The Gender Gap

Twenty-five years after the gender gap first appeared as a factor in American politics, it's worth reflecting on whether as some in the GOP said after last November's election the gap has shrunk to the vanishing point.

Let's be clear: The gender gap didn't disappear in 2004, but it diminished significantly. John Kerry narrowly won the women's vote last year when he defeated Bush by a margin of 51 percent to 48 percent. Contrast this to the 2000 presidential election, in which Al Gore ended up with an 11-point margin over Bush among women voters.

Which begs the question: Is the gender gap a thing of the past? The short answer is a resounding "no."

Two recent polls show that women voters are, if anything, turning away from the GOP--and that the Democrats have an opportunity to expand the gender gap and win back those women voters and more in the 2006 mid-term elections and beyond.

The first poll, a Democratic survey that was done by Lake Snell Perry Mermin & Associates Inc. this spring, revealed, as reported in the Washington Post, that "the public's agenda has shifted from homeland security and terrorism to domestic concerns such as jobs and the economy." In 2004, Bush used fear to score points with voters. But, while Karl Rove and Bush are still stoking the fears that Democrats can't be trusted to prevent terrorism, their message is no longer resonating in quite the same way. The London bombings may bring about a short-term shift in women's attitudes, but strong signs suggest that doubts about Bush's security policies are growing.

"Women, if left to their own devices, are going to tend and trend Democratic," the GOP pollster Kellyanne Conway explained to the Washington Post's Brian Faler. "...Women are still congenitally Democratic, and I'm the Republican pollster saying that."

The second survey, "Women at the Center of Political Change," was conducted in May by EMILY's List Women's Monitor. As one of the most comprehensive post-election looks at the attitudes and motivations of female voters, the poll showed that in the past six months alone the GOP has lost a lot of ground with women voters.

Fifty-five percent of women said they believed that the country was heading in the wrong direction--and they held the GOP responsible as the party in power. And just as the Lake poll discovered, women cited as their chief concerns domestic priorities like Social Security and health care.

Republicans have done a lot of overreaching in recent months--from the Terri Schiavo case to fierce talk about gutting reproductive rights and cutting Social Security benefits. And perhaps the key insight that the survey offers is that women voters "overwhelmingly uphold the value of privacy for individuals and families, while rejecting government intrusion on issues involving religion and morality."

Sixty-two percent of women said that "questions of religion and morality should be left up to the individual, and it should not be the role of government to impose any particular religious or moral point of view on the country." And, the survey reveals, "women voters believe that the government has gone too far in dictating personal morality and even those whose own values are conservative are discomforted."

Women have moved away from the Republican Party because they believe that the GOP has overstepped the bounds on the relationship between religion and science. Even women who are uncomfortable with abortion rights feel strongly that the government shouldn't dictate morality and that scientific progress shouldn't be proscribed by religion. Most women believe in science and want the US to remain a leader in technology and innovation. (Think stem cell research.) That explains, then, another one of the survey's findings-- one-third of women who voted for Bush in 2004 won't vote Republican in 2006.

"The Republican drop-off encompasses virtually every demographic subgroup of women," EMILY's List reported, including "key segments of the women's electorate for 2006 and beyond" from social conservatives to non-college educated whites to Catholics. Women voters are dissatisfied with the status quo and want elected leaders to spend more of their time tackling domestic problems.

But if the political terrain is shifting away from the GOP the Democrats have yet to close the deal. The Democratic challenge is to create an agenda that both addresses women's economic concerns and "respects families and care giving to take full advantage of the opportunity that they have been granted."

As the ‘Women's Monitor' survey argues, women want politicians who will demonstrate personal accountability, care about people in need and provide equality of opportunity. According to the poll, Democrats also need to understand that women consider themselves "the arbiter of family values" and the "central caregivers" in their families, not the government.

The next few months could be crucial. The divisions in our electorate are going to come to a head in the fight to confirm a judge to replace Sandra Day O'Connor. The rightwing of the Republican Party will seek its reward for what it did in 2004, and Bush and the embattled Rove could pander to their base by sending up a Scalia clone. The GOP has already alienated many women, but if Bush nominates a right-wing judge to replace O'Connor--one who fails to respect religious differences, families' privacy and ordinary Americans' economic problems-- he could find himself in even bigger trouble with women voters. He might feel the consequences in the 2006 mid-term elections and his party could take a big hit in 2008.

