3 ways the women’s movement in US politics is misunderstood
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey after winning the election. AP Photo/Butch Dill
A record number of women are headed to statehouses and Capitol Hill in 2019. One hundred women were elected to the U.S. House, which means that at least 121 women will serve in the 116th Congress – up from the current 107.
Twelve women were elected to the U.S. Senate. This new record shatters the 1992 “year of the woman” in which five women were elected to serve in the Senate.
Media outlets have been quick to attribute women’s candidacies and successes to the Democratic “blue wave.” This generalization ignores places like Alabama , where voters elected a Republican woman as governor and passed a measure that recognizes and supports “the sanctity of unborn life and the rights of unborn children” and another measure that allows the display of the Ten Commandments on public property and in schools.
In South Dakota , voters also elected a Republican female governor and rejected progressive-backed measures that would have revised campaign finance and lobbying laws as well as increased taxes on tobacco products.
As a scholar of politics and social movements, I’m often asked to explain these contradictory outcomes.
Here are three things to keep in mind about women and politics as a new Congress prepares to take office.
1. Women vote more than men, and not all are Democrats
How women vote is often not well explained in news coverage. Journalists emphasize that women vote more than men and that more women tend to identify as Democrats.
This is true. If you look at gender alone , 54 percent of women identify as Democrats or lean Democrat, and only 38 percent of women identify as Republican or lean Republican.
The problem is that these numbers miss key demographic differences that divide women’s votes. A lot of white , married women vote Republican. According to the Pew Research Center , 47 percent of white women identified as Republican or Republican-leaning and 46 percent of white women identified as Democrat or Democrat-leaning in 2016.
This thin margin among white women was clear in the 2016 presidential election: 45 percent of white women voted for Hillary Clinton and 47 percent voted for Donald Trump. Compare this to women of color: 98 percent of black women and 67 percent of Hispanic women voted for Clinton in the 2016 election.
2. Conservative feminism
Penny Nance (far right), CEO and president of Concerned Women for America, poses with President Donald Trump after he signed a measure allowing states to withhold federal funds from facilities that provide abortion services. Official White House Photo by Myles Cullen
Experts have found that conservative women and conservative women’s groups consider themselves part of the “women’s movement” even as they reject the traditional goals of that movement: equal rights legislation, legal abortion, some forms of birth control and the ability of women to serve in combat. While these conservative feminists advocate for women’s advancement in culture and politics, they celebrate and defend many aspects of traditional femininity including women’s roles as family caregivers.
Take the group Concerned Women for America , which I’ve studied extensively . It was created in 1979 in response to the political successes of the liberal feminist National Organization for Women, which some believed did not represent the political views of all American women.
Concerned Women for America founder Beverly LaHaye, whose late husband was a politically prominent evangelical minister and conservative activist, saw her organization as a way to represent more traditional and religious values in the women’s movement. The organization pushed back against legal abortion, the Equal Rights Amendment and infringements on religious expression such as restrictions on school prayer.
Today, Concerned Women of America is a political powerhouse that mobilizes its half-million members to elect Republican candidates. Virtually every Republican running for the presidency since 1980 has stopped in at the organization’s annual convention in an effort to gain the group’s favor and conservative women’s votes.
Concerned Women for America also has a strong presence in conservative states such as Alabama. The efforts of powerful conservative women’s groups including Concerned Women for America help explain why voters in Alabama elected only its second female governor in 50 years, Kay Ivey, with 60 percent of the vote and passed socially conservative measures.
Ivey is a Republican whose top two issues, according to her website , were her belief in God and her value of the lives of the unborn. It’s a safe bet to say that the women – and men – who voted for Ivey, also voted for the conservative ballot measures.
3. Women’s power at the state level
How politically powerful women are varies across the U.S. and, to some extent, reflects ideas about how women and men should act. Historians find, for example, that voters in Southern states tend to reinforce traditional gender norms and frown on women holding political office.
