Journal of Women, Politics & Policy

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Gender, Presidential Elections and Public Policy:

Making Women's Votes Matter

Barbara C. Burrell

To cite this article: Barbara C. Burrell (2005) Gender, Presidential Elections and Public Policy:
Making Women's Votes Matter, Journal of Women, Politics & Policy, 27:1-2, 31-50, DOI: 10.1300/
J501v27n01_03

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 Gender, Presidential Elections
and Public Policy:
Making Women’s Votes Matter
Barbara C. Burrell, Northern Illinois University

SUMMARY. This article explores the impact of a quarter century of

gender politics in presidential elections in the United States stressing the
dual importance of differences between men and women, the gender
gap, and women as a political force as they have come not only to exceed
men in their voting numbers but also in their turnout rate. It reviews the way
women’s votes have affected presidential campaigns, drawing attention to
the effect women’s and men’s votes have had on the Electoral College
which is what counts in presidential elections. It raises the important ques-
tion of what impact the attention to women voters has had on the public poli-
cies of administrations between elections. [Article copies available for a fee
from The Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail
address: <docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.
com> © 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Women voters, gender gap, voter turnout, United States,

status of women, single women, security moms, presidential elections,
public policy

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: “Gender, Presidential Elections and Public Policy: Making Women’s
Votes Matter.” Burrell, Barbara C. Co-published simultaneously in Journal of Women, Politics & Policy (The
Haworth Political Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 27, No. 1/2, 2005, pp. 31-50; and:
Gendering Politics and Policy: Recent Developments in Europe, Latin America, and the United States (ed:
Heidi Hartmann) The Haworth Political Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2005, pp. 31-50. Single
or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service
[1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: docdelivery@haworthpress.com].
Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JWPP
 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J501v27n01_03 31
32 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

Gender politics has played a central role in eight presidential elec-

tions. It has affected the discourse of presidential campaigns. Beyond
rhetoric, of major importance to this political phenomenon is a determi-
nation of the policy consequences of gender politics in U.S. elections.
Here I set out ideas for studying this connection. I hope through this pa-
per to stimulate discussion of the policy implications of the emergence
and persistence of gender politics and to challenge us to think and evalu-
ate its substantive impact. “. . . the women’s vote has become more im-
portant than the men’s vote,” Chuck Alston concluded in an analysis
piece in 1991 (Alston 1991). This statement in many ways characterizes
the landscape of U.S. electoral politics of the last 25 years. If women’s
votes have become so important, then we should ask what has been their
political and policy impact. The policy consequences of the emergence
of gender as a political phenomenon and women as a political force are
of central importance to democratic politics.
Gender emerged as a significant feature of presidential campaigns
and presidential politics in the latter half of the 20th century. Once re-
garded as marginal, gender politics has surfaced “as one of the core di-
viding lines defining the identity of politicians, parties, issues, and
voters in America, one of the primary fault-lines running through con-
temporary American politics” (Norris 1997, 1) and “a harbinger of the
future direction in which political contests are heading” (Clark and
Clark 1999). If this is true, we need to examine not only the causes of
this development but its consequences.
Part of the story of gender politics is the gender gap. The gender gap
consists of differences between men and women in their opinions re-
garding political issues, public officials and candidates for office and
differences in their voting choices. Survey research has taught us much
about the nature of the gender gap. The idea of a gender gap has framed
the dynamics of campaigns and policy making in contemporary elec-
toral politics. While it has driven this dynamic, the gender gap captures
only part of how women have impacted electoral politics. The second
part of the story is the emergence of women as a political force in elec-
tions. Women now make up the majority of voters, vote at higher rates
than men, and are formidable candidates, winning as often and raising
as much or more money as men in similar races (Seltzer, Newman, and
Leighton 1997, 1-2; Burrell 1994). As quoted above, women’s votes are
even perceived as more important than men’s because they can affect
the outcomes of elections. In the 2000 presidential election, for exam-
ple, 8.4 million more women than men voted according to the post-elec-
tion survey of the U.S. Census Bureau. Fifty-four percent of women
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 33

voted for Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, compared with 42 percent

of men according to that year’s exit polls. Had the election been decided
on a purely national plurality basis, Al Gore would have been elected
president on the basis of women’s votes. Women elected Bill Clinton at
least as far as the national vote was concerned.
The news media, too, have framed elections in terms of women’s
votes. Examples include headlines such as “Women Key to ’84 Vote,
Aide Says” (Williams 1983), “A Clinton Reelection Motto for ’96: ‘It’s
Gender, Stupid” (Feldman 1996) and “Women Hold the Key” regard-
ing the 2000 presidential election (Page 2000). The 2004 election was
no different. As one commentator in the Chicago Tribune put it, “With
the election less than three weeks away, the man who would be presi-
dent is still anybody’s guess. But, ultimately women will decide. . . . It’s
the women, stupid” (Taylor 2004).

