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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff Mom Never told You?

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Speaker 1: From housetop works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And since it is August

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Speaker 1: of two thousand twelve, I think we can say that

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Speaker 1: the presidential election season, though it may be in November

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Speaker 1: taking place, is in full swing. Attack ads, fact checking campaigns,

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Speaker 1: baby kissing buttons, but political buttons, um And one big

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Speaker 1: theme of this election cycle has been the female vote.

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Speaker 1: For a while there, it seemed like everywhere you turn

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Speaker 1: it was it was just a vagina of vagina vagina people.

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Speaker 1: There were all these arguments about what birth control meant,

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Speaker 1: how we should be giving people birth control, whether we

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Speaker 1: should be giving people birth control, women's bodies, who has

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Speaker 1: control over them, et cetera, and who will provide the

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Speaker 1: most of these uh, these platforms that are typically associated

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Speaker 1: with women and our causes that we like to support,

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Speaker 1: um everyone, it seems like it's pandering for the female vote.

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Speaker 1: So the question we wanted to answer is whether or

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Speaker 1: not women really do vote all that differently from men.

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Speaker 1: Because I remember a few months ago, I posted something

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Speaker 1: on our Facebook page about how politicians recording the female vote.

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Speaker 1: I believe it was specifically how the Democratic Party was

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Speaker 1: targeting the female vote, And there were a lot of

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Speaker 1: commenters who took offense at women being seen as this,

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Speaker 1: you know, monolithic voting block. If you have a vagina,

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Speaker 1: you will vote such and so, because obviously it's not

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Speaker 1: it's not entirely true or else a politician political strategy

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Speaker 1: would be quite easier exactly. Well, you know, women as

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Speaker 1: a whole, I mean, if we are talking in terms

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Speaker 1: of blocks, women did not really vote in huge numbers

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Speaker 1: until kind of recently in our history. Yeah, and the

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Speaker 1: things really started to ramp up in the sixties, seventies,

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Speaker 1: and eighties, which coincides with the influx of women into

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Speaker 1: the workplace, UM and also the rise of second wave feminism,

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Speaker 1: which we tend to give hat tips to UM. And

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Speaker 1: it was around this time that that, yeah, we really

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Speaker 1: started to get more politically active, even though we had

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Speaker 1: had the right to vote in the United States since

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Speaker 1: nineteen twenty with the nineteenth Amendment. So in nineteen eighty

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Speaker 1: we have Republican candidate Ronald Reagan, Old Reagan coming in

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Speaker 1: with a lot of a lot of good messages you

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Speaker 1: know about about family values and such. But he was

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Speaker 1: also emphasizing during his campaign staunch opposition to the Equal

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Speaker 1: Rights Amendment, which was something that UM feminist especially wanted

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Speaker 1: to get past. It would be a constitutional amendment basically

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Speaker 1: saying that men and women have to be paid the

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Speaker 1: the same for the same work. UM. And he was

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Speaker 1: also vocally opposed to reproductive rights. And he also had

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Speaker 1: an aggressive policy of military containment of communism. So he's

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Speaker 1: kind of a pretty hawkish which is something that tends

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Speaker 1: to drive female voters away as well. And so the

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Speaker 1: combination of all of these platforms, uh had a strange

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Speaker 1: or at least a novel I should say not strange,

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Speaker 1: had a novel impact at the polls where for the

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Speaker 1: very first time, more women voted Democrat than men. Right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: there was that gender gap that emerged, and according to

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Speaker 1: the Pew Research Center, in the two thousand and eight election,

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Speaker 1: that featured a seven point gender gap and men's and

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Speaker 1: women's support for the Democratic candidate, and that has been

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Speaker 1: steady since nineteen eighty. Now, even though I just mentioned

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Speaker 1: the Equal Rights Amendment and reproductive rights as perhaps reasons

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Speaker 1: why there was this male female split in that nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighty election. According to UM a blog post from Real

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Speaker 1: Clear Politics was looking at this issue. UM, in that

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty election, among white women specifically, only six percent

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Speaker 1: said the r A and abortion were issues that actually

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Speaker 1: mattered to them. So we have all of these these

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Speaker 1: pink end quote issues and platforms that we would assume

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Speaker 1: would get all these women out to the polls, it

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Speaker 1: might not actually make that huge of a difference among

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Speaker 1: all of these voting groups within the under the umbrella

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Speaker 1: of women voters. So, as political scientists for this podcast,

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Speaker 1: so let's continue to scratch our heads as to what

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Speaker 1: has shaped this this difference between men and women voting. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: because obviously it's like christ And said, it's not just gender.

