Cherrypicking is not a convincing form of argument.
And tell me why women are split 52%-36% between Democrats and Republicans and men are 44%-43%.
Why do you keep beating the same drum? This has already been dealt with. Ideology is a factor involved in voting. Gender is also a factor in voting, whether you like it or not, and whether you give it as much weight as someone else might.
This overstating, OOOH! YOU’RE VOTING SOLELY ON THE BASIS OF THE CANDIDATE BEING A WOMAN! thing is tired and false. (Frank.)
Nonsense. That is exactly what you and Exapno have been arguing.
You’re both arguing that a member of a particular gender/race/sexuality/religion should vote for a fellow member because that candidate will represent their interests better. You’re both ignoring the obvious corollary that your logic means that straight white male Christians should only vote for straight white male Christians. Which they don’t. You’re also ignoring the fact that people of every gender/race/sexuality/religion are on both sides of the political divide.
Yes, people should vote for the person they think that will represent their interests best, that most closely approximates their view on the issues. That may, or may not, be a person who also matches their personal characteristics.
For example, I’m sure that you’re not arguing that all black people should have voted for Ben Carson.
I really don’t know how many ways I can say this. First, I was specifically talking about women, in reference to the article I cited. Then, I explained that it is a factor in the thought process. Not that it IS the thought process.
I gave a germane example, in which the policies of Clinton and Sanders are pretty close, making it very possible that a Democratic woman who is interested in women’s issues might vote for Clinton over Sanders because she’s a woman.
That’s all. You can apply that to WMSC’s if you want, but it means not a jot to my point. Nevermind that WMSC’s, a vast majority of the time, do exactly that…vote for other WMSC’s.
I commented on Exapno’s clarification, but the fact that his/her response was more general does not change what my focus was.
There are just as many women as men, and women usually vote in higher numbers. While I recognize that there is a big disparity in social and economic power between men and women, there is only a political power differential because women don’t use it. A more virtuous concept would be for men to stop voting for men just because they are men, rather than women doing the same thing.
This doesn’t actually work out well for Democrats anyway. If disadvantaged groups should vote for people who look like them, then that means the Democrats’ and progressives favorite candidates in California and Maryland should lose in the primaries. Take Chris Van Hollen vs. Donna Edwards for example. AFrican-Americans and women should vote for Edwards because she’s a woman, but white males should not vote for Chris Van Hollen because he’s a white male. So the end result is that women and African-Americans put Edwards over the top because their votes are unified and the white male vote is divided(because apparently white males should be more objective, while women and African-Americans have a “duty” to vote en bloc).
Then in California, Sanchez will beat Harris because there are 5 times as many Latinos as African-Americans in California. Are you beginning to see why this line of thinking is so pernicious?
I agree that a politician that looks like you will probably look out for the interests of other people that look like him or her better, but we’re supposed to be more civic minded as voters than that. And you can’t have two classes of voters, one who can vote for whoever they think is best and another that really “should” just vote for people who are like them. In fact, I dare say that’s a way to keep women and minorities down, since it results in lower quality politicians.
This gets into the whole concept of “equality through inequality”: Sometimes the people who promote “equality” say that an unequal approach is needed to achieve that equality. For instance, here in this thread we already have people arguing that white straight Christian men voting for white straight Christian men isn’t the same as a black person voting for a black candidate because he’s black.
Okay, so you believe Steve Cohen should be out of Congress, since he’s a white man representing a black district?
Your argument also leads to the logical result that most of Congress’ most progressive male politicians should be replaced by women, even if they are less progressive women. Men are supposed to split their vote, and women are supposed to support women. So women win everywhere. Or are women supposed to stop when we get the “right” number of women? I’m also curious about how this rule is supposed to work when it’s a white woman vs. a minority. Should women have backed Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama, or should they have been objective and chosen who they thought was the best person for America?
So confusing. Let’s just choose who we think is best, while recognizing that our bias will often lead us to choose those like us.
You’re making the same assumption that Frank did, that this is some kind of absolute law that all women must vote for women candidates (or any other minority) regardless of any other considerations. It isn’t.
I don’t even know why I’m explaining this for about the fifth time. Read the entire thread. Or, stop exaggerating things to try to disprove my point. Whichever it is.
A lot of arguments in this thread can be summed up as: * “It’s OK for some people to vote for people of their own race/gender/etc. because of self-interest. For some other people, it’s not OK to do so.”*
I should’ve known it’d be a mistake to post that article. Too many blinders, deliberate or otherwise, around here. But then maybe there’s someone who got something positive out of it.
I got the point that women are more likely to be better for women’s issues. But that’s just something to take into account when voting. If that’s the extent of the argument, then I agree with it. Despite the fact that I’m a Jewish Republican, I tend to support Jewish Democrats over Christian Republicans a lot.
It’s not blinders. It’s the fact that the title is blatantly bigoted, and thus it becomes difficult to actually discuss the real topic they want to discuss. I don’t know why in the world they chose that title.
The actual point is just that female politicians have historically been shown to do more about women’s issues than male politicians, and to stand up for women’s interests and not let them be pushed under the bus. It says that Clinton should be pointing this out, rather than just assuming every woman knows this.
And that women should not be afraid to fight for their own issues. Don’t be worried about being accuses of being selfish over it. It’s okay to put yourselves first.
Not once does it advocate for women voting for female candidates because they are women. But that’s exactly what the title says.
Woman are being used as the example because Hillary Clinton is running for President. Because this is the very first time women have had any chance of voting for a woman in a major party. This will be the 58th Presidential election. The previous 114 candidates (more, really - some years had more than two) have been men. Can that be correlated with the length of time it took for woman’s issues to be even partially recognized? Yes, certainly.
Of those 114 candidates, 113 were white, male, straight Christians. Can that be correlated with the length of time it took for non-white or gay or non-Christian issues to be even partially recognized? Yes, certainly.
Woman this year are faced with a choice that is new only at the Presidential level. More and more woman have been elected at lower levels, although gender parity is still far off. That goal is likely to happen. As I said earlier, this is a historic trend for all types of minorities and outsiders. Think of the gains made by the Irish and Italians once they started overturning the patrician Anglo-Saxons in city government. Look at the composition of City governments today, with persons of color dominating in many cities with high non-white populations.
Gains have been made whenever and wherever people who understood minority issues were put into power by minorities. It’s been a centuries-long battle against the white, male, straight Christian default privilege. They made the rules, formed the culture, and limited, infantiled, and marginalized everyone else. (Remember that in the 19th century Catholics were not considered truly Christian. The Irish were Catholics and not OK. The Scots-Irish were OK, though. Why? Scots-Irish was a code for Protestant.)
Woman are now catching up. Of course, I expect some of the more blinkered white, male, straight Christians to scream as their dream world is eaten away a bit more. The rest might agree that it’s way past time.