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Gender became a central focus of campaigns in the aftermath of the

1980 election for two reasons: (1) numbers and (2) opinions. Women
became not only the majority of voters, they began to turnout in higher
percentages than men; thus, if they had distinct perspectives on issues
and the candidates, they would decide the elections. Analysts began to
focus on the extent to which a “gender gap,” that is a difference between
men and women, was present across a range of issues and voting
decisions.
The gender gap was not a feature of political commentary prior to
Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980, nor were women viewed as a politi-
cal force (although some attention was paid to women as a voting bloc
during the 1980 election campaign). It was not that men and women had
never diverged in their perspectives on public policy issues or voting
behavior prior to this election, but after the 1980 election, the National
Organization of Women (NOW) noted a difference in the votes of men
and women and made it a news story. The rest is political history.
While Ronald Reagan handily won the 1980 election, he experienced
an eight percent gender gap in his votes; 46 percent of women voted for
Reagan compared with 54 percent of men. The votes of women had been
noted during the campaign but the idea of a women’s bloc had primarily
been ignored or dismissed. Adam Clymer (1980) first addressed the dif-
ference in Ronald Reagan’s support between men and women in a post
election New York Times analysis piece. Clymer reported, “Mr. Rea-
34 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

gan’s long-standing difficulties in persuading women to vote for him

. . . held down his percentages again Tuesday . . . The [New York Times/
CBS News] poll suggested that both fear about war and opposition to
the Equal Rights Amendment handicapped Mr. Reagan’s bid for their
support.”
Kathy Bonk recounts that Eleanor Smeal, president of NOW, recog-
nized the significance of Clymer’s story. At that time, NOW and other
women’s rights organizations were discouraged over the failure of cam-
paigns to get the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) passed. The gender
gap in the 1980 election gave these groups a “hook” for media attention
and ammunition to press politicians to vote for the amendment. Build-
ing on Clymer’s story, NOW headlined its December/January
(1980/81) issue of its newspaper “Women Vote Differently than Men,
Feminist Bloc Emerges in 1980 Elections.” The article stated that, “The
NYT/CBS poll reported that 8 percent fewer women (46 percent) voted
for Reagan than did men (54 percent). ABC’s poll was similar. This dif-
ference calculated in actual votes amounts to a net loss of 3.3 million fe-
male votes for Reagan.” The NOW article was edited into op-ed pieces
by Smeal and reprinted in both the Chicago Sun Times and the Chicago
Tribune. The target audience: Illinois legislators who would be voting
on the ERA during the next 15 months (Bonk 1988, 86).
The term “gender gap” first appeared in the media in a Judy Mann
Washington Post piece in 1981. “Last November, there was a gender
gap of 8 percentage points in the New York Times/CBS exit poll on the
presidential election . . . The gender gap has steadily increased since the
election . . .” She emphasized that the gap was linked to women’s eco-
nomic position. “. . . women do not have an equal shake on job and fi-
nancial concerns.” Since that time the gender gap has been a major
feature of electoral politics in the United States, receiving the attention
of activists, candidates and the media.
The heightened involvement of women in electoral politics enhances
the role of gender beyond its conceptualization in terms of gap politics
in campaigns and policy making. One of NOW’s goals when it was
founded in 1966 was to increase women’s presence in politics. In 1971,
the National Women’s Political Caucus was formed to get more women
into elective office and gain a greater presence for women in the
national political parties.
The first step in examining the impact of gender politics on public
policy is to define gender politics. The politics of gender is composed of
issues and the framing of issues in particular ways that appeal to women
and on which women have distinctive perspectives or that they ap-
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 35

proach in distinctive ways. Summarizing the data from public opinion

polls, Susan Carroll in 2001 concluded that “[C]ompared with men,
women in the general population are, for example: less militaristic on
issues of war and peace, more often opposed to the death penalty, more
likely to favor gun control, more likely to favor measures to protect the
environment, more supportive of programs to help the economically
disadvantaged, less critical of government, more critical of business,
and more likely to favor laws to regulate and control various social vices
(e.g., drugs, gambling, pornography)” (xiii). Thus, we have several do-
mains of issues: war, peace and force issues, economic issues, govern-
ment provision of services sometimes referred to as compassion issues,
environmental issues and women’s rights issues that are all part of the
gendered politics of the contemporary era.
Table 1 shows the growth in the gender gap in turnout rates to
women’s advantage from 1980 through the 2000 election based on sur-
vey responses to the Census Bureau’s Voting and Registration studies.
In 2000, an estimated 8.4 million more women than men voted.
Because the Electoral College determines who actually gets elected
president, we should consider not only the national differences in turn-
out but differential rates across the states. In the 2000 election, women
tended to outvote men across the states and the District of Columbia. In
only three states did women vote at lower levels than men: Montana,
Arkansas and West Virginia. Gender differences in turnout varied
across the states from a negative 2.1 percent turnout for women in
Montana to an 11 percent female advantage in the District of Columbia.
Turnout then needs to be combined with voting decisions to measure
the political significance of a group’s participation. The gender gap in

