History of the women’s vote in the US
A commenter writes:
There are many irrational men and many rational women, but it is an unfortunate truth that a majority female vote got every Democrat President elected since women’s sufferage. Women are much more susceptible to the concept of a paternal, Federal government.
There is no question that women have been voting for Democrats more than men have in recent years. And I must say that, when I read the comment, I thought it was probably correct. But I decided to check, and I found something quite interesting and quite different has been going on since women got the vote in this country.
Before I get into that, I want to mention that “everybody knows” that in 2016 women voted far more for Hillary Clinton than for Trump. But it turns out it was actually nowhere near as simple as that. In fact, more white women voted for Trump than for Hillary, and non-college-educated white women voted for Trump in especially overwhelming numbers:
Women did vote overwhelmingly to elect Clinton, but it was white women who helped hand Trump the presidency, according to Edison national election poll. Overall, 54% of women voted for Clinton, much higher than the 42% of women who voted for Trump. But when the women’s vote is divided by race, it becomes clear that black women actually largely drove the so-called gender gap against Trump.
The majority of non-college educated white women (64%) voted for Trump, while 35% backed Clinton.
Minority women, on the other hand, voted for Clinton in overwhelming numbers. So “women” is not a unitary group. And although since 1980 women have definitely been more likely than men to vote Democratic, that was not the case earlier. So if the nature of women hadn’t changed in those years, it may have been the messages that changed.
Did the Democratic Party find a more effective way to exploit women’s vulnerability to certain messages (such as, for example, Romney’s completely innocuous “binders of women”)? Probably. Feminism had its role, too.
Here’s a deeper dive into the historical record, and you’ll see that the situation used to be quite different:
…Prior to 1980 there were two presidential candidates for whom women voted at notably greater rates than did men: Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower.
The election of 1928 could well be called the “year of the woman voter.” Throughout the 1920s, the mass of women had been relatively apathetic about politics, enthused by only a few local candidates and none of the national ones. But Hoover was so popular that he became known as “the woman’s candidate.” (McCormick 1928, 22; Smith 1929, 126; Barnard, 1928, 555). Some of his popularity derived from his role as Food Administrator during the Great War, and some from the importance of Prohibition in the election of 1928. Hoover was Dry, Smith was Wet, and it was commonly assumed that women wanted Prohibition to be enforced. Women registered to vote in record numbers, and the Republican Party’s Women’s Division was “besieged by unprecedented numbers of women who wanted to participate in the campaign.” (Morrison 1978, 84). Hoover was endorsed by the National Woman’s Party, the only major party Presidential candidate to be endorsed by a specifically feminist organization prior to 1984.
When the dust settled both private and public commentators were impressed with women’s greatly increased turnout to vote, and with their strong support for Hoover. While scientific polling did not yet exist, straw polls recorded a gender gap. Robinson’s review of these polls concluded that the Hearst poll was the most accurate; it had predicted that 60 percent of women and 56 percent of men would vote for Hoover. (Robinson 1932, 92). Private reports to the RNC and to FDR estimated larger differentials, some that women were ten percent more likely than men to vote for Hoover…
Attention to women faded in the election of 1932, dominated as it was by the Depression, and fewer observations were recorded. However, when Gallup surveyed expected voters in 1936, he asked those who had voted in 1932 to declare their choice. Of those who said they had voted, 63 % of the men were for FDR, but only 57 % of the women. Only 35 % of the men said they voted for Hoover, compared to 41 % of the women. (AIPO (Gallup) Poll #53)
So, rather surprisingly, FDR was more popular among men than among women, as best we can tell.
