katie roiphe

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Sat Jun 19 09:34:24 PDT 1999


Jim heartfield wrote:


>In Europe women have, throughout the greater part of the century, tended
>to vote to the right of men. The respectable wing of the British
>suffragette movement embraced the war effort in 1914, many of them
>playing a leading role in the 'white feather' campaign, in which men who
>failed to enlist were denounced as cowards. Today women play a war-
>mongering role again, with Louise Arbour, Madeleine Albright and Clare
>Short all playing their part.

Pointing to three visible warmongering women is a pretty weak measure of central tendency.

I guess the U.S. is very different from Europe, because here women are less warlike, more in favor of social spending, and generally to the "left" of men on almost all issues. I'd be the last to argue that voting Democratic is an index of leftish ideology, but still, savor the gender gaps from the last 3 national elections (figures are share of popular vote according to Voter News Service exit polls):

1994 1996 1998

------------ ------------ ------------

D R D R D R women 53 47 55 45 53 47 men 42 58 46 54 46 54 W-M +11 +9 +7

Doug



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