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Speaker 1: There has to be more that it's affecting decisions because

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Speaker 1: some types of women go for some policies and platforms

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Speaker 1: that are radically different from what other women support. And

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Speaker 1: so obviously, I mean, isn't that we have opinions, We

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Speaker 1: have opinions. Did you know that men like different things too? Really,

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Speaker 1: we'll save that for another pot. That's a whole other podcast. Okay,

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Speaker 1: So to start off there, there are differences between men

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Speaker 1: and women, And no, I'm not about to go into

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Speaker 1: any sort of kindergarten discussion about the differences between men

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Speaker 1: and women. There's study that talks about the theories of

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Speaker 1: why men and women vote differently. And they talked about

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Speaker 1: the differences in the political socialization of men and women. Uh,

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Speaker 1: the link between women voters, growing autonomy, changing marital patterns,

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Speaker 1: rising divorce rates, the rising levels of feminist consciousness among

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Speaker 1: women since the sixties, and women's increasing participation in the

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Speaker 1: labor force. And so they looked at all these different things.

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Speaker 1: They ran some some scientific tests and studies and beakers

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Speaker 1: were involved, I'm sure, and they found that really the

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Speaker 1: workplace participation was the driving factor behind these voting differences. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was all about UM economic independence and how that

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Speaker 1: was shaping the way women perceived the role of government.

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Speaker 1: Because is with that you can attach to it um

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Speaker 1: perhaps pay in the workplace, pay equity in the workplace,

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Speaker 1: UM welfare, supporting children if they're single mothers. And to

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Speaker 1: boil it down to three major things. And it's coming

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Speaker 1: from Susan Carroll, who is out of Rutgers University at

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Speaker 1: their Center for Women in Politics, she She sums it

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Speaker 1: up nicely, saying, well, here's the deal. Women are more

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Speaker 1: likely to be poor old because we all live men

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Speaker 1: and single, especially single mothers. And um, with the steady

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Speaker 1: increase in proportion of women into the workplace, we're thinking

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Speaker 1: about all those factors even more as become become these

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Speaker 1: economic autonomous beings. Right. And so this study that I

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Speaker 1: was talking about, it's in the American Journal of Sociology

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Speaker 1: if you are curious. Um, So, all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: women are being exposed to these gender equally inequalities at work,

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Speaker 1: and they're a little bit more economically independent. They're getting

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Speaker 1: out of the house, they're developing their developing thoughts, so

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Speaker 1: to speak. And not to say that if you vote

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Speaker 1: more conservatively that you aren't developing. No, No, absolutely not.

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Speaker 1: I was I was being silly. Um No, it's it's

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Speaker 1: absolutely that just as more women into the workplace, they

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Speaker 1: are sort of becomes this different perspective that develops. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then from a more philosophical standpoint, research from the

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Speaker 1: nonpartisan Pew Research Center have found that women tend to

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Speaker 1: favor a more active and altruistic role of government, whereas

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Speaker 1: men prefer to see the government as promoting individualism, not

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Speaker 1: being quite as heavy handed. And this actually reflects the

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Speaker 1: kinds of platforms that women would espouse way back when

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Speaker 1: we first got the vote, ring an era of progressive

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Speaker 1: maternalist platforms that sought to help out the poor, the children,

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Speaker 1: and the elderly. Yeah. We um. Basically, we think that

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Speaker 1: there should be more help for for women, families, men,

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Speaker 1: everybody in the public sector. And that is because we

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Speaker 1: tend to depend more as women on the public sector

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Speaker 1: for the social programs, for employment, for things like that.

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Speaker 1: And so we do say a higher percentage of women

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Speaker 1: say that the government should do more for the poor,

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Speaker 1: the children, and the elderly. Yeah. And this also ties

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Speaker 1: back to family, which we've already touched on a little bit. Um.