TABLE 1. Turnout Rates–Men and Women, Presidential Elections 1980-2000

Year Men Women Difference Number Women-%

(Women-Men) Difference of Voters
1980 59.1 59.4 +.3 5,559,000 53.0
1984 59.0 60.8 +1.8 7,170,000 53.5
1988 56.4 58.3 +1.9 6,815,000 53.3
1992 60.2 62.3 +2.1 7,242,000 53.2
1996 52.8 55.5 +2.7 7,199,000 53.4
2000 53.1 56.2 +3.2 8,436,000 52.1

Source: U.S. Census Bureau, Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1980,
1984, 1988, 1992, 1996, 2000.
36 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

voting decisions is primarily calculated by subtracting the votes men

give a candidate from the votes women give a candidate; therefore we
can talk about John Kerry’s gender gap and George Bush’s gender gap.
In a two-person race the gaps will mirror each other. Figure 1 shows the
gender gap in votes for the Democratic candidate for president from
1980 through the 2004 election based on the results of exit polls. It
shows that in each of the elections women were more likely to vote for
the Democratic candidate than men but the extent of the gap varied
across elections. In the 1996 election, pundits were talking about a
“gender chasm” rather than a “gap” and have come to suggest that this
male and female difference was a permanent feature of the political
landscape. In the 2004 election, while a majority of women once again
voted for the Democratic candidate the gap narrowed to seven points
principally because more women voted for President Bush’s re-election
than men increased their support for the Democratic challenger John
Kerry. As reflected in Figure 1 and as noted by the Center for American
Women and Politics (2004) the 2004 gender gap was consistent with
other presidential elections with an average gap of 7.7 percentage points
from 1980 to 2000.
Returning to an Electoral College approach to the gender gap, in
2000, in every state, a higher percentage of women voted for Al Gore

FIGURE 1. Democratic Presidential Candidates Gender Gap, 1980-2004

100
90
80
70
Percent

60 54 54
45 49 51
50 44 45 44
36 41 41 43 42
40 37
30
20
10
0
1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Men Democrat Women Democrat

Source: Voter News Service Exit Polls, 1980-2000; National Election Pool, a consortium of
ABC News, The Associated Press, CBS News, CNN, Fox News and NBC News, 2004.
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 37

than men. The gap varied extensively from 2.4 percent in North Dakota
where only a small percentage of either sex voted for the Democratic
candidate to nearly 20 points in Delaware. A larger percentage of men
than women voted for George Bush in every state but North Dakota.
The distinctiveness of the North Dakota results regarding men’s votes
emerges from men’s disproportionate support for minor party candi-
dates. In North Dakota, 3.7 percent and 5.5 percent of men respectively
voted for Pat Buchanan and Ralph Nader. Women voted 1.6 percent for
Buchanan and 1.2 percent for Nader in North Dakota. It was not that
men were more supportive of the Democratic candidate. As the national
figure would suggest, the gender gap in votes John Kerry received in
2004 tended to be smaller across the states than for Al Gore in 2000 and
in three states the exit polls show slightly greater support among men
for John Kerry than women. The gender gap grew in six states (Ala-
bama, Arkansas, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nevada, and Oregon)
but fell in all of the others.
Data from the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR) Status
of Women study allow for analysis of the relationship between women’s
status in the states and the gender gap in the voting behavior of men and
women in the 2000 election. IWPR uses 30 indicators of women’s status
divided into five areas: political participation, employment and earnings,
social and economic autonomy, reproductive rights, and health and
well-being. Data are available for each state and the District of Columbia.
State scores varied across the components of women’s status IWPR mea-
sured. According to IWPR’s research, “women’s relative equality with
men depends greatly on where they live. In general, women in the South-
east and parts of the Midwest have worse overall status than women in the
West and the Northeast” (Caiazza 2003). For example, on their political
participation composite index, Washington State had the highest score
for women’s overall levels of political participation, and it only scored a
“B,” while Tennessee ranked lowest (Caiazza 2002). In this analysis
these indicators are correlated with turnout differentials between men and
women in the states and their voting decisions.
Women’s status in the states on these indices may be associated in
different ways with their engagement in the 2000 election and their vot-
ing decisions. We would hypothesize that support for Al Gore would be
positively related to higher scores on the reproductive rights index as
higher scores on the index suggest a liberal public policy environment
in the state. Women’s health and well-being status are hypothesized to
be negatively related to votes for Gore as the better the health status the
less the need for governmental programs to improve that status.
38 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