*********************************

Tribute to Judy Mann
As I finished writing, I learned that former Washington Post columnist Judy Mann had died. Mann was a great supporter of womens' rights, an unapolegetic liberal and feminist. She liked to say that her columns were "frequently unpopular and very often at odds with mainstream orthodoxy." In her last one, published in December 2001, Mann expressed regret that "there are so few liberal columnists left in the media and so few women writing serious commentary. I have always felt," she added, " that the media mirror society and that a society in which women are invisible in the media is one in which they are invisible period."

Mann acted on her words--fighting for pay equity and promotion of women in the newsroom. The Post obituary fesses up to the rough time Mann faced at the paper: "When the paper's editors were thinking about cancelling her column, her readers and supporters called and wrote letters on her behalf. When her column moved from its position on the third page of the Metro section to the back of the Style section--first adjacent to the comic strips and later to the bottom of a nearby page--readers noticed, but the paper made no change." According to former Post reporter Claudia Levy, "she was furious, of course, but took it with good public grace."

After retiring, ill with breast cancer, Mann moved to a farm in Shenandoah Valley which she called "Gender Gap."

Here's hoping that The Post will honor Mann's work by promoting more women through its ranks as editors and journalists. As a start, how about putting an unapolegetically liberal and feminist columnist on the Op-Ed page?

Comments (37)

1. Good god, I thought this post was going to be about something like the gender gap in wages or employment, not the polling gap. Democrats burned the female vote because they ran away from any women's rights issues and got into a macho-posturing contest with Bush. As I wrote in September 2004:

   >>Kerry holds only a four-point lead over Bush among women...down from the eleven-point lead enjoyed by Gore in 2000. Oops! All the liberal feminist leaders are freaking out and have decided that Kerry hasn't paid enough attention to women's issues. Actually, Kerry has: 1) built his own rally to avoid attending the million-strong March for Women's Lives; 2) promised "no litmus test" on abortion rights for judicial appointments; 3) stressed that he is "personally" [?] opposed to abortion and believes life begins at conception; 4) demonstrated time and again that his female campaign manager is a powerless token.

   I daresay Mses. the liberals ought to encourage Kerry to pay less attention to women's issues.

   Readers may remember that single women were considered the hot demographic this year; the Democratic witch-doctors nicknamed them the "Sex and the City vote." Apparently the only thing they're going to do, concretely, to reach out to them is demonstrate that they're hip enough to know about Sex and the City. Now that's Big Tent politics!

   So, how could Bush have gained so much among women since 2000? Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the same "leaders" who are screaming about Bush now were cheering him on as a "liberator" when he bombed Afghanistan. These liberals perpetuated the most crude myths about women and Islam (the white lady's burden, you might say) in order to get on the "right side" during the post-9/11 war fever. Perhaps they thought that when election day rolled around, that would all be forgotten--after all, as we were informed at the March for Women's Lives, "when women vote, Democrats win."

   But don't fret; hope is on the way! Quoting the article:

   "On Friday, during a meeting at Kerry's Washington headquarters, top aides pledged to beef up their outreach to women, participants said."

   So look for Big Ketchup to appear in sweater and duck boots at a coffee klatch near you!<<

   Posted by rvs-convener at 07/13/2005 @ 1:57pm

2. Hey Vanden EVIL, The idea that Bush LOST to Kerry by a few points with women and that means women are turning away from the GOP is just another example of your lefty loony fog you people live in!! Please OH Please keep printing and spewing your commie tripe as it is amusing to clear thinking people as well as showing your utter devoid of ideas of you leftist socialists. Keep it up EVIL and we will continue to crush your side like the grapes you all are!!!

   Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 2:05pm

3. ALUDRA,

   I encourage you to relay this during your next church service, because your "we will continue to crush your side like the grapes you all are!!!" rant just exudes oodles of "moral values", I tell ya.

   Posted by Kevin Collins at 07/13/2005 @ 2:50pm

4. zero- While it is true that a majority of University students are now female, if you only look at these larger statistics you get the wrong idea. If you look at the gender balance in Universities for just about every technical degree you can possiblely imagine or for Masters and PhD research degrees the Gender gap is huge. In some fields this gap is widening. If you look at who is getting say a PhD in physics or electrical engineering you will see what I mean. Another good way to see this is to look at the gender balance at a technical university like The California Institute of Technology. http://www.womenscenter.caltech.edu/quiz2.htm, Here you will see that 33% of undergrads and 26% of grads are women at this school. If you look at the engineering or Physical sciences deptartments of nearly any university in the country you will find similar or worse. If you would like to talk about societal impact, fine. How about the fact that right around middle school girls become disinterested in math and science?

   Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 2:51pm

5. Good to hear the muscular response from Aludra. Must be that Compassionate Conservatism we hear so much about every 4 years.

   Posted by proudlib at 07/13/2005 @ 3:02pm

6. Isn't pride a sin? How does that fit with all the chest-thumping we hear from the Christians and conservatives here?

   Posted by proudlib at 07/13/2005 @ 3:05pm

7. One of the main reasons, though, that neither Democrats nor Republicans are gaining huge ground with women in general -- especially young single women -- is that, as with many "target demographics," women's issues aren't really talked about in the general discourse. Candidates show up at NOW rallies, tell us they're pro-choice, and then disappear again, as if abortion and breast cancer are the only things that concern us. Women still don't feel part of the political process, and it's difficult to get them to feel like they are when becoming "part of the process" and having our issues addressed still requires clawing our way tooth-and-nail into it. (See the recurring "where are the women blogger's [pandagon.net]" arguments that happen every three months or so to witness how this is being perpetuated online.)

   Posted by deannaz at 07/13/2005 @ 3:19pm

8. "IDIOT CRANKS"!!!I Love it!!!...It perfectly describes your side spewing the same old tired %@#* it has for the past 50 years. So far your nonsense has lost you all 3 branches of goverment, many state houses and you are soon going to lose your last hold on power with the supreme court. The "IDIOT CRANKS" on your side (Dean,Kennedy,Clinton,Vanden EVIL, etc) have been the best thing for the GOP in years!! Keep it up you loony lefty nutbags!! I'm all for it!!

   Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 3:32pm

9. Zero, the problem of sexism in higher education is still extremely serious and by no means solved. I don't have the stats at my fingertips, but my personal experience as a CS student (undergrad at elite private school, grad at state school) is that women are grossly underrepresented in engineering. And if you want the real truth, many women at the grad level are Asian immigrants, not native-born students coming through the US educational system. The elite schools like CalTech, Yale, and Harvard matter because they "set the tone" for the lower-tier institutions.

   I'm no fan of identity politics, but the need for radical pro-women affirmative action in the sciences--including quotas--is pretty clear to me. The current patchwork of scholarships, mentorships, etc, is fine, but obviously isn't working.

   The problem, of course, is that all these important discussions and struggles don't happen because we're all sifting through polls and trying to predict which way the wind will blow.

   Posted by rvs-convener at 07/13/2005 @ 4:00pm

10. Zero- I don't really have numbers for overall enrollment into post-grad work. I also don't think that it's especially relevant to our conversation. What is relevant is this: in order for more women to get technical sector jobs (one of the most biased in favor of men, where from my experience a Masters is all but required for jobs) they must be encouraged at to to enter these fields early. I really brought all of this up though not so much for it's own sake but to point out that while women are going to college in larger numbers they are heavily favoring what society has deemed "women's degree's" (mostly in the humanities, but also things like Marine Biology) which really shows that for all the success of the feminist movement,it still has a long way to go before there is anything remotely resembling workplace equality. Also, I seem to remember a stat (I can't remember where I heard this so I can't date it) that less women finish their degree(as in a Bachlor's of some sort) then men even though more women get into universities. I only sited CalTech cause I thought it would be easier to get stats for a whole school rather than a department, but since since you complained, let's look at the University of California, Santa Cruz's Engineering Department. (I'm picking it cause I got my BS their we could look at other schools too) Last year 154 men and 21 women were working toward an engineering Bachlor's Degree. If you prefer percentages that's 88% men and 12% women. The school overall Undergrad balance is 57% women and 43% men. I got these stats here: http://www.ucop.edu/ucophome/uwnews/stat/ipeds/enrollment/fall2004/ipeds-enrollment-fall2004-sc.pdf

    So I find this statment you made, "Even as the great number of women-only scholarships and grants, originally intended to make up for a egregious imbalance in which very few women went to college at all, continue on, the broad demographic makeup of college educated people is increasingly female. This has a broad impact on society. This also reflects a lot of societal values concerning men." --- to be erronious for couple reasons. First, what is a great number of women only scholarships? I am a man who just started graduate school and frankly I had no probably finding many scholarship open to both genders. Second, as the stats I just sited (and as I said earlier these stats hold up at just about every school I have ever look into) clearly show the increase in women attending universities is not as broad as many think. It does have a broad impact in society though, but I really don't think a man's abilty to get into college and succeed there are lessened by any gains women have made, if that is what you are implying. It is my opinion that more, not less, effort needs to be seen to get women into schools especially in engineering and the sciences. Every is better off when we can better educate the entire population.

