Understanding How Women Vote 2 elections, women have been more likely to be swing voters. Campaigns and news media often focus on a specific subset of women voters as the most persuadable or most likely to have the greatest impact on the out- come of the election. The subgroup has varied over time there have been soccer moms, security moms, Sex and the City voters, Beyoncé voters, and Walmart moms, just to name a few. This chapter explores the gender gap and women voters’ influence on election outcomes, media coverage, and political campaign strategies. WOMEN VOTERS: THE BEGINNING Women gained the right to vote in 1920, after a nearly century-long battle to win that right. Led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony, suffragettes first argued that women deserved the right to vote because they were equal to men, and a few states began granting voting rights to women prior to 1900, with Wyoming being the first (1890) fol- lowed by Colorado (1893), Utah (1896), and Idaho (1896). However, the argument that women and men were equal did not gain much traction nationally, so by the early 20th century, suffragettes tried a different strategy and argued that women deserved the right to vote because they were different from men. They claimed that women’s unique roles in the domestic sphere gave them important insights into politics that men could not offer, and this argument gained more traction. As president of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, Carrie Chapman Catt implemented what she titled a “Winning Plan” for women’s suffrage.2 The plan included a unified push from state and local suffrage organiza- tions across the country to gain acceptance and support at the local and national levels. Finally, on August 26, 1920, the Nineteenth Amendment to the Con- stitution was ratified, and women across the country were able to vote in the 1920 election. Despite the long struggle to gain voting rights, rela- tively few women turned out to vote in the 1920 election.3 Estimates put women’s turnout at about 50 percent and men’s at about 75 percent. Estimates of the number of women voters from 1920 to 1964 indicate a slow but steady increase. The 1964 election was the first time the Census Bureau tracked national voter turnout by sex at this time, 67 percent of women and 71.9 percent of men voted. From 1964 to 1974, men made up a larger portion of voters, but that gap closed with each election. Prior to the 1980 election, women tended to align with Republicans. From 1952 to 1964, women were more likely to identify with the Republi- can Party. Women were more likely to vote for the Republican presidential
Previous Page Next Page