Women’s votes for the Democratic candidate might be lower in states

with higher employment and earnings status for women and greater so-
cial and economic autonomy as governmental services would be less
needed. Also, Republicans have promoted tax policies to help small
businesses and entrepreneurship in appealing to certain segments of
women. On the other hand, employment status for women has been
positively related to more liberal positions on social and cultural issues.
Women’s turnout rates were only minimally related to their status
within the states, but their voting decisions are strongly related. In states
where women score higher in employment and earnings, have greater
social and economic autonomy, and more reproductive rights, the per-
centage of their vote for the Democratic candidate Al Gore increases.
Their health and well-being status is negatively related to their voting
for the Democratic candidate. The worse the indicators of women’s
health were the higher their voting percentage for the Democratic candi-
date. Conversely, women’s votes strongly related in the opposite direc-
tion for the Republican candidate George Bush. He did better in states
where women’s health and well-being were more positive, where
women had lower levels of social and economic autonomy, lower em-
ployment and earnings, and fewer reproductive rights. The Gore gender
gap, that is, the difference between the percentage of votes he obtained
from men and the percentage of votes he obtained from women, was
only weakly related to women’s status in the states across these status
indexes. (See Table 2.)

TABLE 2. Correlation Between Women’s Status and Voting

Employment Social & Reproductive Health and

Economic Rights Well-Being
Autonomy
Female turnout (n = 51) .247 .233 ⫺.164 .094
(.08) (.10) (.25) (.51)
Female vote for Al Gore (n = 51) .623 .520 .540 ⫺.405
(.000) (.000) (.000) (.003)
Female vote for G. Bush (n = 51) ⫺.678 ⫺.583 ⫺.661 .347
(.000) (.000) (.000) (.013)
Gore Gender Gap (n = 51) .223 .279 .201 ⫺.025
(.115) (.047) (.158) (.861)
Number in parenthesis is the significance level
Source: Analysis of data from The Status of Women in the States, ed. Amy Caiazza. Wash-
ington, DC: Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2002; Voter News Service Exit Poll
data; Voting and Registration in the November 2000 Election, U.S. Census Bureau.
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 39

Women’s votes were related to their status within the states. Their
voting decisions at the aggregate level were related to their economic
and health and well-being status across states. Since public policies af-
fect women’s status which in turn affects their perspectives on political
leadership, the findings have both political and policy implications.

2004 ELECTION

The story of the 2004 election regarding gender focusing on women

stressed two themes: the undervoting of unmarried women and the
morphing of “soccer moms” into “security moms.” The Chicago Tri-
bune headline “Single Female Voter; Desirable and Elusive; Volun-
tarily disenfranchised and huge in numbers, unmarried women could be
the ticket to the White House” (Ustinova 2004) represents news media
attention on the unmarried woman theme. The unmarried women story
emerged from a study the Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes project
undertook in which they analyzed the Census Bureau’s 2000 Voting
and Registration study described above and released in December 2003.
As Elizabeth Wolfe (2003) put it in an Associated Press article the story
became, “Forget about soccer moms. The prized voter of next year’s
presidential election could be single women, according to a new study.”
The study reported that in 2000, nearly 22 million unmarried women
who were registered to vote did not vote, while another 16 million did
not register. That year, 68 percent of registered married women voted
compared with 52 percent of unmarried women (Table 3). Had unmar-
ried women voted at the same rate as married women, there would have
been six million more women voters in the 2000 election.
In the 2000 election, George Bush slightly edged out Al Gore among
married women, while unmarried women preferred Democrat Gore by
more than 30 percentage points. The study was conducted by Demo-
cratic pollsters for Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes (WVWV). In an

TABLE 3. Unmarried Women, 2000 Election (Percent)

Unmarried Married
Women 46% 54%
Female registered voters 42 58
Eligible that voted in 2000 52 68

Source: Adapted from Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes, www.wvwv.com.