    Also, to actually address the article, if democrates want more women voters, they should run more women. You want a gender gap, how about 13 out of 100 senators being women. I can't think of the house numbers off the top of my head, perhaps someone else knows them. Or what about the Governor ratio?

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 4:28pm

11. zero- i didn't mean we as a nation were failing to educate the population (though you could make that case easily in K-12 courtesy of Bush's leave all the kids behind programs, that discussion shall be saved for elsewhere) I merely meant that you should not confuss the betterment of one group of people for the disenfranchisement of another. (In this case men and women)

    As for men only scholarships with regard for sexual orientation I haven't gone shopping for scholarship in quite a while and am not going to search around now, as I suspect I will find what you think I will find. However see my first paragraph. Also I wonder who get gender neutral scholarships? I honestly have no idea, but that would be a relevant thing to look at as if there was a gender difference there it would certainly be helpful to one side of this discussion. If these scholarships did go more to men (pure speculation here) then that would act as a balance to some extent. Regardless, based on my earlier points there should be many scholarships for women to assist in getting them in to math, science and engineering fields, where they are still very under represented.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 4:56pm

12. But that is exactly my point. Even at UCSC, where there is all kinds of women's lib work and the male female ratio is what it is, there are only 21 women in the engineering school. If you still don't see that that is a problem then I give up.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 4:56pm

13. Zero, I made it quite clear that I advocate affirmative action for women in the sciences. You cannot seriously maintain that there are an equitable number of, say, engineering students of both sexes. You should go read the reports [students.washington.edu] coming out of the diversity program at UW, instead of just noting its existence. Women accounted for less than 15% of US physics and engin PhDs in 2000. This is a national scandal, or at least it should be.

    Why should such a small percentage of engineers be women? Either you admit it's a social--and thus a political--question, or you accept, in Larry Summers fashion, that women just aren't "made" for engineering.

    I brought up the question of national origin only to show that (at least by my anecdotal evidence) even the pathetic number of US female science grads is, in some sense, "inflated" by immigrant students. Actually the "less advanced nations" often do much better than America in sciences equity; Iraq's engin grads were about half women. Of course, this was before they were "liberated" by the Bushies, so perhaps now the number has declined to a "more advanced" level.

    Posted by rvs-convener at 07/13/2005 @ 5:04pm

14. Hey Frank, Guess you people dont like winning elections, because so far that tripe is really doing you leftists a lot of good. I know it sure is doing our side good...So I say Keep it up!!

    Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 5:08pm

15. RVS I whole heartedly agree.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 5:22pm

16. actually zero most people with engineering degrees of any sort and engineering jobs of any sort in america do have one thing in common, they are predominately male. By a ton. Which I believe proves RVS's point. and what RVS is saying is not that you need a PhD to be an engineer. That is nethier here nor there. He is simply speaking to the balance of those who choose to get these higher degrees. Unless you have some disagreement about the gender balance in the science and engineering fields, I still miss how you can say that the "broad demographic picture" is favoring women. Doesn't the broad demographic picture include science and engineering? I always thought it did. If it doesn't I may have an existential crisis. :)

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 5:31pm

17. Here [awis.org] is a table showing underrepresentation of women at all levels of science higher education. You can find a whole raft of statistics here [awis.org].

    All this "broad demographic trends" stuff is senseless. It's like arguing that employment discrimination doesn't exist because women comprise about half the labor force. No one's arguing that there aren't more women in science than 30 years ago--only that there still aren't nearly enough.

    Finally, I completely agree with Zero that opening the US educational system through, say, 100% public financing of higher education would do a lot to correct the gender gap due to the complex way sex and class interact. But sexism is real, and I think we need programs to directly confront it--just like affirmative action on race made big (though not nearly complete) progress on knocking down the color barrier in higher ed. Class- and sectional-oppression issues need to be combined in a progressive approach.

    Posted by rvs-convener at 07/13/2005 @ 5:39pm

18. I know its hard for you liberals to follow a train of thought, but wasn't Vanden EVILs original point that women are flocking to the democRATS side because they are so turned off by Bush??? Now all I read is Quotas & complete Federal funding for education. I suppose I shouldnt be surprised.

    Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 5:47pm

19. The only thing Aludra has to say is we won, you lost over and over again. Would W have won in 2004 without Karl Rove's slime tactics? Swift Boat Liars. Without DeLay's redistricting? Without Diebold's black boxes? Without all the shenanigans in Ohio? The numbers were close, so it didn't take much to tip the scales in that election. Without a thumb on the scale, would Bush have won? We'll never know. But she (?) has a pathological hatred of liberals that becomes a one-note-song. Whatever she (?) says, she sounds like a run of the mill wingnut. If the GOP is so triumphant, why do they play the victim card whenever the chips are down for them.

    Posted by proudlib at 07/13/2005 @ 5:57pm

20. okay Zero. I can ackowledge that there are more totally women at universities than men. Now that we have that out of the way, on eof the basic ideas of feminism is fighting traditional gender roles. Now clearly seeing more women in school would lead you to believe that that is happening, but you must look deeper. What fields do they go into? That is extremely relevant and hence our discussion of science and engineering where comparitively little (hardly any) progress has been made in gender equality. The reason I keep bringing up examples in engineering and the sciences is because that's what I do and as such I know where to look for such things. Since you keep talk in broad term I am trying to show how two fairly large disciplines don't agree with your statements. As to your comments about education v. job training, well, I am of the opinion that job training is education, but regardless.I think by your distiction Master and doctorate degrees (doctorates especially) are less job training and more education for education's sake. As stated earlier these higher degrees show an even worse delta between genders.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 5:58pm

21. Hey Frank, I thought you lefties are ABOVE sexism. I guess those rules apply only to conservatives. Your last comment was a disgrace. But then again, should I be surprised??

    Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 5:58pm

22. Hey Aludra- Does your boss at Fox news know you're visiting thenation.com during working hours?

    Posted by proudlib at 07/13/2005 @ 6:04pm

23. Hey Proud, Im sure you would know a one-note samba when you hear one, but you can have all you "what-ifs" all you want. I must say it is quite enjoyable watching all you nutbag commies squirm. But you can bitch & moan all you want, but the fact remains you are in the minority, and you will continue to be an even smaller minority as time passes along...So I say keep up the babble as it is music to my ears!

    Posted by aludra at 07/13/2005 @ 6:04pm

24. Also, I don't like quatos either zero. In order to really address these issuses the entire k-12 education system needs to be reformed so that girls are not conditioned to think that they should be disinterested in math and science. Also college should be free (100% government funded). And sure we're off topic a bit but who cares, this is interesting. Better than a wingnut regurgitating faux news talking points.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 6:05pm

25. no problem Zero. I've read many of your comments on other articles and tend to agree with where you're coming from and I certainly respect your opinion. Without (meaningful and well thoughtout) discourse there can't be any progress.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/13/2005 @ 6:09pm

26. There she goes. Dancin' in the endzone again.

    Posted by proudlib at 07/13/2005 @ 7:39pm

27. Gearmonkey and Zero, I agree this debate and discussion is very valuable (certainly more so than prognosticating on how well the Dems will poll with women in 2008), and I've appreciated the challenges you've both put forward.

    On the idea of quotas generally. I think progressives have let the Right totally control the discourse on quotas (on race, sex, or whatever). The idea is simple: there is a lot of sexism in S&E departments; therefore they cannot be relied on to carry out anti-sexist policy; therefore you mandate it through objectively measurable standards, ie quotas. Once again, I am totally for full public funding of education and deep reforms in K-12, but the sexism has to be taken on directly. (On the other hand, I do think middle-class feminism tends to separate sexism from the larger socio-economic context.)

    On the idea of quotas specifically. I don't have a specific proposal, actually; that would certainly require a more comprehensive knowledge of the situation than I have. Obviously quotas wouldn't be necessary where equity was already achieved (eg, biology).

    On the problem of overrepresentation of women in some fields. Would it be necessary to implement quotas for men in these fields? I don't think so. Fields where women are (significantly) overrepresented tend to be, I would guess, the "pink collar" fields that are underpaid and seen as "second-tier" jobs for supplementary income (eg, nursing or primary education). The key here would be to organize for higher pay, better benefits, and increased social respect. You would then see more men come into the field. Although some programs may be necessary to dispel prejudices, quotas would not be necessary, since anti-male prejudice is nowhere near the scale and depth of anti-woman sexism in our society.