More:
This differential voting pattern [between men and women voters] faded to less than two percent in Presidential elections until 1952. Polls of voters done before and after that election found women were five percent more likely to vote for Eisenhower than were men, though both gave him a majority. Republican women gleefully claimed that women had elected him President (Priest 1953), and this belief soon became “firmly enshrined among American political lore.”…
The election of 1960 saw women once again fade from political sight. Some of this was due to the ongoing campaign of the DNC to downplay the idea that there was a woman’s vote, and some was due to the rise of new issues. The gender gap dropped to between 2 and 3 % in 1960 — too small to be statistically significant but implying that women still voted more frequently for the Republican candidate…
In 1964 as in 1960 the gender gap of 2 to 3 % was too small to be significant, but it was notable because, for the first time, women were more likely than men to vote for the Democratic Presidential candidate. In 1968 43 % of both men and women said they voted for Nixon. But men were 4 % more likely to vote for George Wallace (16% to 12%) while women were more likely to vote for Humphrey (45% to 41%)…
What’s notable about this history is not merely that there was a gender gap prior to 1980, but that the pattern shifted. Previously the Republican Party had been the beneficiary of woman suffrage; subsequently the Democratic Party was. Furthermore, this change correlates with different attitudes by the national parties toward women and women’s rights. While partisan differences were not large prior to 1980, they were present. Historically, it was the Republican Party that was the party of women’s rights, and the Democratic Party that was the home of anti-feminism. After the new feminist movement rose in the 1960s-70s, the parties switched sides. (Freeman 1987)
Interesting, no?
Let’s go back a few decades and see how “Votes for Women” actually changed America, and much for the WORSE. Some of the major supporters for women’s suffrage were the SAME supporters of the Temperance movement; they wanted votes for women, AND no alcohol for men.
That wasn’t going to happen, because taxes on alcohol were THE MAJOR revenue stream for the Federal government. So the Temperance ladies were great backers of getting the Federal government a new revenue stream; the income tax. Once the income tax was passed and the Feds didn’t need booze taxes, THEN Prohibition could be done.
But there are ALWAYS unintended consequences. Prohibition gave birth to the bootleggers and rumrunners like John Kennedy Senior, who made the Kennedy fortune smuggling booze. And with alcohol illegal, the TRADE in alcohol went to the criminals; in fact, “organized crime” was a direct result of Prohibition.
So “votes for women” became Prohibition, which led DIRECTLY to the drug epidemic that we’re suffering now, a century later.
We shoulda never let women vote!
https://www.pbs.org/kenburns/prohibition/roots-of-prohibition/
https://medium.com/the-blunt-ogre/when-feminism-was-at-war-with-alcohol-and-created-the-income-tax-5e2b2be6c62a
Joseph P. Kennedy or Joe Kennedy was the legal rum runner who made the family fortune. He also was active as a financier in Hollywood. He famously “ripped off” his girlfriend Gloria Swanson who desperately wanted to make a film. He provided the cash only if she underwrote the financing if it flopped, which it did. She spent a fortune over decades paying him off, though she always lived very comfortably.
Fascinating post Neo.
My grandmother was a WCTU’er, who in her later years would shyly ask for a tiny glass of wine, and then have it refilled a few times.
It is sad that the “university educated” women’s vote breaks that way.
The other factor I read about 10 or 20 years ago, was the difference between the single women without children vote vs. married with children vote. Which concerns a voter the most? Next year or the next 20 or 30 years?
So “votes for women” became Prohibition, which led DIRECTLY to the drug epidemic that we’re suffering now, a century later.
There is no epidemic. The use of intoxicants, like street crime generally, is a social condition. And not one that has anything to do with alcohol having once been legally proscribed.
Ken – the problem was not women’s suffrage; the problem was the trade-offs by the activists, if it was as you said: did the women of the US — or even their male supporters — ever take a direct vote on trading suffrage for Income taxes?
The populace seldom gets to see what goes into the legislative sausage, especially since all factions lie about their ingredients and the final condition of the wurst, which is generally worse than anyone admitted to.
Much of the sex gap, whether pay, rites… rights, and votes, is political myth that normalized the Democrat party.
AesopFan:
Not sure what you’re getting at – income tax amendment came 7 years before women’s suffrage.
Prior to 1980 the reps were the pro ERA and pro abortion party. While fanatic feminazis were in the Dems, they were less influential than the southern Dems and northern Catholics who became marginalized
Another issue, the candidate seen as less of a warmonger often gets the women’s vote
Nope, here’s the deal:
The correct way handle problems of the franchise is as follows:
1. No person shall have the right to cast his own vote, or a vote-as-guardian on behalf of a minor child, until he has a high-school-level certificate or equivalent and has worked gainfully in the private sector for a total of 200 hours.
2. Eligibility to vote (for oneself, or on behalf of one’s minor child) shall not be conferred on any natural-born citizen until he/she has passed the same test required by the naturalization process to obtain naturalized-citizen status.