40 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

accompanying survey, the organization emphasized that while unmar-

ried women comprised a very large and diverse group (never married
women, divorced women and widows of all ages and incomes), they
tended to represent a progressive voice among the electorate. In releas-
ing the study, WVWV argued that one reason single women stay home
on Election Day is because they think their concerns about education,
jobs and health care are routinely ignored. To help encourage single
women to vote, the project planned to organize a radio and television
advertising campaign for voter outreach groups around the country.
Whether unmarried women increased their participation in the 2004
election over the 2000 election must await the next Census Bureau Vot-
ing and Registration study, but exit poll data show that the gap in voting
decisions among married and unmarried men and women was
substantial in the 2004 election. According to the analysis of Lake Snell
Perry and Associates (2004), married voters tended to support President
Bush and a large proportion of unmarried voters supported Senator
Kerry. (See Table 4.)
Security Moms. In the media so-called “soccer moms” morphed into
“security moms” and rather than being a group susceptible to Demo-
cratic Party appeals regarding government programs to ease the burden
of the generation of women concerned with caring for both elderly par-
ents and children, the concerns of mothers with the safety of their chil-
dren in a post 9/11 world provided an opportunity for Republican Party
appeals centered on the threat of terrorism. Security moms were defined
primarily as married women with children under the age of 18 (26 per-
cent of all women voters).
A “security mom” purportedly would say that the war on terrorism is
the most important issue to her in the election and perhaps more so than
other demographic groups. “Security moms” were seen as trusting
George Bush more than John Kerry to keep them safe. Their support for

TABLE 4. Presidential Voting by Sex and Marital Status, 2004 Exit Polls

Bush Kerry Bush advantage

Married men 60% 39% 21%
Married women 55% 44% 11%
Unmarried men 45% 53% ⫺8%
Unmarried women 37% 62% ⫺25%

Source: Lake Snell Perry and Associates, “The Gender Gap and Women’s Agenda for Moving
Forward,” Press release. November 9, 2004.
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 41

John Kerry lessened as they became less confident he could handle the
war on terrorism and homeland security. But were married women with
children more likely to say that terrorism is the most important problem
than other demographic groups? Not according to the polls that showed
men more likely to make the war on terrorism and security a part of their
voting calculus. Democratic polling organizations challenged the char-
acterization of this demographic group as being a myth. They argued
that the women citing terrorism as the most important issue were mainly
white women who traditionally vote Republican. Debbie Walsh, Direc-
tor of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers Univer-
sity in New Jersey, argued that “women who fit the ‘security moms’
description are merely affluent white women who were voting Republi-
can long before September 11, 2001. . . . A lot of the women who fit into
this category are Bush supporters to begin with. It’s a false concept” (De
Luce 2004). But even if a “myth,” certainly security issues contributed
to moving women from the Democratic column to the Republican col-
umn and caused problems for John Kerry who could not seem to make
the election about jobs and domestic security issues such as health care
and child care. A fall Time Magazine poll found that women trusted
Bush more to fight terrorism by 10 percentage points while they favored
Kerry on the economy by 4 points (Gibbs 2004). Republicans zeroed in
on married women in their campaign.

ACTIVISM AROUND GENDER IN THE 2004 ELECTION

The 2004 election is also noted for the great variety and intensity of
organizational efforts aimed at women (and other groups) from both
sides of the political spectrum. On the political left, for example, was
the group Mainstream Moms Oppose Bush (MMOB) which stimulated
a counter organization Moms4Bush. MMOB primarily operated
through a letter writing campaign targeting women in a number of the
battleground states. Other groups included 1000 Flowers which devised
a strategy of adopting beauty parlors, Granny Voters and the Axis of
Eve which held pantyware parties selling a line of lingerie adorned with
political slogans. Grannyvoter.org, a group of eleven grandmothers
with thirty-two grandchildren among them, describes itself as “women
over the age of 60 who came of age in the ’60s. We are of the generation
of women who shattered society’s old notions and created new ones.
We believe older citizens like us can remain active, politically engaged,
effective and above all, concerned with issues beyond themselves. We
42 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

call ourselves Next Step Women.” Future research should examine the
effect of these groups on women’s turnout.
Both national party organizations set up specific committees to influ-
ence women’s votes and to mobilize women. The Democratic National
Committee established the Women’s Vote Center to conduct research
to more specifically target female voters, recruit and train female sup-
porters to get out the Democratic message via the Internet and work
with state parties on more traditional methods of getting out the vote in
addition to its own Take Five program. The Democratic Women’s
Leadership Foundation aimed at encouraging financial donations from
women. The Republican National Committee initiated the Team Lead
program in which 25,000 supporters were recruited to work with
women’s groups to increase support for its candidates, especially the
President.
The Bush re-election organization reinstituted its “W Stands for
Women” campaign that it had inaugurated in the 2000 election. This
campaign stressed six issue areas:

1. making America more secure

2. strengthening the economy through reducing the tax burden on
families and small businesses
3. making health care more affordable and accessible for all Ameri-
cans
4. reforming education so that no child is left behind
5. empowering faith and community based groups
6. building a culture of responsibility.

