Author's Note: Do men and women vote differently?
The day I began writing this article on gender and voting, news outlets informed me that Republican senators had blocked the passage of the Paycheck Fairness Act on the grounds that it would result in a tidal wave of salary discrimination lawsuits from underpaid women. I wasn't surprised at the quick shutdown since the now-defunct legislation was introduced not-so-coincidentally during a fierce presidential election season that has, so far, revolved around women. One week, pundits are abuzz because polls show Democratic President Obama with a hefty lead among potential female voters, and the next week, politicos are panicking because another survey has revealed that women might not be as primed to re-elect the president as previous data suggested.
As a woman, it's certainly intriguing to watch how political campaigns actively court the female vote. And it's been equally interesting to witness backlash from women voters who don't appreciate being lumped together as a monolith voting bloc. With all of that swirling in the background, I was glad to have an excuse to dig into some long-term data and see whether women really do vote so differently from men. But broad-brush polling statistics should also be ingested with a grain of salt, because, like I write in the article, there's a lot of nuance to those numbers.Related Articles
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