For example, Nevada and South Carolina are politically mixed states but vary dramatically in their ranking on women’s equality and political empowerment. According to WalletHub, a personal finance website, Nevada is the fourth best state when it comes to equality between men and women on 16 key indicators, including workplace environment, education, health and political empowerment. South Carolina ranks 45th.
The election outcomes were also very different.
In each state, seven women ran for office in the midterm elections . In Nevada, five women (Democrats and Republicans) won their races outright and another race is too close to call. Only two of the seven female candidates (both Republicans) won in South Carolina. There is a clear difference between the two states in women’s degree of political power.
Nevada also has a much better track record of women running and winning. This is not true of South Carolina , where it was seen as an achievement in 2016 when just four women were elected to the state Senate, which has 46 seats.
Women made history in 2018, but there is more to the story than the Democratic “blue wave.” The diversity of women and the different contexts in which they operate have implications for politics and policy for decades to come.
This article has been updated to correct that Kay Ivey is Alabama’s second woman governor.
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Any group that allows politicians and religious organizations to usurp a woman's full and complete rights to her entire body and healthcare has no business calling itself a womrn's rights group. Mind you, these same conservatives voted for overtly racist candidates and liars (would you include Cindy Hyde-Smith in that group?). The word 'women' in the name of an organization has no bearing of its real intent. In this case, it is to deny women rights. A woman denying other women rights is no different than a man doing it. Almost worse.
No one is doing that.
Women have the same rights as men.
I'll bet you really believe that. Women do NOT have the same rights to control certain aspects of their healthcare if certain employers, churches or politicians have their say (which they do in some places). These groups are currently trying to exert their will on female fertility legislatively and judicially.
We can vote. There's that
They do have the same rights. But here's the thing: The Left thinks a right to something includes obliging someone else to pay for it. That's not how rights work.
You can get them, too, if you want them. Same rights.
I don't know of anyone who is controlling whether or not you can have kids.
Yeah! A right enshrined in the Constitution by men, by the way. Just sayin. There's so much talk these days about the cruelty of the patriarchy and wars on women and such.
Well, it's not the government, we know that. Hyde Agreement made sure that would not happen.
And always recognized as such, by men. Just as women were never treated as less than men, by men.
Oh, wait...
I don't who you're talking to but I didn't say that
things the government provides for kids costs way more than an abortion, others are obliged to pay those costs
It's hypocritical that the right have no issue with paying for EVERY form of healthcare used by men but demand the right to micromanage every dime spent on the healthcare women use.
Oh and BTW, WE do pay to ensure that EVERYONE has the same rights. An example would be providing legal counsel for those who cannot afford it.
Really? You know of a urologist who would prescribe Viagra for a woman? Link please.
Nope. The government allows employers to single out women to deny coverage. Not the same at all.
What a urologist chooses to do has nothing to do with the government and women's rights.
Explain what you mean.
Stop with the obtuseness. You claimed a woman can get 'boner pills' if she wants them. Since 'boner pills' are by prescription only, you KNOW your claim is bullshit.
Why would I continue in good faith when you have already proven that you can't.
If you think my comment is a personal attack, flag it and refrain from commenting.
Other than that, go pound sand...
I'm free to IGNORE your 'encouragement'.
My comment wasn't a personal attack and it wasn't removed. I know YOU don't like that. Pretty ironic since you pretend to be the standard bearer for free speech...
I deal with it by posting wherever the hell I want. Why are you trying to censor me Xx?
So you now acknowledge that your claim that my comment was a 'personal attack/put down' was bullshit. About time.
Actually, no, NO it didn't. I said that I am free to ignore your 'encouragement', which I have every intention to do...
Actually, you didn't.
BTFW, you calling for civility and comity is comical.
Right, you're just trying to get me to stop posting in your seed. You're just going to have to embrace disappointment.
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To everyone on this thread,
When an impasse is called, it ends the discussion on the thread. If you would like the discussion to continue (but not with the person who called the impasse), please start a new thread.
Thanks!
It has nothing to do with rights, though. It's just because physiologically, it doesn't appear to do much for women.
