Abstract
Women should be considered a voting bloc. In the 2000 Presidential election, if women were the only people voting, Al Gore would have won the election. Only 48% of white women, however, voted for Al Gore. Al Gore’s strongest base of female support came from single, working women. In contrast, women who did not have jobs outside of the home supported Bush. Despite making up 52% of the total vote in 2000, the number of women running for state legislature decreased for the first time in the decade. Nevertheless, the number of women governors and senators increased, new feminists entered the House, and women voters defeated incumbents. The challenge, therefore, is to find the bridges that will unite women across the lines of race, employment status, and marital status. Democratic candidates tend to look at political patterns and decide that their problem is with male voters, particularly white men, rather than women. No one has ever suggested that women are a voting bloc with the same sort of cohesiveness found among Jewish voters or black voters. Nonetheless, there may be greater potential with women who are not voting democratic than with men who are not. With women’s life spans getting longer and the cost of living getting higher, the reality is that most women will at some point be single working women who will vote democratic. Therefore, democratic political candidates should find the bridge that unites women across the lines of marital and job status in order to receive more votes.
Last Page
156
First Page
153
Date Created
2001-01-01
Journal Title
The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice
Recommended Citation
Susan Estrich,
Bridging the Gender Gap,
3
The Scholar
153
(2017).
Available at:
https://commons.stmarytx.edu/thescholar/vol3/iss2/1
Volume Number
3
Issue Number
2
Publisher
St. Mary's University School of Law
ISSN
1537-405X
