Comments on: The Gender Gap and Christians

By: zuzu

zuzu — Tue, 01 Feb 2005 04:29:26 +0000

Plus, support for Republicans is stronger among white evangelicals than other groups — for instance, even very religious blacks with socially conservative values still vote Democratic overwhelmingly.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 23:02:01 +0000

Robert’s got it. Also, it does well to remember that many non-religious men skew towards the Republicans. Voting Republican doesn’t make you religious, which I think is important to remember in the post-election frenzy to turn us into a theocracy.

By: Robert

Robert — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 22:38:11 +0000

If religious voters are more conservative than others, and if women tend to be more religious than men, why is there a “gender gap”? in national elections that leaves the women’s vote tilted toward the Democratic Party?

Because most of the non-religious women are Democrats.

Say the female population is 50% religious, 50% non-religious. Of the religious, 70% are Republican and 30% are Democrats. Of the non-religious, 80% are Democrats and 20% are Republicans.

The total female vote will skew 55-45 Democrat.

The authors’ underlying premise that something needs to be explained only holds true if irreligious women don’t tend towards the Democrats. As far as I know, they do, and very strongly.

By: FoolishOwl

FoolishOwl — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 21:11:38 +0000

Does this factor in that not all religious groups are on the extreme right?

For instance, I’ve done a fair amount of work around opposing the death penalty, and there are a lot of people involved who cite their religious beliefs as the basis of their opposition to the death penalty.

By: Amanda

Amanda — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 18:19:14 +0000

It is possible that women are more likely to be afraid that they will have to lean on welfare one day in case of divorce, widowhood or just abandonment when they get pregnant.

By: wookie

wookie — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 17:11:03 +0000

While I will agree with you Soullight that there is a correlation, I don’t want that to imply causation.

Besides, logically, if all females are oppressed socially, and all oppressed people are more supportive of systems that help the oppressed, then wouldn’t that conclude that all females are supportive of systems that help the oppressed?

By: SoulLight

SoulLight — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 16:44:29 +0000

What I get from it is that women, being a group that has a tendency to have faed more oppression than men, are more likely to believe in a welfare state that tends to help the oppressed. It’s more likely to be due to those pesky social factors than anything innate to females.

By: wookie

wookie — Mon, 31 Jan 2005 13:03:58 +0000

Women, Kaufman says, “are simply more liberal than men on questions of social welfare.”? And for many religious women, social welfare policies are a more important determinant of voting behavior than the hot-button cultural issues that are said to animate so many religious voters.

I’m curious if anyone else reads into that statement what I did on first reading:

That in religion, women tend to be more compassionate than rigid, while men tend towards the opposite end of the spectrum (more rigid than compassionate). Which is interesting in that christianity as it is practiced and as it was developed historically tends to be very mysoginistic.