from Malia, who sent us
a detailed letter about stuff that she knows about the
Roma and the Romani. The Roma Romani she says, I
have a few notes to add to your information. First
of all, the word Roma or Romani does not refer
to Romania. Rom is the word for a man in Romani,
(23:36):
and the naming of the Roma or Romani people pre
dates the naming of the country of Romania. In fact,
many Romanians are outraged that others would confuse them with
the Roman people. Second, while perceived discrimination maybe lowest among
Roma in Romania, saying that Romania has the best record
regarding gypsies is misleading, as the EU M d US
(24:00):
report cautions, segregation is higher in Romania and Roma people
may be less aware of their majority counterparts opinion. Isabel
fin Seka also wrote about violence against Roma in Romania
following the fall of communism and the direct or indirect
complicity of law enforcement officials. While certain countries and sectors
have made progress, discrimination against Roma throughout Europe remains entrenched also,
(24:24):
and I thought this was this was a good point
to share. Third, the great majority of Roma are not nomadic.
Through a combination of pressures from the state, modernist modernization
in general, and personal choice, most Roma have settled. So
thanks so much to Malia for sharing all that information.
With us. Here's one from Rachel about Manic Pixie dream Girls. Uh,
(24:48):
she said, the trope of the mp d G reminded
me of one of my favorite books. The book is
Paper Towns by John Green, and it surrounds a lackluster
guy nicknamed Q and his infatuation with his neighbor Argo.
In the book, Margot takes him on a wonderfully illegal
nighttime adventure to seek revenge on an ex boyfriend of hers,
and then disappears without a trait. Q then spends the
(25:09):
rest of the book searching for her and ultimately discovering himself.
Before you guessed it, she flutters away in a sprinkle
of pixie dust. I I really hope that's literal. I
know you only mentioned cinema and television, but I thought
it was interesting that the MPDG exists in literature as well.
So it's called Papertown Papertowns by John Green. I mean,
(25:30):
something else to check out for very late summer reading. Yeah,
so that's all we've got for you. My mom's stuff
at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
You can also head over to Facebook like us sleeve
us in message being nice follow us on Twitter at
mom Stuff Podcast, and you can also read the article
(25:52):
do men and women vote differently? By yours Truly Christen
Conger over at how stuff works dot com for more
on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how
stuff works dot com brought to you by the reinvented
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