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Speaker 1: And the thing is, this was something coming out of

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Speaker 1: a two thousand ten BBC article. Uh, it's less so

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Speaker 1: much about staying home with the kids these days, but

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Speaker 1: about finding that work life balance. Um. And they were

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Speaker 1: talking to Rosie Campbell at University of London and she

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Speaker 1: offered the example of if I'm going to be out

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Speaker 1: in the workplace and I need the state to intervene

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Speaker 1: more to provide things like childcare, which again goes back

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Speaker 1: to maternalist platforms, which goes back to that altruistic um

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Speaker 1: framework of government. And we're not saying again were we

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Speaker 1: were talking women as a giant umbrella right now, we

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Speaker 1: will start to narrow this down and whittle this down

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Speaker 1: a little bit more. But as far as large trends go,

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Speaker 1: that is one of the big things. One of the

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Speaker 1: major trends that you knew we were going to get

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Speaker 1: around too was whether a woman is married or single.

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Speaker 1: And uh, in eleven of single women voters leaned Democratic,

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Speaker 1: just thirty one leaned towards the GOP. Among married women voters, however,

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Speaker 1: it was more evenly split to the right and forty

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Speaker 1: eight percent to the left. And actually, according to the

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Speaker 1: New York Times, I did not realize this. Uh, single

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Speaker 1: women are one of the country's fastest growing demographic group,

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Speaker 1: more than one point eight million more now than just

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Speaker 1: two years ago. So I don't know what's going on.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, we as single women make up a quarter

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Speaker 1: of the voting age population nationally. That's not necessarily people

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Speaker 1: who are registered to vote, that's just voting age population.

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Speaker 1: And these these single gals lean Democratic but tend to

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Speaker 1: be fickle about actually going and casting ballots. Yeah, a

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Speaker 1: lot of times we um, we will label ourselves as

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Speaker 1: independent voters or swing voters, will wait till the last

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Speaker 1: minute to decide who we like. Although I mean waiting

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Speaker 1: waiting a while to decide who you like. That's not

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Speaker 1: that's not bad. We're just making up our minds. Yeah, right, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: everything's fine. Fine, But of course marriage is not. Marital

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Speaker 1: status is not the only big variable here. Race is

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Speaker 1: a huge one. Um. We've talked a lot about how

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Speaker 1: Capital w women swing Democratic, or at least they have

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Speaker 1: since s nineteen eighty. But if you look at it

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Speaker 1: on a race racial along racial lines, Democrats have not

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Speaker 1: actually won white women since nineteen sixty four, which was

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Speaker 1: reported by the Washington Post. Um, non white women are

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Speaker 1: far more likely to to vote Democratic. So in this

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Speaker 1: New York Times article from two thousand eight, looking back

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Speaker 1: at the two thousand four election, the non white female

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Speaker 1: vote was twelve percent, So twelve percent of that female

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Speaker 1: vote was made up of non white women, if I

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Speaker 1: can say that and not sound confusing. Um, the non

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Speaker 1: white male vote was just ten percent. So they break

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Speaker 1: it down as women are as a voting block. Less

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Speaker 1: white than men were. That's in quotes, and non white

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Speaker 1: women are more likely to vote Democratic than white women

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Speaker 1: or non white men. Are you with me? So we

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Speaker 1: have a more racially female women and have a more

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Speaker 1: racially diverse voting yes. And in fact Clinton's re election

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Speaker 1: in marks the only year that Democrats have want a

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Speaker 1: plurality of the white female vote since nineteen eighty m

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Speaker 1: And in fact, white women are the largest block of

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Speaker 1: social conservatives. So there you go. We're a very diverse

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Speaker 1: group women. We are. We are entirely unpredictable. It seems

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Speaker 1: like as uh, this podcast goes forward. But one thing

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Speaker 1: that you can rely on women to do a little

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Speaker 1: bit more than men come election day in November. That's vote.