3. For an American citizen who is eligible to vote and is legal guardian of a minor child who is also an American citizen, the guardian shall cast a vote on behalf of his/her minor child, in addition to his/her own vote. If the guardian is the biological parent of the child, this eligibility to vote on behalf of the child shall begin when the child is born. If the guardian is not the biological parent of the child, eligibility to cast the child’s vote shall begin ten years after he attains legal guardian status, and ceases when the child attains majority.
4. No minor child who is an American citizen shall have more than one vote cast on his/her behalf by a male guardian, nor shall any minor child have more than one vote cast on his/her behalf by a female guardian.
The idea, roughly, is as follows:
Every childless individual has the same voting power under the system I’ve described as he does under the status quo.
Every single parent (whether male or female) casts a number of votes equal to the number of children for whom they are the legal guardian, plus one. (This will more often be single moms, than single dads.)
And, for every married couple, the mom casts her vote, plus a vote for each minor child; and the dad also casts his vote, plus a vote for each minor child. This means the minor children of intact biological homes get voted for TWICE. (That’s intended.)
Adoptive parents won’t do so well; but one thing we don’t want is people adopting children merely to amplify their own voting-power. The ten-year delay is sufficient to reduce that risk.
In the end, the net impact is to vastly increase the voting power of traditional families with lots of children, over-and-against that of those who haven’t invested so much in rearing the next generation of Americans.
And that would be a good thing. While I don’t hold out the Duggars, specifically, an example for all Americans to follow, a society in which larger families had more clout would be (all other things remaining equal) a better society.
So the 18th amendment to the constitution ushering in prohibition was ratified in 1919 and the 19th amendment establishing women’s right to vote was ratified in 1920. With that chronology in mind how can anyone blame the womens vote for prohibition? Thank you neo for this post. It led me to read up on Prohibition which is a much more complex issue than I imagined.
Eva Marie,
I wrote this long comment earlier and deleted it, and I’ll try to keep it shorter. There was an amazing pair of men, whose names I’ve forgotten, who became the coroner and med. examiner of NYC in the early 20th century. The coroner was a consummate politician who acquired some money, power, and freedom for the ME, who was a medical science wizard. Charles Norris, I think. He revolutionized the ME business.
The side story was that the ME at one point was dealing with thousands of men and perhaps a few women who died from drinking denatured alcohol. “Denaturing” was a Prohibition tactic of adding poisons to otherwise drinkable ethanol. In spite of the warning labels some people still drank it.
The ME began an aggressive PR campaign to A) warn people about the dangers, and B) repeal Prohibition. Because he was gaining traction in his campaign the gov. added even more poisons to the alcohol, thinking that then people would take the hint and stop drinking it, but the number of deaths increased. Eventually, of course, Prohibition was repealed.
Here is a long version piece entitled “The Chemists War.”
The “new” feminist movement of the 1970s on is an obscene fraud, which is why Democrats switched to it.
Methanol is CH3OH, Ethanol, its first cousin, Is C2H7OH. It was not the intentional addition of toxins by moonshiners or anyone else to poison consumers during Prohibition. It was just sloppy distilling, getting some methanol in with the corn whisky (ethanol). Methanol in low amounts, mixed with ethanol, is basically tasteless but severely harmful.
Denaturated alcohol is still available as “rubbing” alcohol”. It has intentionally added compounds to make it very unpalatable for use as booze, but it is not poisonous unless one has suicidal intent..
Methanol is entirely toxic.
Ethanol is not too good for us either!
German women played a vital role in the Nazi movement, one which far exceeded the Nazi Party’s propaganda that a woman’s place was strictly in the home as mothers and child-bearers. Of the estimated forty million German women in the Reich, some thirteen million were active in Nazi Party organizations that furthered the regime’s goals of racial purity, imperial conquest, and global war.
the
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They served as welfare workers, teachers, secretaries, nurses, auxiliaries in the armed forces and police, and in many other occupations including as guards in concentration camps.
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A minority of German women who resisted the regime’s policies or were branded biologically inferior were persecuted. Hundreds of thousands were forcibly sterilized and tens of thousands were incarcerated in the camp system.