First Lady Laura Bush was central to the specific appeals the Bush
campaign made to women. She appeared in 30-second ads strategically
placed on women-oriented Web sites such as Babytalk.com and
Cookinglight.com (Ustinova 2004). Many of the Bush ads included
Laura standing next to the President as he announced that he “approved
the ad.” She campaigned across the country on behalf of the Bush ticket.
“When she visits a small electrical-supply company run by a married
couple in Albuquerque, New Mexico, she sells the Bush agenda for all
the ways it helps women specifically. The President’s push for tort re-
form? Good for businesses owned by women. The war on terrorism? It
makes families safer. Medical-savings accounts? ‘Women can take
these accounts with them if they start a new job or if they leave work for
home and raise a family,’ says the First Lady. ‘This is health care that
we own, we mange and we can keep’” (Gibbs 2004).
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 43

The Bush campaign had explicit ads appealing to women such as the
“Thinking Woman” commercial in which a mother complains about the
high cost of gasoline as she heads for the grocery store and then a male
voice accuses Kerry of voting to raise taxes on gasoline, social security
benefits, middle-class parents and married couples. “More taxes be-
cause I’m married,” the woman says. “What were they thinking?” The
Bush campaign used the word “steady” many times in the campaign be-
cause their studies showed that women like his steadiness.
The Kerry campaign also had its specific campaign appeals to
women voters, among other events holding a women and security rally
in Iowa in October. It developed a Website Women’s Action Kit for use
in building support online and in neighborhoods and a Website de-
signed to attract businesswomen. Mothers and wives of service person-
nel were recruited to campaign against President Bush. On August 26,
the anniversary of Susan B. Anthony’s birthday celebrated as Women’s
Equality Day, the Kerry campaign launched a national Women for
Kerry-Edwards Initiative and issued a report titled “Just Ask a Woman:
A National Report on Women in America.” Kerry initiatives aimed at
generating support among women included:

1. increasing the minimum wage

2. expand after-school programs
3. fund an increase in the Child Care Tax Credit
4. closing the pay gap
5. protect women’s right to choose
6. defend Title IX
7. increase funding for breast and cervical cancer research and treatment
8. strengthen the Violence Against Women Act
9. advocate for the Women’s Business Center program

Kerry’s emphasis on his war record and establishing his credentials as

commander-in-chief left many observers in the women’s community dis-
mayed that he did not prioritize women’s issues early in the campaign. His
lack of focus on those issues and connecting to women even though his
campaign had outreach efforts seemed to have hurt him on election day.

MAKING WOMEN’S VOTES MATTER

I provide here some illustrations of presidential initiatives related to

gender politics to lay out the framework for focusing attention on its
44 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

policy consequences. We can then think about assessment of these ef-

forts. The 1980 election, for example, was notable among other things
for the Republican Party’s turning away from its traditional support for
women’s rights issues by removing its support for the Equal Rights
Amendment and adopting anti-abortion language in its platform. Ron-
ald Reagan was criticized for these positions. Polls showed less sup-
port on the part of women for his campaign compared with that of
men. NOW voted to oppose his election at its annual convention be-
cause of what it termed his “medieval stance on women’s issues”
(Bennetts 1980). In response to the criticism, Reagan promised to ap-
point a woman to the Supreme Court if a vacancy arose during his ad-
ministration. He also held a nationally televised speech on October
19th to meet the “warmonger” issue head on, insisting that he “had peace
in his heart. . . .” The news media framed these activities in terms of gender
politics. The New York Times reported that Reagan’s announcement
that he would name a woman to the Supreme Court if given the opportu-
nity and his war and peace speech were “aimed obviously at the Repub-
lican’s biggest political weakness, that women are considerably less
likely than men to support him. In all the Times/CBS Polls, women were
reported both more likely to fear that Mr. Reagan would get the nation
into a war than men, and therefore less likely to vote for him” (Clymer
1980). Reagan announced in a press conference on October 14, 1980,
“One way I intend to live up to that commitment [to equality] is to ap-
point a woman to the Supreme Court. I am announcing today that one of
the first Supreme Court vacancies in my administration will be filled by
the most qualified woman I can find, one who meets the high standards I
will demand for all my appointments” (New York Times transcript).
President Carter responded that “I understand why he made that state-
ment at this point in the campaign. What he doesn’t seem to realize is
that equal rights for women involve more than just one job for one
woman. What he doesn’t seem to realize is that what’s at stake is eco-
nomic justice and social justice, legal justice for a hundred million
women” (Weisman 1980).
The gender gap haunted the early years of the Reagan administration.
Kathleen Frankovic reported in a 1982 PS article that the gender gap in
the 1980 election had persisted. Women were more fearful that Presi-
dent Reagan would get the United States into a war. Women were more
likely to disapprove than to approve of the way Reagan was handling
foreign policy and the economy.
Reagan felt compelled to respond. He appointed Sandra Day
O’Connor to replace Potter Stewart when he unexpectedly resigned
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 45

