Earlier this week I was invited to sit on a panel discussion
regarding the 2016 Presidential Election and our Trump future. I chose to look
at the role women played in the electoral outcome, particularly “white women.” Specifically,
I wanted to respond to Samantha Bee’s show following the election where she
made impassioned accusations that white Americans, particularly white women,
had failed Hillary Clinton. This was also a response to a number of colleagues
who in the week following the election would in scandalous tones exclaim that
Trump had won anywhere between 50% to 70% of the vote of white women. The
actual total was closer to 53%. The
astonishment was that, ’white women had for some extraordinary reason (the
unsaid statement that they had allowed their race to overshadow their gender)
had turned against their own best interesst and abandoned what should have been
the first woman President!”
I agree with the assessment of the Centre for American Women
and Politics at Rutgers, that “claiming that women abandoned Clinton not only
misrepresents historical facts, it misunderstands what motivates women.” For
one thing, as the Pew Foundation, Facttank, pointed out the morning after the
election, the gender gap between Clinton and Trump was one of the largest since
1972 (McGovern v. Nixon). The majority of women cast their ballots for Clinton
in 23 of the 28 states where exit polls were available, and, if only women had voted,
Trump would have lost in 10 battleground states (AZ, FL, GA, IA, MI, NC, OH,
PA, TX, WI) (Dittmar, 11/11/ 2016). The situation is far more simple and more complicated
than the statement of Clinton failing to attract white women voters suggests.
The simple fact is the majority of white women have voted
for the Republican party since 2004. While this does not mean race and gender
are not factors in party affiliation, it certainly does indicate that a
significant reason for how women voted in 2016 was based on party identification.
Actually, Trump did worse with white women voters than
previous Republican candidates. Trump’s white women support was 3 points behind
Mitt Romney’s in 2012 (56%), and 2 points behind John McCain (55%) and W. Bush
(55%) in 2008 and 2004, respectively. Clinton polled better with white women
than did Obama in 2012 by 1 percentage point. She did significantly better
among College educated white women. According, to Dittmar, she bested Trump
with these voters by 6 points, 51% to 45%. The Washington Post had the results
as 48% of white women with college degrees for Clinton, 33% for Trump. In the
2012, Romney won this group. With married women, Clinton’s support was 2 points
higher than Trump’s, making her the first democrat to win this group in 20
years (Dittmar). Therefore, the primary group of white women who supported
Trump were those without a college degree. According to the Washington Post, 59%
of these women supported Trump and 28% Clinton. This is not a surprise as
Republican party identification has grown within the cohort of white Americans
without college degrees for the past 24 years.
The more complicated fact is that we need to get beyond the
myths generated about women voters, particularly the belief that women will
vote for other women. Just remembering back to 2008 election, while McCain did
better with white women voters than Trump, there is certainly no indication
that Democratic women were willing to vote Republican because Sarah Palin was
on the ticket as vice-President. In accessing women voters, it has to be
recognized that woman does not necessarily equal feminists; not all women are
feminists. As the Pew Foundation found in its breakdown of identity groups and
voting intention, “feminists” was a slam-dunk for Clinton. It also has to be
recognized that in elections the issues that women vote on are not necessarily
all that different from the issues motivating men. While women are said to be
more likely to vote based on issues of health care or childcare (Trump had a
maternity leave policy), polls proceeding the election showed the main issues
to be employment and terrorism for both men and women. In a nutshell, the motivating
issues of the election could be described as being about the precarity
experienced in both economic and physical life.
The election has been characterized as being about lower-middle
class white male anger. This cohort of men fear the precarity they see in their
lives as their full-time full-year manufacturing jobs disappear not just
because of capital flight and free trade (although those are easy targets), but
because of production efficiencies and on-time delivery networks of flexible specialization
of the manufacturing process, and even more ominous the increasing turn to automation
and digitization in the manufacturing process.
However, this was also an election of lower-middle class
white women’s anger and fear. Statistically women’s unemployment rates are
lower, because women tend to employed in service sector, part-time and contract
work. This is already a precarious form of work, but that does not mean it is
immune from the pressures of production efficiencies and automation. Much of
the part-time service work undertaken by women is particularly vulnerable to
automation and digitization. Think of this next time you go through the
self-checkout at the grocery store or do your shopping on-line.
Let’s be honest, the primary reason the assumption was made
that women would vote for Clinton rather than Trump was because of the misogynistic
discourse and the recounting of sexual aggression and abuse that the Republican
candidate seemed unable to keep to himself. That he was so obviously a sexist,
racist, sizest, sexual predator would cause all women to vote against him. However, this connection is not obviously
clear. As I discussed in my most recent
blog, it is really indicative of the hegemonic hold “rape culture” has in
American society, particularly when it is combined with the class issues. The normalized nature of attitudes of women’s
sexual availability particularly for powerful and wealthy men clearly
vindicates Trump. It is not just men who hold such cultural values, it is also
women. Most women understand their position or role is to take responsibility
for protecting and comporting themselves to avoid such uncomfortable advances.
This returns us to precarity and an understanding that women’s lives are always
precarious but they have adapted and lived with/repressed the fear for
millennia. Therefore, for many women it’s not an issue worth voting on.
The relationship between race and gender is also very
complicated. It is unfair to say that the “uneducated/no college degree” women
who voted for Trump were allowing their race to overshadow their gender, i.e.,
they voted as whites who just happened to be women. This speaks to the appeal
of Trump’s ultimate bogey-man, the Mexican rapist because it speaks to both
race and gender. This is the fear of the “white woman;” it is the combined
racial and gender assault from which they see the need of protection. It is not
an either or, race before gender, it is a profound intersection of the two. As
for the sexual indiscretion of the rich white male, putting himself forward as
protector, as stated above, “that’s just the way it is; a cross women have had
to bear for all the ages.”
As Dittmar concludes in her analysis, “in the autopsy of the
election 2016, there is a good reason to pay close attention to women votes,
but that means doing the work to avoid homogenizing them or evaluating their behavior
without historical context.” I agree and
add to it: We cannot ignore that many women and men voted for what they hoped
would be the first woman American President. Actually, the majority of American
voters voted for a woman. Hillary Clinton clearly won the popular vote. Where
Clinton lost was in the filter that requires that state’s rights have the final
word over and above a popular mandate – the electoral college.
Kelly Dittmar. No, women didn’t abandon Clinton, nor did she
fail to win their support. Presidential Gender Watch 2016. Center for American
Women and Politics. November 11, 2016
Pew Research Centre. A Divided and Pessimistic Electorate.
Voters skeptical of progress in many areas --- even jobs – since 2008. U.S.
Politics and Policy. November 10, 2016.
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