Op-Ed: Gender, Politics and Partisanship

Gender is a thorny issue in this election cycle. For one, it’s the closest a woman in the United States has ever come to our highest public office. This achievement alone has underscored how far our country has come in terms of gender equality. Unfortunately, it’s also shed light on the frightening cries of retaliation against this progress heard from all different corners.

Whether it’s all three Republican candidates speaking out against abortion rights, Ted Cruz describing Planned Parenthood as a “criminal enterprise” or any one of Donald Trump’s tweets, anyone following the race has seen the good, the bad and the ugly of how women are perceived in America today. Not only focused on reproductive rights, candidates are also speaking more freely about an entire range of issues chiefly concerning women. The gender pay gap, paid maternity leave, breaking the “glass ceiling” — these have all been catapulted to center stage during debates and speeches.

Obvious consequences have resulted from this heightened gender rhetoric, some more surprising than others. People are paying closer attention to discrepancies in the treatment of male and female candidates, and many are grappling with how large a factor gender should play in deciding which candidate to support, if one at all. But this increasing attention to gender politics could also be affecting another issue of the political climate today with a less intuitive connection: partisanship.

It’s no secret that the schism between political parties has only continued to widen in recent years, with 2016 seeing one of the most divisive Congresses in history. What is strange is how social issues, namely women's issues, are now a defining piece in party identification. When did the Republican Party begin presenting itself as a pro-life, anti-Planned Parenthood establishment, while both the Democratic candidates name equality for women in all aspects as a cornerstone of their campaign?

Social issues weren’t always so split among party lines. The general definition of a Democrat is someone who favors more government involvement and programs versus Republicans who normally favor less government intervention in the lives of Americans. It’s only in the past 50 years or so, mostly since the end of the Cold War, that American politics has seen an increasing shift towards party ideology defined by social issues.

In theory, the correlations don’t seem to make a lot of sense. Why should beliefs about foreign investment or defense spending influence one’s beliefs about an individual’s right to marry whoever they please or whether women should have control over their bodies and future. Economic and political decisions have a habit of seeming removed from the lives of the everyday American. They don’t necessarily stem from the value systems everyone cultivates though their upbringing and life experiences.  However, I don’t think it’s a coincidence that as women are collectively voting more — they now make up 52 percent of the eligible voting block; social issues have come center stage in determining where one falls along the party lines. It’s hard for me to believe the two aren’t intertwined.

This would also provide a plausible explanation for why the Republican Party and Democratic Party have split the way they have in regard to women’s issues. Women have historically favored the Democratic Party for its economic and military policies, and as the gulf expands between the two on defense spending and taxation, they will continue to fall back on their main bases of support for their stances on social issues as well. That’s not to say that women can’t be pro-life or favor the Republican Party, but it certainly is less common.

The problem this creates is that all of a sudden women who might favor a more aggressive military policy or less government spending on social services find themselves in a bind. To vote for the party who has a fiscal or defense policy they agree with, they must sacrifice certain reproductive freedoms most likely important to them. Why should this be a choice Americans are now forced to make?

 

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