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Speaker 1: We get out to the polls. According to the Center

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Speaker 1: for American Women in Politics at Rutgers University, for each

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Speaker 1: presidential election from nineteen eighty I mean that is the

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Speaker 1: watershed year for US nine to two thousand and eight,

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Speaker 1: our most recent presidential election, more women have cast ballots.

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Speaker 1: We get an out. We're rocking our vote. We are,

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Speaker 1: we are and citizens eighteen to forty four higher proportion

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Speaker 1: of women and men in that age group voted in

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Speaker 1: two thousand and two thousand four. However, the trend is different.

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Speaker 1: If you're sixty five enough, the pattern is completely reversed.

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Speaker 1: More older men, I guess or senior citizen men. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and way more women are registered to vote period. Now.

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Speaker 1: I thought this was interesting though, that more women are

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Speaker 1: voting because and this is according to Linda Hirschman in

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Speaker 1: New York Times magazine, men consider it more important to

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Speaker 1: quote influence the political structure by voting. They have that

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Speaker 1: more uh vested interests in a way of casting their ballot.

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Speaker 1: And yet we are doing it in higher numbers than

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Speaker 1: they are. But again, you know, we do. We do

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Speaker 1: waffle a little bit more. We tend to be more

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Speaker 1: um independent and wait till the last minute. Were late deciders.

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Speaker 1: We are late deciders, um we do. As women make

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Speaker 1: up a higher number of undecided and swing voters, like

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Speaker 1: Kristen said earlier. And the reasons for this, they kind

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Speaker 1: of are their theories. They're all over the map. Are

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Speaker 1: we less informed about politics? Are we less invested than

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Speaker 1: men are? Are we more practical, less emotional? So there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of theories as to why more of

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Speaker 1: the undecided voters are female. Uh A look at undecided

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Speaker 1: voters in July blog on the New York Times website,

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Speaker 1: truly undecided voters tend to be in general less knowledgeable

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Speaker 1: about politics. But that's not always true, Yeah, I mean, unfortunately.

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Speaker 1: One of the things that they have cited in terms

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Speaker 1: of gender differences in voting and um, one of the

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Speaker 1: reasons why women might be more undecided than men is

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Speaker 1: that men do tend to take a greater interest in

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Speaker 1: hard news i e. Like more of the political news

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Speaker 1: and might keep tabs on it a little bit better

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Speaker 1: than we do, to which I say, come on, ladies,

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Speaker 1: read the newspaper or whatever digital thing you have in

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Speaker 1: front of you. Um. But right now, since we have

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Speaker 1: mentioned the current election season, according to the Pew Research Center,

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Speaker 1: President Obama has been doing pretty well among women, although

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Speaker 1: of course I take all of the polls that come

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Speaker 1: out every other week with a massive grain of salt,

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Speaker 1: just because I don't know, I don't trust a lot

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Speaker 1: of the the election polls seemed to change. Things seem

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Speaker 1: to kind of roll in waves as you get closer

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Speaker 1: to the election. Right and right now, it does seem

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Speaker 1: like a majority of female voters are leaning Democratic. Right now.

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Speaker 1: You know what, when we go back and re listen

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Speaker 1: to this episode in December. We might say, well, that

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Speaker 1: could be wrong, or we could say, yeah, that was right.

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Speaker 1: Who knows because we're so undecided, so many of us. Well,

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Speaker 1: even when when veters are undecided, Um, a survey, This

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Speaker 1: was in that New York Times blog that I mentioned.

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Speaker 1: A survey found that only thirty percent of undecided voters

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Speaker 1: are truly independent. So just because you're undecided doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: you're necessarily an independent voter. They found that forty of

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Speaker 1: undecided veters lean left and about lean right, So you

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Speaker 1: might still have a political leaning. You're just feeling kind

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Speaker 1: of not so hot about either candidate maybe. But one

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Speaker 1: of the things, um, that I feel like it's important

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Speaker 1: to hammer home with all of this because so far

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Speaker 1: the moral of the story is, you know, do men

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Speaker 1: and women vote differently, Yes a little bit, But do

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Speaker 1: women vote differently among themselves, yes a lot. But when

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Speaker 1: it comes to that large block of undecided and independence,

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Speaker 1: because right now independence are at an all time high,

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Speaker 1: both male and female. If a candidate is looking to