However, there have been studies that indicate it could be of some help psychologically for women seeking to increase sexual pleasure. Some doctors have been prescribing it for women for almost 20 years, but not in big numbers and the FDA hasn't approved it for that yet. That doesn't mean you can't get it, though.
Again, that's about paying for something, not the right to get it. This is really not a difficult concept. Your right to obtain something does not include the right to have other people pay for it.
Uh ???
I didn't call an impasse, nor has anyone I was talking to.
As I understood it, all of our comments were related to that call and such are forbidden.
I remain confused. I didn't think the discussion between Dulay and I had anything to do with the impasse called by MBFC.
I don't get it either. I thought impasse was between two people. Not to stop a whole thread.
That WAS my understanding too but the call is that it ENDS THE THREAD. Which means that all of our comments after Perrie's are violations of the IMPASSE rule.
It seems punitive to cut off a discussion just because ONE person in the thread makes a call, but that's the way it is.
I can't say in regards to yours as I didn't see your commemt but they directly followed mine.
I commented on the call and not the subject but still related and explained to my satisfaction when I started whining.
Egads people, please read the CoC. It should be that when I or a mod posts in purple, that people pay attention and follow the directives.
Why must the far far far far far far rightwing insist on defining everyone else?
Wrongly, I surely need not even add though I will in case someone wondered...
Never ceases to amaze me...that many on the right yell and scream that they are for more individual freedoms....then turn around and want to deny those freedoms for women. SMFH.
I'd like to know what these potential pussy grabees' are doing off their backs. shouldn't they be doing housework, fixing dinner, home schooling children, or reciting scripture? /s
"Traditional conservative Christian values"? Like josh duggar, kim davis and our cheater in chief? Pass. If those are the values they are pushing....i want no part of it.
To be honest...…. Everything "Political" is ALWAYS misunderstood !
Women have been voting for decades, along with any other "ism" you can think of. Problem "IS" (depending on what "IS" ….is), There isn't a so-called "Professional" out their that can tell you "Exactly" why folks "Vote" the way they do.
I do Luv those....."I know EVERYTHING" folks on the Boob tube !
They have ALL the answers, even when they DON'T !
I LUV's POLITCS !
Yes, these women have been brainwashed by their religions that being married and being subservient to your husband is their duty. It is the highest honor and example of how they support their God (aka men).
Again, these women have been brainwashed to believe their highest role and responsibility is to be subservient to their men and to take care of the children. Women are second class citizens in the religious world.
Don't get me wrong, I believe they have every right to continue the lifestyle of women from the early 1900's if that's what makes them happy. Most of these women I've found have very low self esteem and require men in their lives to help define them. These are the type of women that are very malleable and easily manipulated. That's why they tend to be religious.
Here's the problem. For so long men have been able to force this perception that they are the better sex. They are smarter and can take care of their families. Unfortunately, they've been exposed or maybe it's a more accurate description to say their big lie has been exposed with every new generation of men. I see the men today and view them as weak and lazy. I am uninspired by them so why take on their baggage......
Yeah, no shit! And they have the balls to bray on about middle eastern women.
Regarding your comment about men....I don't see them as weak and lazy.
I see them as weak and stupid. Easily led by suggestive impulse. It's like living life through 30 second commercials. Couldn't control a situation if their life depended on it. Adulthood is not their goal.
Unfortunately, through my travels I have seen versions of the same in other places and cultures but never as obvious as here in the USA.
Ironic, isn't it?
I watched a show last night about Jehovah's Witnesses and they talked about how women are treated worse than second class citizens.
How are women supposed to advance in culture and politics if they're stuck at home wiping snotty noses and poopy butts?
Yeah - and then they also have to take care of the kids. hahahahaha
Kidding aside, this is why I'm a firm supporter of choice. Women should have a choice of the lifestyle they want to live.
If God is against abortion(and we don't know that), let him deal with it if he has a judgement day, until then let women make their choice
I doubt very much God is against abortion since He causes so many miscarriages.....
