Voting The Gender Gap

This book concentrates on the gender gap in voting--the difference in the proportion of women and men voting for the same candidate. Evident in every presidential election since 1980, this polling phenomenon reached a high of 11 percentage points in the 1996 election. The contributors discuss the history, complexity, and ways of analyzing the gender gap; the gender gap in relation to partisanship; motherhood, ethnicity, and the impact of parental status on the gender gap; and the gender gap in races involving female candidates. Voting the Gender Gap analyzes trends in voting while probing how women's political empowerment and gender affect American politics and the electoral process. Contributors are Susan J. Carroll, Erin Cassese, Cal Clark, Janet M. Clark, M. Margaret Conway, Kathleen A. Dolan, Laurel Elder, Kathleen A. Frankovic, Steven Greene, Leonie Huddy, Mary-Kate Lizotte, Barbara Norrander, Margie Omero, and Lois Duke Whitaker.

Examines how and why American women voted since the Nineteenth Amendment was ratified in 1920.

The third edition of Gender and Elections offers a systematic, lively, and multifaceted account of the role of gender in the electoral process through the 2012 elections. This timely yet enduring volume strikes a balance between highlighting the most important developments for women as voters and candidates in the 2012 elections and providing a more long-term, in-depth analysis of the ways that gender has helped shape the contours and outcomes of electoral politics in the United States. Individual chapters demonstrate the importance of gender in understanding and interpreting presidential elections, presidential and vice-presidential candidacies, voter participation and turnout, voting choices, congressional elections, the political involvement of Latinas, the participation of African American women, the support of political parties and women's organizations, candidate communications with voters, and state elections. Without question, Gender and Elections is the most comprehensive, reliable, and trustworthy resource on the role of gender in US electoral politics.

Since 1980, most elections in the United States have been marked by a “gender gap” in which women are more supportive of Democratic candidates than men by nearly ten percentage points. Women at the Polls finds that this gender gap is quite extensive as it exists in almost all demographic groups and as it is based on similar differences in the political attitudes of women and men over a wide array of issues. This suggests that women are becoming an important constituency in U.S. politics.

Women vote their own minds

Uncovering the psychological and sociological reasons for the gender gap in American politics, this fascinating volume explores how such factors influence women and lead to their political beliefs and behaviors. Based on original research with women voters of varying ages around the United States from 2008 to the present, the book delves into differences between voting women and men-and indeed among women themselves. The gender gap, the author argues, exists because women's social identity is tied to their group memberships and gender-role beliefs. Thus, rather than grouping all women into one voting bloc, the book examines how gender identity influences various sub-groups of women. It begins with a discussion of the gender gap in voting preferences throughout history, then goes on to explore the roles of feminism and women's connectedness to their gender group as a primary cause of the gender gap in voting. The remaining chapters discuss how these factors influence women's political engagement, policy positions, and candidate preferences.

Using election studies, media analysis, economics, history, sociology and policy studies, The Politics of the Gender Gap presents state-of-the-art empirical research on the emergence of women as a voting block. It reveals that although the gender gap is a social and political creation that is still ill-defined, its potential to influence politics is significant. The contributors explain the origins of the gender gap; its use by women's organizations, the media and political parties; and its implications for the election of women.

Though women constitute 52 percent of US voters, only 10 percent of the members of Congress and one of the 50 state governors are women. This book presents research and analysis on women as both candidates and voters in US politics, using numerous empirical sources of data.