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Speaker 1: get those swing voters, let's say you can just toss

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Speaker 1: out being thumbs up or thumbs down on pink issues,

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Speaker 1: and yeah, I'm using pink just as the all you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of nausea inducing, uh stereotypical term for things that

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Speaker 1: little ladies like, like uh, birth control and such. Um,

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Speaker 1: you can't just toss out these platforms and expect for

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Speaker 1: women to go gaga if you just say one or

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Speaker 1: two things about reproductive rights and call today. Yeah, the

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Speaker 1: according to Pew, the male female divide on reproductive rights

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Speaker 1: is pretty small. Yeah, it's about I mean, men and

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Speaker 1: women the equal proportion oppose a and agree with it. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It has more to do with your background, your religion,

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Speaker 1: your political leanings, all this stuff than it does with

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Speaker 1: your gender. So just because you're a woman doesn't mean

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Speaker 1: you're gonna be all like YEA abortion, YEA, birth control,

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Speaker 1: YEA condoms. You know you're you're going to not follow

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Speaker 1: along gender lines for those issues and for all of

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Speaker 1: the discussion that has gone into birth control access with

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Speaker 1: the healthcare reform. Interestingly, and actually not so surprisingly, um,

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Speaker 1: according to a Gallop Pole, that issue of birth control

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Speaker 1: and the religious exemption to employers having to provide birth control, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: Is not at the top of anybody's list in terms

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Speaker 1: of what they're looking for into candidate because you know what,

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Speaker 1: when you're in an economic recession, guess what matters more jobs,

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Speaker 1: gas prices, healthcare in general, Yeah, the deficit money, things

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Speaker 1: like having a house and stuff like that, the survival

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Speaker 1: of the American government. Yeah. One thing that doesn't tend

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Speaker 1: to sway women either, and we we saw this in

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Speaker 1: the last election is women aren't going to automatically vote

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Speaker 1: for a female candidate. Nope. We actually a two thousand

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Speaker 1: eight Northwestern study found that women might actually hold female

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Speaker 1: political candidates to a higher standard and instead end up

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Speaker 1: opting for the male opponent. Yeah. The um they had

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Speaker 1: this Northwestern study had participants basically free associate candidate qualities

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Speaker 1: based on like a picture of an attractive fictional male,

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Speaker 1: attractive lady, and the women in the study said that

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Speaker 1: they would be more likely to vote for an approachable,

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Speaker 1: seeming male candidate than an attractive female candidate. But then

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Speaker 1: we could go on and on about how, you know,

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Speaker 1: the inferences that we make in terms of leadership and

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Speaker 1: what leadership looks like. Yeah, because they said that all

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Speaker 1: of the people in the study would go for the

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Speaker 1: person who seems more competent. But what makes you think

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Speaker 1: that someone is more competent, an approachable guy that you

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Speaker 1: would want to have a beer with, or an attractive

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Speaker 1: woman or vice versa. Well, and unfortunately, with the state

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Speaker 1: of politics the way it is, a lot of that appearance,

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Speaker 1: you know, snap judgment. I feel like, you know, does

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Speaker 1: it matter if you could have a beer with it?

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Speaker 1: God help you if you pick the wrong thie color

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Speaker 1: for your speech. Yeah, it's true. But um, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's it's telling that we that we based so much

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Speaker 1: just off how somebody looks. Uh So, do men and

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Speaker 1: women vote differently? Yes? Do women vote differently among themselves? Yes?

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Speaker 1: We women vote for women maybe, I think that. And

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Speaker 1: this is one of those these situations where we have

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Speaker 1: not so much clarified the question as confounded even more. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think it would be interesting to hear from our

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Speaker 1: female listeners who maybe have gotten guph from other women

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Speaker 1: for the way they vote, whether they lean left or right.