You are right, I wonder if those opposing abortions ever consider they might not be doing what their lord wants
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and how long did that last?
God made that fetus that miscarried, or made that woman who was unable to carry to term.
Unless you're saying God really doesn't have all that much input. Is that what you're saying?
But he did. He created those arteries prone to atherosclerosis, and those cancer cells. If you believe he created us, then you can't hold him innocent of creating us flawed.
Sin does not exist
your God created Nature who causes the miscarriages - so yes, your God causes miscarriages and is the biggest abortion provider, and you wholeheartedly support it.
God's history as an abortionist.
Actually Xx, as much as you want it to be, your seed isn't really about 'women's group's. Only ONE group is mentioned, which the author and you seem to have an affinity for, even though it's one major cause looks lost, at least if you believe the conclusion of your seed...
So the almighty just let things fall apart?
If it was perfect how did a mere mortal break it?
And once again, we have right here on display:
Good= God did it.
Bad= Wasn't God.
Man, it must be great to just be able to wrap up the entire world into one basic, black and white world. If ONLY life were that simple.
Lying is a sin. Mike Pence lies constantly. He's FUCKED.
Ouch... Well played.
If religion depends on faith doesn't this work the same way ?
If I dont believe either I figure that is the answer. As I see no prove of either yet, that's where I'm at.
When a dead person confirms religion is real Ill be convinced I guess. Till then I dont have much "faith" that anyone now alive or in alive in the past knows or knew for sure any religion is reality.
PS: I've seen dead people and they said nothing about GOD or religion even though they spoke. Go Figure.
Nuts ya say, well you weren't there.
I thought so too but I wasn't nuts then and am not now.
Explain it ? I can't.
IMO: Death is usually when your body gets too old to function or too mangled in some way to go on. Being Religious doesn't seem to change that.
i guess you may need to brush up on reading comprehension so i'll help you... you stated:
and my response:
you do realize it's women who suffer miscarriages right ? you do realize that if you think abortion is murder then you surely must think the same of miscarriage and you wholeheartedly support both as long as your "God" is the cause, right ?
If we weren't flawed, our own free will would never lead us wrong.
And yet, according to you, it did.
Seems like god didn't quite achieve that objective.
According to you, anyway.
You painted yourself into a corner you can't get out of, MBFC.
My parents were Frank and Jean, not Adam and Eve.
Wasn't there a flood that was supposed to take care of that?
You mean like reading a witness accounting and believing it when they were supposed to be the first and only humans on earth? How many thousands of years after they had long since been dead?
Where is this amazing proof? And how did this proof make it on to the ark as everything else was destroyed by flood?
i'm not sure that God is against abortion - since God is the biggest abortion provider and has killed far more than any human has ever accomplished.
LOL you are kidding right ? you should know it very well since you are a believer and supporter. Add up all humans ever killed by other humans (abortions since that is the topic), humans dying any other way is from God since it was "their time" to go (isn't he the one to decide that stuff ?) - throw in miscarriages (same as abortion with the concept of ending human life and that's all God's doing since God supposedly created everyone - including all the medical defects of their human bodies) for God's count and let me know which number is smaller -- hint: it's not the humans killing humans number.
it's the exact same proof as God existing. So if we are to assume God does exist (as you do as a believer) - then you also have your proof of God killing more than any human could ever accomplish. If you need more proof - examine your own beliefs and find your proof there
have you forgotten ? if God does exist - then he gets the credit AND the blame for everything since he is supposedly the creator. The buck started with him and stops with him since he created everything, period. Or are you telling me there is more than one Creator in your beliefs ? i'm told God created everything.. period. which means all good AND bad falls under God getting credit AND blame. I know, this is very odd for some of the religious because their default position is Good = God and Bad = someone else besides God, but that makes no logical sense if you have the position that God created everything. So which is it ? (btw, Satan couldn't have rebelled had God not created him to rebel in the first place since God created Satan, correct ?)
Locking this seed due to the seeder's absence.