No Affinity for Women

Research undertaken by the University of Wisconsin's Kathleen Dolan has found that while women voters support female candidates in elections, “they are evaluated in the same way that all candidates are evaluated, through the lens of personal and political considerations that take many forms.” Having examined American National Election Study (NES) data, Dolan concluded that there was no evidence for a consistent or marked gender swing, with information about the candidate and their stance on important issues being the main yardstick by which women assess female candidates.

While none of this surprises me in the least, neither does the ongoing waste of column inches dedicated to Hillary Clinton's hair, “power/dyke suits”, feminism and other spurious rubbish that apparently informs the need to undertake a study of this nature in the first place.

Former Clinton Advisor Dick Morris dedicated almost an entire book (“Re-writing History”) to attacking the former First Lady almost exclusively on the grounds of her duplicity and false image projection – as demonstrated by her changing hair-dos, fashion choices and attempts to appeal to ordinary American women by referring to her life with her husband (everyone knows the bitch hates stay-at-home moms, so why pretend?). When Slick Willy engaged in a little showmanship, that was different, for some reason. Hillary's abandonment of her jam-jar-glasses and bad hair are trotted out as evidence of her single-minded mission to deceive voters into liking her; meanwhile, her husband's endless prevarication on a variety of issues was evidence of his pragmatism. Even when she stood by him in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal, she couldn't win.

Which brings me back to the research which, for me anyway, underlines the prevalence of sexism in society every bit as much as some of the unadulterated misogyny that passes for comment in some anti-Hillary Clinton circles (if you think I'm being over-the-top by calling it misogyny, take a look at the web site for Citizens United Not Timid, which asks the seemingly-rhetorical question “What is Hillary”?). Interpreting the suggestion that women voting for women is proof of some kind of gender-induced idiocy (academics prefer the slightly-less-insulting “gender affinity effect”) not only leaves you wondering what a woman has to do these days to not have her opinion discounted, but also begs the question of why no one seems to think it might be just as informative to examine whether or not men wouldn't vote for women purely on gender grounds as well. Indeed, Dolan's research indicates that “women are more supportive of women candidates than are men”, suggesting that there is a case to answer.

That a female professor of Political Science thinks such a study – entitled “Is there a 'Gender Affinity Effect' in American Politics?” - is necessary in 2008 indicates that we still live in a world where women seem unable to seek political office or power without being chained to a stereotypical version of their gender.

Slice it whatever way you like it, but a study such as this, in some way “proving” that women can be trusted with their votes, is as much evidence of how far we haven't come as it is that it's time to simply let women “be”. It seems that there's even a glass ceiling on having an opinion. Worse still, given male responses to women candidates, it seems that issues around topics like birth control, education, social justice and gender equality continue to have a similar, see-through lid firmly in place over them. Le plus le change...