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Speaker 1: If you maybe have been made to feel like you're

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Speaker 1: making the wrong decision because you should stand with your

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Speaker 1: fellow women on some issue. Yeah, and I think, um,

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Speaker 1: even though I mean, I think it's a good thing

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Speaker 1: that there isn't a clear answer of women vote this

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Speaker 1: way because that is one of the most frustrating things

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Speaker 1: I think for women who are informed and who are

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Speaker 1: politically active, that there is an assumption that we are

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Speaker 1: a giant voting block where that's really not the case

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Speaker 1: at all. America is huge. Yeah, we all we vote

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Speaker 1: according to what is important to us and based on

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Speaker 1: your religion, your background, your family, anything like that. What

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Speaker 1: how do you feel about education, whatever you're You're going

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Speaker 1: to vote according to what you believe is right and

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Speaker 1: what will help you. So that's different for everybody. Not

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Speaker 1: what kind of underpants you're wearing. Really really okay, I'll

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Speaker 1: cross that off my list, although I do not have

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Speaker 1: empirical data to beck, So send us your thoughts on

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Speaker 1: gender and voting. Mom Stuff at Discovery dot com is

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Speaker 1: where you can send your letters, or you can head

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Speaker 1: over to Facebook and leave us a comment there. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, we got a couple of letters. The first

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Speaker 1: one is in response to your podcast a little while

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Speaker 1: ago about the Roma also known as Gypsies. I'm just

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Speaker 1: gonna share a few tidbits from Malia, who sent us

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Speaker 1: a detailed letter about stuff that she knows about the

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Speaker 1: Roma and the Romani. The Roma Romani she says, I

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Speaker 1: have a few notes to add to your information. First

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Speaker 1: of all, the word Roma or Romani does not refer

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Speaker 1: to Romania. Rom is the word for a man in Romani,

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Speaker 1: and the naming of the Roma or Romani people pre

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Speaker 1: dates the naming of the country of Romania. In fact,

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Speaker 1: many Romanians are outraged that others would confuse them with

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Speaker 1: the Roman people. Second, while perceived discrimination maybe lowest among

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Speaker 1: Roma in Romania, saying that Romania has the best record

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Speaker 1: regarding gypsies is misleading, as the EU M d US

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Speaker 1: report cautions, segregation is higher in Romania and Roma people

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Speaker 1: may be less aware of their majority counterparts opinion. Isabel

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Speaker 1: fin Seka also wrote about violence against Roma in Romania

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Speaker 1: following the fall of communism and the direct or indirect

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Speaker 1: complicity of law enforcement officials. While certain countries and sectors

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Speaker 1: have made progress, discrimination against Roma throughout Europe remains entrenched also,

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Speaker 1: and I thought this was this was a good point

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Speaker 1: to share. Third, the great majority of Roma are not nomadic.

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Speaker 1: Through a combination of pressures from the state, modernist modernization

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Speaker 1: in general, and personal choice, most Roma have settled. So

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Speaker 1: thanks so much to Malia for sharing all that information.

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Speaker 1: With us. Here's one from Rachel about Manic Pixie dream Girls. Uh,

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Speaker 1: she said, the trope of the mp d G reminded

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Speaker 1: me of one of my favorite books. The book is

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Speaker 1: Paper Towns by John Green, and it surrounds a lackluster

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Speaker 1: guy nicknamed Q and his infatuation with his neighbor Argo.

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Speaker 1: In the book, Margot takes him on a wonderfully illegal

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Speaker 1: nighttime adventure to seek revenge on an ex boyfriend of hers,

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Speaker 1: and then disappears without a trait. Q then spends the

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Speaker 1: rest of the book searching for her and ultimately discovering himself.

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Speaker 1: Before you guessed it, she flutters away in a sprinkle

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Speaker 1: of pixie dust. I I really hope that's literal. I

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Speaker 1: know you only mentioned cinema and television, but I thought

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Speaker 1: it was interesting that the MPDG exists in literature as well.

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Speaker 1: So it's called Papertown Papertowns by John Green. I mean,

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Speaker 1: something else to check out for very late summer reading. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that's all we've got for you. My mom's stuff

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Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.

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Speaker 1: You can also head over to Facebook like us sleeve

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Speaker 1: us in message being nice follow us on Twitter at

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Speaker 1: mom Stuff Podcast, and you can also read the article

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Speaker 1: do men and women vote differently? By yours Truly Christen

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Speaker 1: Conger over at how stuff works dot com for more

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Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com brought to you by the reinvented

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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you