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Women were central to Adolf Hitler’s plan to create an ideal “Aryan” Community (Volksgemeinschaft). Praising German women as “our most loyal, fanatical fellow-combatants,” Hitler valued women for both their activism in the Nazi movement and their biological power as generators of the race. In Nazi thinking, a larger, racially purer population would enhance Germany’s military strength and provide settlers to colonize conquered territory in eastern Europe. The Third Reich’s aggressive population policy encouraged “racially pure” women to bear as many children as possible.
Holocaust Enclyclopedia
the left copies the left.. and what they learned is that you can sway women as a single block a lot more than you can sway men… madison avenue knows the same and laments how they never got all the metrosexuals by various names to go out and shop till they drop…
Thank you TommyJay. Fascinating. That and the story of prohibition intertwined with WWI rationing and the introduction of the income tax is so interesting. But setting that all aside, it really ticks me off that the constant refrain has always been that it was the woman’s vote that brought on prohibition. It was true that women played a role – just as they played a huge role in the abolition movement – but prohibition was supported and voted for by men. By 1919, 33 of the 48 states were dry. By 1919, 15 states allowed women to vote.
It just goes along with the above eye opening post on women’s voting patterns.
It was true that women played a role – just as they played a huge role in the abolition movement – but prohibition was supported and voted for by men.
Eva Marie & all: Does anyone remember in the sixties the quaint conviction many men had, including intellectuals, that women really ran the world by covertly running their husbands and sons?
I think it went back to Philip Wylie’s “Generation of Vipers,” where Wylie introduced the term, “Momism,” though no doubt further antecedents could be found.
Wylie was a classic, self-made, American intellectual who wrote pulp fiction, novels, movie scripts and ranting essays all over the place, of which “Generations of Vipers” was the most famous. His novel, “The End of the Dream,” an early entry into eco-catastrophic fiction, scarred me when I was 20.
Wylie had a certain amount of cultural clout in his day but has since been almost entirely forgotten.
Denaturated alcohol is still available as “rubbing” alcohol”. It has intentionally added compounds to make it very unpalatable for use as booze, but it is not poisonous unless one has suicidal intent.. –Cicero
I’m a big fan of “Withnail & I,” a Brit black comedy that never really caught on over here, though over there people can recite lines with the same comprehensive verve of “Rocky Horror” fans.
It’s about a pair of young, broke, out-of-work actors, who share an unheated, terminally messy London flat in 1969. One funny bit early in the film shows the actor Richard E. Grant (who eventually made it in Hollywood) demanding booze, then settling for lighter fluid, while proclaiming it far superior to “meths” (methylated alcohol — denatured alcohol).
The lighter fluid was supposed to contain water, but the director secretly substituted vinegar, so Grant’s pop-eyed expression upon swallowing was natural.
— “Withnail & I” “Never Mix Your Drinks”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmXmVwOTwOU
Enjoy at your own risk…
Neo,
Thanks for straightening out the record and correcting my hyperbolic prose. It seems theoretical to me that unwed women and single mothers would tilt towards the party offering the most paternalism. Also, women who have a partner who earns most or all of the household income would tend to vote for the party that campaigns on taking the smallest amount of their household income in taxes. But it doesn’t appear to be that straight forward.
In Presidential elections Mrs. Firefly is pretty much a single issue voter; Pro Life.
R.C.,
It is an interesting mental exercise to devise schemes to get a more effective electorate. I like the ideas of needing some “skin in the game;” paying taxes or owning land. Or, as you suggest, a citizenship or civics exam.
However, I’m more opposed to disenfranchisement and such schemes always end up sounding a bit totalitarian, or elitist to me. Our country has an unfortunate history with poll taxes and other methods to disenfranchise citizens. It is a slippery slope that can be abused.
I witnessed a fascinating conversation. Mrs. Firefly and I were out with two other couples; long time friends. It was 2008 and the two other wives were singing Senator Obama’s praises. Both their husbands explained that policies he was explicitly campaigning on would almost certainly negatively impact their industries and result in reduced income, if not unemployment. The wives started loudly chanting, “Obama!” “Obama!” Their husbands were getting irritated and made their case again, with facts and citing quotes from Obama. (My wife and I stayed out of it.) The chanting just got louder.