from the Supreme Court in June 1981, keeping his promise of naming a
woman to the Court. The White House felt pressure to fulfill the Presi-
dent’s campaign pledge to avoid future criticism (Weisman 1981). We
can assume, although systematic research needs to confirm, that White
House discussion of potential nominees included much talk of the polit-
ical necessity to appoint a woman and the political fallout if they did not
appoint a woman.
Reagan needed to do more, however, especially to blunt criticism for
his opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment which at that time was
believed to fuel the lower favorable ratings he was receiving from
women. Thus, in October 1981, Reagan launched the Fifty States Proj-
ect “to ferret out any remaining discriminatory laws at the State level.”
On December 21, 1981, he signed Executive Order 12336 establishing
the Task Force on Legal Equity for Women. The Task Force consisted
of representatives from various cabinet departments and several agen-
cies. Reagan announced that the Task Force “will work to ensure that
current and future Federal regulations do not discriminate because of
sex.” He further charged the Attorney General to review all federal
laws, regulations, policies and practices that “unjustifiably” differenti-
ate on the basis of sex. Feminists were not impressed. NOW immedi-
ately denounced the order as “lip service to American women, noting
that task forces on women have been around since the Kennedy admin-
istration and ‘what Mr. Reagan proposes . . . has already been done un-
der the Carter and Ford administrations.’ NOW President Eleanor
Smeal sees the latest investigative panel as a political animal, citing
polls that show women giving the Republican administration far lower
marks than it gets from men” (Peterson 1981).
Concern with the continuance of the gender gap in support for the
President and how it might affect the outcome of the 1984 election grew
within the President’s re-election team. In keeping with their free enter-
prise conservative philosophy, the Reagan administration emphasized
women’s involvement in business (as well as policies that would enable
them to stay in the home). On June 22, 1983, the President issued Exec-
utive Order 12426 establishing the President’s Advisory Committee on
Women’s Business Ownership with the charge to “review the status of
businesses owned by women; foster, through the private sector, finan-
cial, education, and procurement support for women entrepreneurs and
provide appropriate advice to the President and the Administrator of the
Small Business Administration on these issues.” Reagan later amended
this executive order by striking the word “foster” and inserting in its
place “study methods of obtaining.”
46 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

These executive orders did not mandate specific action beyond study.
In investigating the effect of gender politics on public policy we need to
ask what did the Fifty States Project, the Task Force on Legal Equity for
Women and the President’s Advisory Committee on Women’s Busi-
ness Ownership produce for women? Were any laws found to be dis-
criminatory? Did any actions follow? Did women business owners
receive any federal help? What, if anything, of substance emerged from
these task forces and commissions? The president responded, but to
what effect?
Let’s then fast forward to 1995. Bill Clinton emphasized his adminis-
tration’s support for using government to promote family concerns and
women’s issues. The Clinton White House championed many pieces of
legislation aimed specifically at women, such as the Violence Against
Women Act, and increased funding for women’s health research. The
Clinton administration also sought broader legislative actions that
would use government to promote family concerns in areas such as edu-
cation, pensions, health care, employment, and gun control–to appeal to
women. Its first act was to sign the Family Medical Leave Act which
had been vetoed by the Bush administration. Further, Clinton took a
strong pro-choice stance on the abortion issue, including reversing the
“Gag Rule” that had limited the information federally funded family
planning clinics could give to women and vetoing the so-called
partial-birth abortion bans.
The 1994 midterm election created a Republican majority in both
houses of Congress for the first time in four decades. Men provided the
Republicans with their victory, voting Republican by a margin of 57 per-
cent to 43 percent. They cost the Democrats control of Congress. Turnout
among women was the lowest since 1974. Women represented 54 percent
of the people who voted in 1992 but not in 1994. Those who were particu-
larly likely to have dropped out were from the Democratic voter base (48
percent were non-college-educated women). In a follow-up poll, among
those women who voted in 1992 but not in 1994, Bill Clinton held a 33
point lead over Republican Bob Dole (Jacobs 1996). Winning those indi-
viduals back as voters was key to a Clinton reelection victory. Thus, in
1995 the Clinton administration intensified its public relations efforts
aimed at women (Barnes 1995, 427).
White House events in 1995 included an April ceremony announcing
$26 million in grants to combat violence against women (part of a new
program authorized under the Violence Against Women Act), an Early
Child Development and Learning Conference, the White House Confer-
ence on Child Care, a roundtable on pay equity, a special announcement
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 47

