NEWSWEEK.COM 17
“Women can be found
on both sides of these
divides—pro-choice
and pro-life, #MeToo
and #NotAllMen.”for—the Equal Rights Amendment
and abortion rights. Observers at
the time (and since) assumed that
women prioritized their own equal-
ity and rights, and “women’s issues”
were given the lion’s share of blame,
or credit, for this new partisan divide.
But are women’s issues the root
cause of the gender gap? Women and
men don’t actually report very differ-
ent positions on issues like abortion.
Even when they do disagree—such as
on sexual harassment and equal pay—
other issues usually have a bigger
impact on women’s vote. Moreover,
women can be found on all sides of
these divides—pro-choice and pro-
life, #MeToo and #NotAllMen. As a
result, women’s issues can and do
push women in both liberal and con-
servative directions.What, then, explains the emergence
of the gender gap? One answer: Men.
While observers tend to react to any
male-female differences by asking
what women did differently, a closer
look suggests that in fact, it was mostly
men who shifted parties, at least ini-
tially. In 1964, men and women were
equally likely to identify with the
Democratic Party. Across the next
two decades, both men and women
became less likely to identify as Dem-
ocrats, but it was men who defected at
a far greater rate than women.
Why did (some) men abandon the
Democratic Party? Why did (more)
women stay? The answers are com-
plex, and require careful attention to
race, geography and education. A big
part of the answer appears to be dif-
ferences over social welfare policies.
Unlike attitudes on women’s issues,
women and men consistently differ
in their support for government pro-
grams for children, the poor, infirm
and elderly, with men more likely to
express conservative positions, which
helped push them toward the GOP.
Furthermore, social welfare pref-
erences work in concert with other
attitudes. Since the 1960s, press cov-
erage and opinions about social wel-
fare have been intertwined with racial
attitudes—conservatives on racial
issues tend to be conservatives on
social welfare, and vice versa. Women
are more likely to express egalitarian
values, and those views also help
explain why more women stuck with
the Democratic Party.
Indeed, race—both attitudes and
identity—is crucial to any under-
standing of women voters. Two
things are true at the same time:
One, women today are more likely to
vote Democratic than are men—the
gender gap. We observe this pattern
both in the electorate overall and
within each racial and ethnic group.