Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Political Gender Gap

Let's think about from whence the political gender gap comes. At its most basic, in America men and women want somewhat different things from their government.

The question I wish to pose to our dozens of polling organizations is "what are these different things?" Get to work, pollsters, get us some answers.

In the absence of hard data, we are free to speculate. I believe we can parse out some of the difference from examining romantic or "chick" films versus action or "guy" films, and the different books men and women read for pleasure.

Another possible source of insight could be the classic "mommy" government versus "daddy" government paradigm; that is, government providing nurture versus government encouraging self-reliance.

Anybody who claims there are no important differences between men and women is willfully ignoring clear evidence to the contrary. Left to their own devices, men and women often choose quite different recreational pastimes. They choose different politicians or parties, too. We need to know why.