Contributed by Courtney Martin
Linda Hirshman’s recent Washington Post article alleging that women are not only irrational voters, but apathetic about politics in general, really got me going.
First of all, I can’t let Ms. Hirshman, an experienced journalist, get away with calling a few of her wealthy, white friends and then passing that off as enough ethnographic research to warrant a conclusion about the entire American female voting bloc. The list of interviews had me wincing, especially when women admitted to getting the majority of their political information from their husbands. 1950s much?
Hirshman does include some compelling studies by some very reputable sources, like the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, who reports that 2 million more men than women read the New York Times or Newsweek, and more men listen to political radio and read newspapers in general. How can this be explained? Are more women relying on alternative sources of media (ahem, blogs for instance)? Would a study surveying younger women and men look different?
Finally, I have to take issue with the criticism of female voters as “irrational.� It seems like a much more complicated question being buried in spuriously simple language. What is “rational� when it comes to voting? Hirshman claims that women pay more attention to “character,� but again, what is “character?� If ethics are “character,� than I’m one of those women. If notions of international responsibility are “character,� than I’m one of those women. But if “character� means the president’s sex life or religious affiliation or what designer makes her suits, count me out. Of course Hirshman didn’t call me in the first place, because I’m not one of her friends.
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I have to say that I doubt that a majority of any group in this country votes "rationally." My question is, what is the standard of comparison here? Knowing that someone reads the Times doesn't actually tell you his or her reasons for voting for a given candidate.
How about this: slightly more than 50% of voters from both genders are irrational. Or stupid. Or both. That's how many voted for Bush.
Seriously, Hirschman ought to tune into a conservative talk show some time. Neanderthal calls in, slurs muslims, berates democrats for existing and applauds Bush for being ineffectual. Lather, rinse, repeat. Predominantly male and not a beacon of sanity or reason.
Why in the world would I spend my money on Newsweek when it publishes drivel about 'prostitots'?
Some women and some men are apathetic about politics and government.
A brief rebuttal:
"Say, we're in an endless series of unwinnable conflicts, with the environment and our national finances going to shit, and all real standards of living except for the top 1% backsliding..."
"GAYS MIGHT GET MARRIED!!1!"
"Oh shit! I'll vote GOP right away!"
more here:
http://gettoworkmanifesto.com/blog/
The government is run by rich white heterosexual men, pundits are mostly rich white heterosexual men, the mainstream media (especially political media) is represented by mostly rich white heterosexual men...
Is it a surprise that rich white heterosexual men pay most attention to this? It's not just women... I'm sure gays, blacks, asians, hispanics, and the poor all pay less attention to mainstream politics than rich, white, heterosexual men.
Yet the headline is that "women are irrational." There's no headline saying "blacks are irrational," "gays are irrational," or "poor people are irrational." That would not be acceptable.
Honestly, as a historian, I think it is important to remember that people don't act "irrationally" - but their actions are interpreted irrationally by groups who share different values and motivations from them. People act in what they feel is their best interest, so they are always making a "rational" choice, based on their own subjectivity.
If Hirschman doesn't like that women seem to consider personal character more than policy when it comes to politics, maybe she should be asking why women's experience is so different from men's that they have an entirely different world view. Could it be an understanding that policy is nothing if a poitician doesn't have principles?
I actually interpreted the 6-person sample a little differently - not as her friends, but as members of a demographic of women she has particular disdain for (those who stay at home to raise children). Her angle (or one of them, anyway) seems to be 'women -redeem yourselves by going back into the workplace and doing jobs men would consider serious and by copying men's choices of reading material, serious journalism, etc. - you're making the rest of us look bad with your frivolous ways.' I found the references to People magazine and Real Simple particularly gratuitous and unfair. Does she speculate, in contrast, about what OTHER magazines those women's husbands read? They could be reading FHM or Maxim, or High Times (or People, for that matter) for all she knows - but as long as they read the Post or the Times, too, it's apparently irrelevant. Thus, the wives look silly and the husbands' one-dimensional portrayal as the serious, intellectual ones remains intact.
She was incredibly generous in assessing her sample as merely "unscientific" (rather than, say, a complete joke. 6 people?? 6? For real??) And it's one thing to say white married women are a key demographic, and quite another to jump to a sample of wealthy, stay-at-home, DC suburbanite women.
As far as any valid, reliable research that does show women to be less politically conscious and/or active, like the Pew research (although I think the author unfairly interpreted the 42% of men versus 34% of women as a more significant discrepancy than it actually is - that's pretty low involvement / awareness on both sides), I agree that one explanation (as raised by other commentors) is that we are measuring women's interest in issues and arenas they have historically been excluded from, or are interpreting what the "important" and "rational" issues / publications / decision-making paths are by using the dominant and default paradigm that is based on men and their priorities, and measuring women's "seriousness" / rationality against this.