Betting on the Gender Gap: The Women's Vote in the High-Stakes Elections of 2016

[niyad]

(a lengthy, excellent read)

Betting on the Gender Gap:
The Women's Vote in the High-Stakes Elections of 2016


The gender gap is in and out of the news this election cycle. The 2016 election likely will have the largest gender gap in history, which could reach a 15-point difference between women and men in their choices for the country's political leadership. More than ever before, women have the power to elect the next president, decide the makeup of Congress, select state legislators and shape the national agenda.

Words written 30 years ago by Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and Ms. publisher, ring more true today than ever:
You've seen it in countless newspaper headlines; you've heard about it on radio and television. Republicans alternately deny its existence or worriedly announce plan after plan for "closing" it. And Democrats, slow to recognize it as a political reality, are nevertheless counting on it to provide a windfall of votes for their party. It's the gender gap—the measurable difference in the way women and men vote for candidates and in the way they view political issues. The "women's vote," a powerful new voting bloc, will make the difference in political contests.

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Then and now, the gender gap in voting exists in part because of the differing life experiences of women and men. Caregiving responsibilities fall mainly to women. The pay gap remains stubbornly wide; women are more likely to live in poverty and are the majority of those in low-paid jobs. Domestic violence and sexual assault against women run rampant. The gender gap offers a powerful tool in making women's differing viewpoints visible, compelling politicians to address women's concerns and demands for equality. The better informed the narrative—the more women's voices and opinions and votes are respected— the more powerful the gender gap becomes.
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A critical driver of the gender gap is the feminist factor—meaning that voters' views on feminism correlate with their choice of candidates. In a 2012 Ms. magazine/ Communications Consortium Media Center exit poll by Lake Research Partners, 55 percent of women voters self-identified as feminists, up by 9 points among a sample of those voters asked the same question in 2008. Among male voters, 30 percent self-identified as feminists. Almost three-quarters of Democratic women voters identified as feminists, as did more than one-third of Republican women. In addition, "among [all] feminist women, some two-thirds (64 percent) voted for Obama, as did 54 percent of feminist-identified men," Smeal reported in Ms. after the election. "The feminist factor cuts across race and ethnic lines, with a majority of Latina, African American and white women voters considering themselves feminists," continued Smeal. The feminist factor also cuts across generational lines, with a majority of both younger and older women voters self-identifying as feminists.
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Voters Who Identify as Feminists




Let the 2016 countdown to the gender gap begin.

http://www.msmagazine.com/magazine/betting-on-the-gender-gap.html

[niyad]

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