US Democratic Senator Barack Obama and Republican Senator John McCain are the contenders in the presidential election this year, but the campaign has also been dominated by two very different women, Democratic Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican vice presidential candidate Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Indeed, many observers believe that women will determine the election’s outcome. So, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, “What do American women want?”
Until the 1960s, women were more likely to support Republicans. In the 1980 election, a different gap emerged, with women more likely to support Democrats. In 1996, women’s support for former US president Bill Clinton was 14 percentage points higher than men’s, and in 2000 women favored former US vice president Al Gore over US President George W. Bush by 12 points.
But since 1996, the political gender gap has been halved. The women gravitating back to the Republicans, according to conventional wisdom, are “security moms” — suburban wives and mothers who started worrying about their families’ safety after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. McCain’s selection of Palin was an attempt to appeal to these mothers and to pick up votes from women disappointed at Clinton’s loss.
But the shift to Republicans from 2001 was largely confined to Southern white women. In the US as a whole, notes political scientist Karen Kaufmann, 50 percent of mothers with children voted for Bush in 2000, and this dipped to 49 percent in 2004. But Southern white women, who were much more likely than Southern white men to support Bill Clinton in 1996 and Gore in 2000, were less likely than Southern men to support Democratic Senator John Kerry in 2004. There is now a bigger difference between the voting preferences of Southern white women and white women in the rest of the US than between men and women.
Outside the South, female voters are less likely to be hawkish on foreign policy and more likely to support spending on health, education and other social welfare programs. Women also tend to be more sympathetic to efforts to reduce income inequality, although African-American men are just as “compassionate” on these issues as African-American women.
Can parties win by appealing to gender? Women do like to see other women emerge as leaders. When the Democrats nominated Geraldine Ferraro for vice president in 1984, she attracted huge crowds, just like Palin. Shortly after Palin’s nomination, one in three white women said they were more likely to vote for McCain.
At first glance, it seems reasonable that the parties might be able to translate gender consciousness into a unified voting bloc. Women do have common interests, especially on controlling reproductive decisions and protection against sexual exploitation and rape.
Most women also recognize and resent that the media judge them more harshly than they judge men. And, because women generally expect to bear most of the responsibility for nurturing children, they tend to evaluate social policies through this lens.
But how women address gender-based reproductive, sexual and family interests varies by their class position and their personal options outside the family. Women who compete in the labor market generally support efforts to challenge sexual double standards and vigorously prosecute sexual harassment. But women who are more dependent on a husband often accept a double standard that stresses female purity and male gallantry. These women believe adherence to stereotyped gender roles protects “good” women.
Women also know they are usually paid less and have less chance for professional advancement. But they may choose different strategies for coping with these disadvantages. Those who support themselves outside marriage tend to favor expanding economic opportunities for women and to oppose laws and values that give authority to husbands and fathers.
By contrast, women with less economic autonomy may feel their interests are best met by emphasizing family hierarchies and reciprocal duties. Wifely deference may be seen as reinforcing the husband’s obligation to support the family.
Even on issues like contraception and abortion, women’s positions are sometimes influenced by conflicting assessments. Women who plan to postpone marriage while building their careers are far more likely to want to ensure that they can avoid or end an unintended pregnancy. But women who believe that their best hope for security is to find a husband often tell interviewers that if other women are allowed to escape the biological consequences of having sex, men will be less willing to offer marriage in return for it.
Likewise, women who want to stay home with children tend to favor tax breaks or subsidies, whereas women who want to combine work and family are more likely to support more childcare and guaranteed parental leave.
In the long run, these differences outweigh women’s commonalities. Palin’s approval ratings among women fell as they learned about what she stands for. The main reason some women — and even more men — are more likely to vote for a McCain-Palin combination is not because of Palin’s gender but because her presence on the ticket reassures social conservatives of McCain’s willingness to accommodate their agenda.
But Palin may have had an unintended effect on the views of social conservatives. The Pew Research Center found only 20 percent of Republicans said they would support a female candidate who had school-age children. Today, those Republicans find little to criticize in the fact that Palin returned to work three days after the birth of her last child. In supporting a woman’s choice to combine motherhood with a demanding job, social conservatives seem to agree with long-time feminists.
Stephanie Coontz teaches history at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, and is director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families.
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