So, although I am rarely shocked, I must confess I was absolutely flummoxed when I went back and checked the statistics for every election since 1980 and found a gender gap that led me to reconsider the wisdom of the 19th Amendment. Now, I’m not one of those Neanderthals who thinks women should be kept barefoot and pregnant, but the evidence strongly suggests they shouldn’t be allowed to get too near a ballot box.
As for me, you can pry my right to vote from my cold, dead hands. :)
The reason women vote that way is that statism touches upon feminine values.
A statist government is one that cares.
And caring is very important to women.
One of the reasons I find feminism dumb is that it advocates for women's liberation (or at least that was the phrase back in the day)-- but it creates policies that foster dependence on the State.
For feminists, freedom is when the government takes care of you.
When you grow up with the mentality that you are entitled to government care, that destroys the desire for self-reliance.
And self-reliance is one of the central aspects of autonomy.
I dream one day of a conservative women's movement that seeks to show how statism is detrimental to women and why they should enthusiastically adopt a right-wing philosophy based on natural rights, natural law, limited government and free enterprise.
I'm not talking about any kind of feminism. It's not about complaining about male privilege or patriarchy or any such non-sense. For one thing, men are more powerful than women and always will be and it's not unfair. It just is. Patriarchy is the natural order of things. Deal with it. There is no point in trying to achieve a balance of power. It's unachievable.
The goal should be to encourage women to learn, cherish and exercise the rights one naturally possesses and to exercise the freedom all individual human beings are naturally entitled to.
I would also like for it to be a counterbalance to the rampant feminism in public institutions. Any time "women's issues" come up, inevitably, every "stakeholder" is a feminist outfit claiming to speak for all women. Of course they don't, but since they're the only types of women's groups out there (or sometimes the only ones allowed to speak) the media gives the impression that they represent the spectrum of legitimate female opinion.
