Talk:Voting gender gap in the United States

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Thank you for taking the time to review this page. I am currently a graduate student at the Harvard Kennedy School of Gov't and have done some research on this topic and am trying to get it posted to wikipedia. Thanks--Two bills (talk) 01:50, 29 January 2010 (UTC)--Two bills (talk) 01:52, 29 January 2010 (UTC)

What about the history?

What about before 1980? Asserting that a gender gap just appeared from nowhere in the Reagan era and neglecting possible differentials in male-female voting before that is superficial and irresponsible.

There is no citing for referencing the information, does not include a all encompassing view of the history of voting, seems bias.Rwes1202 (talk) 04:36, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Additional statistics

It would be helpful to have additional statistical references, including some graphs. In addition, it seems that the stats that are reported here only outline the gaps in voting for particular candidates, rather than pure voter turnout (no matter the candidate). I believe the gap is really very small when it comes to overall voter turnout per election (at least general election), but it would be great if someone could add this info and the references (good solid sources). I think this article has some potential, but it is not clear to me whether the article as-is warrants a separate entry. Thanks contributors! Jdevola (talk) 16:38, 13 May 2016 (UTC)

There is no information for anything pre dating 1980 Rwes1202 (talk) 05:44, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Premise of article

The lead sentence of the article states that The voting gender gap is the difference in voting turnout between men and women, and cites the Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University, The Gender Gap, Voting Choices in Presidential Elections. The opening statement from the actual study is quite different:

A gender gap in voting refers to a difference between the percentage of women and the percentage of men voting for a given candidate, generally the winning candidate. Even when women and men favor the same candidate, they may do so by different margins, resulting in a gender gap. In every presidential election since 1980, a gender gap has been apparent, with a great er proportion of women than men preferring the Democrat in each case.

— The Gender Gap: Voting Choices In Presidential Elections, Center for the American Woman and Politics

(emphasis added) The study itself is much more about the voting patterns of women vs. men, not the raw turnout. If we look at the actual Rutgers University page on Gender Gap in Voting (which includes the above study), we see that they define the voting gender gap as the following:

The gender gap in voting refers to the difference in the percentage of women and the percentage of men voting for a given candidate.

— Center for the American Woman and Politics

(emphasis added) The other studies that I checked also seem to orient themselves this way:

The "gender gap" refers to differences between women and men in political attitudes and voting choices. A gender gap has been apparent in both party identification and evaluations of the performances of recent presidents.

— THE GENDER GAP Party Identification and Presidential Performance Ratings, Center for the American Woman and Politics

(emphasis added)

The gender gap in voting is the difference in the percentage of women and men who support a given candidate, generally the leading or winning candidate. It is the gap between the genders not within a gender. Even if women and men favor the same candidate, they may do so by different margins, resulting in a gender gap.

— The Gender Gap and the 2004 Women’s Vote: Setting the Record Straight, Center for the American Woman and Politics

(emphasis added)

The other study that I looked at from the reference page was the Inglehart/Norris study. Its opening statement is below:

Studies carried out in many countries in previous decades found that women were more conservative than men and less likely to participate in politics. Here, it is examined whether this traditional gender gap persists today, or whether gender cleavages in the electorate have converged, and whether the phenomenon of the modern gender gap, with women more left wing, has become evident elsewhere.

— The Developmental Theory of the Gender Gap: Women’s and Men’s Voting Behavior in Global Perspective, Ronald Inglehart and Pippa Norris

(emphasis added)

This statement does mention that women were thought to traditionally be "less likely to participate in politics", but the study itself is much more concerned with the change in conservatism in women voting.

My question is, should the article be completely rewritten from this perspective? Quite a bit of the content already does examine this phenomenon (which is natural given the source material), but as it stands the lead sentence doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. In my opinion, this is what is causing the self-contradictory text (which is what brought me to this article in the first place). I am interested to hear what others think. CThomas³ (talk) 18:35, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

How can this be rewritten

This sentence baffles me: "Contrary to many popular media accounts, gender gaps are not the within gender differences in candidate support, nor are they the aggregate total of men's and women's within gender differences (e.g. men +10 Republican and women +12 Democrat is not equivalent to a 22 point gender gap)". I'd love to rewrite it but I don't even know what it's trying to say. Even if I imagine "within-gender" hyphenated, I still have no clue. Anyone? Wknight94 ^talk 16:02, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

Other elections in the United States?

There is a significant portion of this article that focuses on the gender gap in presidential races. However, presidential races make up only a tiny fraction of the elections in the United States. While there is a brief discussion of congressional races after discussing presidential races in the section In Congressional and Other Contests, there is very little more than a few paragraphs and no discussion on other elections, despite the section title. However, there may be some value in taking such a narrow focus on the gender gap specifically in presidential elections. My question is, should this article be re-written to instead focus on the gender gap in presidential elections only, or should this article be expanded to include more detailed information on the gender gap in the many other elections in the United States? Thank you. --WhereIsGreen (talk) 00:04, 17 October 2021 (UTC)

Updating Statistics

It would be helpful to update the election charts to reflect the latest presidential election. It could also be helpful to discuss some of the results in the chart. Gdelc03111 (talk) 02:13, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Intersectional Differences in Gender Gap

Would it be pertinent to include more information concerning the differences in the voting gender gap within genders, be that race, levels of education, or even geographically (different states, urban vs rural, etc.)? Currently, the article very briefly mentions the Southern realignment changing men's party affiliation, and perhaps it would be useful to go into a bit more detail concerning this issue. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1065912917716336 may be a useful source, as it discusses this idea. Bschutz11 (talk) 04:19, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Can the "Consequences" subtopic be expanded upon?

The author only briefly explains the consequences of voting gender gaps for women. Further, this part of the article lacks a clear connection to how a lack of female political representation correlates to the voting gender gap in the United States. Sarabprice (talk) 16:41, 18 October 2021 (UTC)Sara Price