Gender Gulf in Voting Possible
At National Press Club Speech, Smeal Calls for Women's Equality Act and Women's Equal Representation Act
In a National Press Club speech before a packed audience of major-media reporters, women's rights leaders, and the audiences of C-Span and National Public Radio, Feminist Majority President Eleanor Smeal predicted that the gender gap in women's and men's voting behaviors would become a gender gulf if Republicans continue to polarize key women's issues. "More and more women's issues ã abortion, affirmative action, violence, human services spending ã are being polarized by the new Right Wing," said Smeal.
Smeal also called for a Women's Equality Act, which would lift caps on sex discrimination damage awards, extend the statute of limitations for filing sex discrimination cases, apply to the military, guarantee equality for women in benefit programs including Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and public education programs. In addition, Smeal called for a Women's Equal Representation Act which would help more women be elected to public office through government-guaranteed campaign loans and other measures.
Excerpts from the speech follow. Read a written version of the speech.
Gender Gap: Origins
"The gender gap has a story to it," began Smeal. "It's a personal story. It was 1980 -- I was President of NOW then. After President Reagan's victory, for three days and three nights I stared at those election results, trying to find a ray of sunshine in them. For those of us working hard to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, we knew that it meant we would probably never pass it in this century. And so I looked at those results, and I said, 'Is there anything here? What does it say to us?' And I saw that eight percent fewer women than men voted for Reagan. We were so excited about this that we ran a banner headline in the NOW Times -- 'Women Vote Differently Than Men. Feminist Voting Bloc Emerges.'
"Now the pundits and many other people in this town said, 'So what? Reagan won, and ERA probably lost.' But we weren't to be discouraged. And so we gave that concept a name. We called it the gender gap. We were determined -- determined -- that nobody would forget it, because we were sure that this gender gap could possibly be the power we needed to win women's equality.
"Now, why do I say that? Lou Harris, who is the dean of American pollsters and one of the pioneers in gender gap analysis, said 'The power that any group or any combination of voters can get is in direct proportion to the degree to which they in of difference.' The margin of difference.
"What happened in the 1996 election is that for the first time women made a difference in the election of the President of the United States. Or to put it very clearly: if only men had voted, Bob Dole would be president of the United States."
Gender Gap Based on Three Issue Clusters
"What is the gender gap based on? It's based on three clusters of issues. The reason I wanted to go into this is that it is being trivialized today. One minute you hear it's because of marital status or economic status and the next minute it's suburban dwellers and soccer momsã anything but gender. But the gender gap is about gender ã about how women perceive issues differently than men, because of their life experiences and their needs. The gender gap cuts across race, education, income, residence, age and party lines.
"There are three basic clusters of issues affecting the gender gap. One is violence. Two is human services -- social spending that women see differently. And three are women's rights issues themselves.
"On the issue of violence -- for example, whether to send troops abroad -- women tend to be more reluctant than men to do that by about 20 points. The violence gender gap is very large. The social spending gender gap is also very significant on issues like welfare, Medicare, Medicaid. It's about a 15-point gap. On women's rights issues, it's true that both men and women are for equal rights. But if you look at whether men and women will condition their vote on a women's rights issue -- whether they will say, if the candidate is not with me on that issue I'm not going to vote for them -- then there is a gender gap on women's rights issues, and it's about 10 percent."
Right-Wing Polarization Widens Gender Gap
"Before 1980 a lot of these issues had a more bipartisan approach, especially women's rights issues. For example, Presidents Ford and Carter were both pro-choice, they were both for the ERA. It was with the advent of the right wing dominating the Republican party that women's issues became polarized. And that was when the gender gap became much more party identified.
"What happened in the 1996 election was not a fluke. That gender gap was forged on the ERA and fortified by the abortion issue of the 1980s. As the Radical Right pushes the Republican Party to oppose abortion rights, affirmative action, and social spending in health care and education, women are going to become more and more alienated from the Republican Party."
Real Choices Needed to Activate Gender Gap
"For a gender gap or gender gulf to be effective there have got to be real choices. And there really aren't in many, many elections. I think it is time for us, if we want to make women's votes really count, to get involved in the debate to reform election law. We must not only limit campaign spending but we must come up with government-guaranteed campaign loans just like we have student loans. Without the student loan program women would not have flooded into higher education and professional schools. Without equal access to financing for campaigns women will not flood into elected office.
"If women were 50% of Congress, do we really think that Congress would be debating yet again whether women in the Third World can be told that they have a choice and that there is abortion? Do we really think Congress would debate whether or not to resegregate the military because some guys can't behave? But how in the world are we going to get to 50 percent? We have to have a Women's Equal Representation Act to help women get elected to public office. And we need a Women's Equality Act which for starters lifts caps on sex discrimination damage awards, extends the statute of limitations on sex discrimination cases, applies to the military and to all benefit programs including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, and guarantees equality for girls and women in all public education programs.
"Because of the suffragists and because of the modern-day women's movement, we do have the power of the gender gap, and we cannot allow it to be trivialized. We've got to make sure that vote registers, and we have got to make sure it guarantees us full rights so that one day we share equal decision-making with men everywhere."
Following the speech Smeal took questions from members of the press.
Question: How do you factor race into your gender gap analysis?
"Race does factor in quite importantly. One of the things that is totally underreported by our opponents -- they keep calling us a white women's movement -- well, forget that, this movement is a rainbow movement, has many different races, and it's not only a United States movement, it's a worldwide movement.
"On the gender gap domestically, it is influenced a lot by race. Black women, Latinas, support women's rights issues more than white women. I want to emphasize that: they support it more than white women. I believe once you have been discriminated against on the basis of race and ethnicity, you get discrimination. Some of us who haven't experienced quite that intensity of discrimination could maybe explain it away a little bit. But once you've felt it, you get it."
Question: In the women's movement it appears there has been a splintering of many groups, and all of those groups perhaps going after the same pot of money for fund-raising. Could you comment on that? Does the splintering effect of different groups who often have similar agendas make it more difficult for you to raise funds for your own, and to have a cohesive voice in the movement?
"I love the multiplicity of groups. Anything important should have redundancy. You don't want to get up in a single-engine plane. And anything important you've got to have a lot of it going on, in every different direction, because you don't know which one of us will get there first. Besides, we're trying to represent over half the population of this country and the world, and about 30% of the men who are feminists too. That's a lot of people that you are trying to speak for. No one spokesperson, no one group, can do it all.
"Does it divide up the fund-raising pot? Maybe, but maybe not. I think each new group brings in another constituency and the pot should get bigger and bigger and bigger."
Question: If the gender gap reflects women's different experiences, does that mean that your goal is to have the gender gap ultimately disappear?
"There's no question. When there is equality and gender is no longer relevant it will disappear. I mean, it's like asking a person who is trying to eliminate poverty, Well, gee, if you eliminate poverty, what do you do? Well, that's what it's all about, to eliminate it -- we'll figure out what to do next. The polarization of our issues along party lines is tragic. There really shouldn't be a polarization on issues such as family planning -- not in 1997."
Question: Some Press Club members are wondering if you are running for Congress, where and when?
"I'm not asked that as much as I used to be. As I get older people realize that I've sort of made up my mind on this. I'm very proud to do the work of the women's movement. I think there are not enough of us doing it. I spend a lot of my time recruiting young women into the women's movement.
"I have to say, though -- if Congress were nearly equal, I would like to have a seat then. And until then I am going to fight like hell to make it equal."
| 