    Posted by rvs-convener at 07/14/2005 @ 01:13am

28. As much as I hate to react to Aludra's hysterics, I would like to say to everyone in here that I notice certain desperate tendencies between Aludra's writing and the voices of some of the most desperate characters in history and fiction - characters on the brink of losing what they have illegitimately gained...characters trying to brainwash themselves into believing that they will continue to have what they have. These characters, needless to say, suffer a hard reality when it arrives, and have so genuinely convinced themselves of their righteousness that they are stunned silly when their fallacy shows it ugly face.

    I say this not to insult Aludra, who, like the desperate characters I reference, begs for it; I say it to point out a larger trend of increasing hysterics and desperation in the Republican party, and to hint at an upcoming downfall. Am I the only one who can sense it? I feel that way sometimes, but perhaps we all do. Katrina, thank you for the optimism in your post. It will prove itself prophetic (although prophecy is easily delivered - time is circular - the future resides in the past). Conservatives are grasping onto anything they can - we own all three branches! we won the election! the supreme court is ours! the terrorists are coming! - to make themselves think they will retain their stronghold. They will not. The American people, as a political body, are beginning to sense the desparation.

    The term "Aludra", by the way, comes from an Arabic word that means "the maidenhead" or "the virginity." Make what you will of that. It is also the name of a bright supergiant estimated at 3200 light years away. The star Aludra, for those curious, has only been around for a fraction of the time our sun has, yet, according to Wikipedia, "is already in the last stages of its life."

    Posted by ghostman at 07/14/2005 @ 02:41am

29. Ghostman said it best. We should not let Aludra bait us. She managed to skew the discussion from Katrina's topic and some of us got drawn in.

    Posted by proudlib at 07/14/2005 @ 10:53am

30. "Isn't pride a sin? How does that fit with all the chest-thumping we hear from the Christians and conservatives here?"

    It doesn't, just as leftists tell us that the Michael Moores of the world don't speak for all progressives, neither does Aludra speak for all Christians/Conservatives.

    As a matter of fact, in Aludra's post that you are refering to, he/she doesn't say anything about his/her faith or whether he/she is a Christian or not. So not sure if your question is valid or not. But I'll answer it anyway. I don't take pride in winning, I take pride in voting for issues based on what I believe in my faith. And if said vote ends up electing the person, then so be it. And if it doesn't…. which it certainly doesn't all the time…. Then so be that as well.

    Todd

    Posted by Oksportsguy at 07/14/2005 @ 11:12am

31. Ghostman, I'm afraid you are smoking something illegal if you really believe the GOP is desperate. My friend, it is your side that is desperate. But of course I cant and wont bother to try to convince any of you lefty nutbags. I'll let history speak for itself

    Posted by aludra at 07/14/2005 @ 12:31pm

32. Aludra, you asking for history to speak for itself is a bit like Bush asking for his honesty to speak for itself. They're both self-defeating propositions, only put forth because they're so ridiculous that there isn't any danger of anyone taking them seriously.

    However, if you'd like, we can easily list the various historical stances of liberals and conservatives throughout the American experiment, and see which popular political movements were responsible for which social advances and regressions.

    But again, do you really want to?

    Posted by ghostman at 07/14/2005 @ 5:29pm

33. I just think this part is pretty unlikely...

    "According to the poll, Democrats also need to understand that women consider themselves "the arbiter of family values" and the "central caregivers" in their families, not the government."

    Posted by Mask at 07/14/2005 @ 8:34pm

34. Zero, I took a quick look at UW's graduate enrollment data for August 2004 [grad.washington.edu] (professional degrees included). Women accounted for 53.1% of students, which I hardly consider overrepresentation; it's only 321 students over parity from a total of 10,296.

    Now, go through the listings by field and take note of the ones that are overwhelmingly female (ignoring the fields where there are so few students that percentages aren't very meaningful). I think you'll see a pattern emerge: education, nursing, social work--the "pink collar" professions. I haven't done the math, but it seems clear that if you factored out these fields, women would probably wind up below parity in graduate enrollments.

    In fact, let's look at some of the fields you specifically mentioned. School of Law: 38.1% women; School of Medicine: 57.3% women, but with nearly half in the single field of Rehabilitation Medicine; Graduate School of Business Administration: 27.7% [!]; Architecture and Urban Planning: 39.8%.

