On voting for women
The good, and bad, arguments for equal representation
I recently read about the lack of female representation among elected officials in Alabama. I originally wrote “my home state,” but that feels awkward. I’m reading Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman and one part that struck me was that after leaving for Russia at 14 she died at 67 having never once returned home to Germany. I’m not precluding never living in Alabama again. But it certainly doesn’t feel like home.
As a feminist I believe it’s a problem that women are not equally represented in positions of power. Representatives should resemble the people they’re representing. Women are half the population. Why should a disproportionate percentage of men like Todd “legitimate rape” Akin make decisions on our behalf?
Where I disagree with some feminists is in the idea that women necessarily govern better than men. My two main quarrels with the idea are:
1. It rests on and reinforces gender essentialism
2. It’s not supported by the data
Against gender essentialism
When you break down arguments that, all else equal, a woman will govern better than a man you find gender essentialism. Every piece of evidence that women necessarily govern better than men requires believing that women are measurably, inherently, biologically different from men. Now, of course that’s true to some extent. Women’s genitals are measurably, inherently, biologically different from mens. Our bodies are smaller, on average.
But the first problem with ascribing all behavioral differences between men and women to nature is that these same arguments justify excluding women out of public office. Gender essentialism gives people who want to exclude women from positions of power an excuse to maintain the status quo. Thinkers like “maternal feminist” Christina Hoff-Sommers explain female underrepresentation in positions of power the same way James Damore explained female underrepresentation in tech. They claim women’s brains just aren’t made for that kind of thinking. And if women are biologically unsuited to governing, then all the encouragement in the world isn’t going to get us to parity.
But gender essentialists fail to recognize that not every observable difference between men and women is inherent or biological. Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s social conditioning.
Gender essentialists like to point to toddler behavior to claim most gender differences are inborn. Yet studies show we treat boys and girls differently starting in infancy.
You see this same line of thinking in the gender essentialist arguments for women in public office. For example, some people claim women make better elected officials because we’re less prone to violence. But studies show this might result not solely from innate differences, but partly from the fact that boys are more likely to be violently punished than girls. Another advantage women leaders have on men is our lower levels of compulsive sexual behavior. Yet this again might be more a holdover from sexism than anything inborn.
For decades, people have claimed that women are innately more monogamous than men. But since 1990 women’s rates of marital infidelity have risen by 40%. Has female essential nature changed in that time? No. Here’s what’s changed. Women’s average wages and labor force participation increased. Which means if the average woman gets caught cheating and thrown out today she’s far less likely to end up in poverty than she was in 1990.
If you need further evidence that differences in sexual behavior between the sexes can be explained through culture as much as biology, consider that Victorians (and ancient Greeks) thought it was women, not men, who couldn’t keep it in their pants.
Every advantage women seem to have on men may result from socialization rather than some inborn and immutable trait.
The evidence on women’s voting records
I also don’t think we should use women’s performance as elected officials or women’s voting records to justify equal representation.
To the extent that women perform better in public office, it’s likely because every female candidate has to survive a gauntlet of sexism, weeding out all but the toughest, most qualified women. Any woman who gets elected is likely to be much better than her male opponent.
We should also be circumspect about praising the way women vote, on average. Ex-libertarian, current fascist Peter Thiel got in hot water when he wrote disparagingly of extending the franchise to women based on our non-libertarian voting patterns.
For everything wrong with Thiel (there’s a lot), he’s not wrong that when you look at the actual voting records of women and female electeds they’re often worse than men in several key areas, including drug prohibition, criminal justice reform, and free speech. It was women, not men, who pushed for censoring violent movies and video games in the 80s and 90s, for example.
Women can’t even be counted on to support female bodily autonomy. Terri Collins helped flip the Alabama House of Representatives’ 8th District and then sponsored the nation’s most restrictive ban on abortion.
Representation is the way to go
We don’t need to hew to gender essentialist narratives or look at women’s governing or voting records to support parity. Representatives should resemble the people they’re representing. Full stop. Women are half the population. Why should a disproportionate percentage of men make decisions on our behalf?
All else equal, women do have a better understanding of the challenges that disproportionately face women. Female electeds might be more likely to address Alabama’s staggering maternal mortality rate. Or the fact that women with children make up such a large percentage of people in poverty. Or, they might not. But all else equal I have more trust in a body of representatives which resembles the people they’re supposed to represent. And that, I think, is the best justification for getting more women into public office.