publicizing recommendations to “make work better for women,” and an

event in October to highlight domestic violence. At the latter affair, Presi-
dent Clinton called domestic violence an “American issue, not just a
woman’s issue. . . . This is a children’s problem and it’s a man’s problem”
(Devroy 1995, A8). He directed federal agencies to run programs that
would raise awareness of domestic violence as a national problem.
In 1995, President Clinton created the White House Office for
Women’s Initiatives and Outreach to showcase his administration as
being “pro-women” and “pro-family.” The Office’s Website high-
lighted eight areas in which the administration took initiatives aimed at
increasing equality for women, promoting economic opportunities for
them and helping them care for their families. In 1996, the Office held
roundtables across the country on women’s issues. These activities cer-
tainly contributed to the largest gender gap in presidential elections
since the advent of exit polls. Among Clinton’s legislative proposals
were bills that would ban workplace discrimination against parents, an
equal-pay initiative–the Pay-Check Fairness Act–and a forty-eight-
hour hospital stay for new mothers. Citing that women earned seventy-
five cents for every dollar men did, Clinton in his equal pay initiative
proposed that funds be included in the fiscal year 2000 budget for the
Labor Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commis-
sion to identify wage discrimination, to educate employers about dis-
crimination and train qualified women in sectors where few women
traditionally work. He also called on Congress to pass legislation that
would provide damages as remedies for equal-pay violations and put
gender- based wage discrimination on an equal footing with wage dis-
crimination based on race or ethnicity.
In 1999, he introduced legislation to expand the Family and Medical
Leave Act. In July of that year, he once again “played the gender card”
and “enlist[ed] women in the Medicare fight” (Capital Times 1999). He
(and Hillary) held a White House event to argue that Republican tax
cuts would jeopardize Medicare and consequently disproportionately
hurt older women. They highlighted a study by the Older Women’s
League showing women’s greater reliance on Medicare. A central fea-
ture of the Clinton administration was its continuous and activist record
on public policies aimed at women. As with the Reagan initiatives, they
need to be assessed in terms of expended effort to achieve change and
substantive consequences.
Returning to the 2004 election, on November 3rd, the day after the
election, the Women’s News section of the Chicago Tribune featured a
Memo on its front page to “the winner of Tuesday’s presidential elec-
48 GENDERING POLITICS AND POLICY

tion.” The Memo asked the winner to address a host of issues that matter
to women since female voters had been courted for months during the
campaign. It dealt directly with the issue of whether women’s votes mat-
ter. If women’s votes have become so important, then asking what they
have produced for women in terms of their perspectives becomes a sig-
nificant question. Will the president’s mandate include issues of special
concern to women, unmarried as well as married women? Will agenda
items be addressed in ways to take account of their gendered nature? By
their gendered nature, I follow Virginia Sapiro’s listing of possible ways in
which gender is incorporated into policy issues. First some policies are
manifestly about gender with their subjects being women as women and/or
men as men, for example, women being drafted. Second, policy questions
can be gendered in the sense that they relate to situations in life in which
men and women tend to play different roles, have different experiences,
needs, or problems or are treated differently, such as child care issues.
Third, policies and political arrangements, even those designed without
gender in mind, can have quite different effects on men and women be-
cause of their different life situations. Controlling the size of government
by cutting social services has gendered effects because women are more
likely than men to use many of those services (Sapiro 2002).
This descriptive picture of aspects of the 2004 election that focused
on gender and examples of presidential actions presented here seem-
ingly related to gender politics suggests a number of more systematic
and analytical research agendas. A more comprehensive picture of issue
messages aimed at women would tell us how “women’s issues” are de-
fined by national leaders. How have they evolved over the course of
presidential elections since the gender gap phenomenon emerged in the
aftermath of the 1980 election? How have the two parties structured
women’s issues and public policies to address these issues? What im-
ages emerge in their advertising? What was the impact of the many or-
ganizational efforts to stimulate unmarried women voters in 2004? And
what are the perspectives of conservative women regarding safety net
issues and government support programs? Much more systematic re-
search remains to be undertaken to reach conclusions about impact. Cri-
teria need to be developed to assess the substantive significance of these
actions. We need to establish measures to assess whether they are inci-
dental or central to overall presidential agendas during this time period
and determine what the study of gender politics tells us about
responsiveness in the American political system.
 Gendering Citizenship, Elections, and Social Capital 49

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