    To sum up, it seems that higher education's "domination" by women may be somewhat exaggerated.

    Posted by rvs-convener at 07/15/2005 @ 12:16am

35. Zero- While your argument does would certainly imply that the three percent delta would have a massive labor force impact, I think it oversimplifies a few things. First off, how many off those women with degrees stay in the work force their whole working lives? I am sure in thisday and age it is most but when we are talking about 3% it is clearly worth noting that in a family household with a single income (clearly rare these days but they still exist to some extent) any guess as to the gender of the earner. Also, there are glass ceiling issues, especially related to maternity leave. I have seen some stats (I'll try to find them) that women lose many years of income by taking off a year to have a child. This is from promotions that they get skipped over for and subconscious bias most likely (though the numbers I saw said nothing of causes and were simply documenting actually wages.) Biologically this is simply not an issue for men.

    Also as for my alma matar's(that UC santa cruz) gender imbalance, it fits very nicely into RVS's arguement concerning "pink collar" (as he called them) since Santa Cruz has a (well deserved) reputation for being the liberal arts school of the University of California. If you go back to my earlier sited documents and look at the dept enrollments you would see these percentages (women):

    education: 71%

    engineering: 18%

    biological science: 61%

    math and statistics: 36%

    physical sciences: 40%

    Business, Management, Marketing: 42 %

    other fields (humanities and the arts) were not in the document [ucop.edu] I got these numbers out of, but it can be seen that there is strong gender segregation from department to department even in a school which prides itself in pushing women's 'equality' to the front burner. I realise you have been speaking more to the overall imbalance, but at this point I think there is far to be gained by looking at break downs of departments as oppossed to overall university numbers.

    Clearly though, if there is one thing we can agree on it's the level of complexity involved in these issues. I think the more I look into it, the more it seems there is no simple solution.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/15/2005 @ 2:47pm

36. Zero, I took a glance at the Dept of Ed's Digest of Education Statistics for Postsecondary Education [nces.ed.gov], which goes up to 2001. There does appear to be an overrepresentation of women at both the undergrad and grad levels, as you have argued. I don't think I can explain this without a lot more research (has anyone done this research?). I'm not sure if women-only grants/scholarships are the (sole or primary) explanation. How many female students does this money actually benefit? In any event, I don't think arguing for the reduction of any type of educational funding is really the right tack--higher education is insanely expensive, and I don't begrudge anyone their money. Wouldn't it be better to focus on public funding for all instead of removing funding for some; ie, equalize up instead of down?

    I think we may be coming to a sort of consensus that sees much-improved (ideally 100%) funding for education as the key problem, while still understanding that affirmative action is necessary is some fields (I think quotas should be a component, but maybe we'll just agree to disagree on that one). Either way, thanks Zero and Gearmonkey for a really, really interesting discussion.

    Posted by rvs-convener at 07/15/2005 @ 3:26pm

37. So zero, i do see your point. If the goal is to expand the middle class in all directions (I am certainly all for that) then this is something worth looking at. That said RVS is on to something concerning your notes about reduction of women's scholarships. You'll likely not convince many when you quickly talk about reduction of funding for anybody, even in the (reasonable, to be sure) name of equality. I think that one of the best solutions is pushing for expanded higher eduction funding/tuition reduction. I know that this is a big problem in the University of California. Under the Govinator in-state resident undergrad tuition has risen by almost 40% in the last two years! This is clearly the wrong direction to take higher education costs. Since I agree with you zero that one of the biggest differences between waiting tables and an office job is a degree of some sort and I also think that public education is absolutely necessary in our society, it seems that perhaps our funding of public universities should more closely resemble that of k-12 education (though that should be increased as well).

    To touch lightly on self selection, that gets back to earlier points I raised about surveys that have noted the drop off in math and science interest in girls when you compare the responses of elementry aged girls with those in secondary and middle schools. I tend to think that this is due almost completely to societal influence and a cultural that mandates that girls aren't suppose to be excited those sorts of subjects (or technical academics in general). Is that self selection or cultural influence? I tend to think the latter is to blame.

    One more thing. I think we ought to prod a nation columnist into covering some of these gender and education issues, as I think they're relevant and clearly a good deal of policy (as mentioned above) at the state and national level is misguided. I simply don't have the time to do more though research on these topics currently but I am very intereste in the subject. Thanks for your opinions and data, zero and rvs.

    Posted by gearmonkey at 07/15/2005 @ 3:58pm