Wherefore the Gender Gap

    SandersClintonA Fox poll released August 3, shows a remarkable gender gap among Hillary Clinton supporters. 60% of women who say they will vote in the Democratic primary prefer Clinton over her closest competitor Bernie Sanders who garners a mere 16% of the female vote. By contrast 38% of Democratic men support Clinton's candidacy and 32% support Sanders. What's interesting about this is that Sanders is stronger than Clinton on the issues that women say matter most to them. This became obvious in their different responses to a secretly filmed and deceptively edited video of Planned Parenthood representatives that falsely purports to show them plotting to profit from abortions.

    Non-profit Planned Parenthood provides essential gynecological and obstetrics services. It distributes fetal tissue remaining from abortions to stem cell researchers who have used this material to make remarkable medical breakthroughs estimated to save many thousands of lives every year. Under the law, Planned Parenthood may not profit from selling the remains of abortions but may charge researchers to help defray expenses. There are no credible allegations that Planned Parenthood has violated this requirement in any way.

    Yet, upon the video's release in July, Republican Ted Cruz attacked it as a “national criminal enterprise” and fellow GOPer Rand Paul called for Clinton to return contributions she had received from people connected to the pro-choice family planning organization. In reply, Clinton told the conservative New Hampshire Union-Leader that she too found the video “disturbing”.

    Even though Planned Parenthood is legally barred from using and does not in fact use any federal money to pay for abortion services, Republican House anti-choice extremists Joni Ernst and James Lankford immediately introduced legislation to cut off all federal funding to the organization. In reply, Clinton would only say that any Congressional inquiry should include other groups as well.

    Clinton responded feebly to dishonest partisan attacks on a critically important healthcare organization.  By contrast, Bernie Sanders mostly rose to its defense. In fairness, he wasn't faultless. In the immediate aftermath of the video's release, Sanders, to his discredit, called the “tone of a Planned Parenthood executive”, who was discussing fetal tissue donation program, “terribly wrong”.

    But his answer to Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood was pitch perfect. Rather than suggest that other groups should also be targeted, on Wednesday July 29, Sanders trained his sights directly on Republican extremists:

    The attempt by Senate Republicans to cut off support for Planned Parenthood is an attack on women’s health," Sanders said in a statement. "The current attempt to discredit Planned Parenthood is part of a long-term smear campaign by people who want to deny women in this country the right to control their own bodies.

    Unlike Clinton, Sanders correctly reframed the issue from the phony one manufactured by a shadowy misogynist group to an attack on the actions and motivations of Republican politicians. A day after Sanders attacked Senate Republicans, Clinton issued a less straighforward defense of funding for reproductive health services - one that did not include mention of the pro-choice organization. “It’s another effort by the Republicans to try to limit the health-care options for women and we should not let them succeed once again”, she said.

    A 2012 Gallup poll conducted in swing states found that women thought abortion was by far the most important issue for them in that year's Presidential election. In that same poll, men did not list abortion as one of the 10 most important issues for them. Unlike men, most women are pro-choice. Women also prioritize healthcare more highly than men do. Based on their responses to a conservative-attack on long-time women's healthcare champion Planned Parenthood, it seems clear that Bernie Sanders' values are closer to those of most women than Hillary Clinton's.

    In May, American women said they favor Hillary Clinton by a wide margin over every other candidate. Will disparate reactions to a secretly filmed video, produced and deceptively edited by right-wing provocateurs, change this dynamic?

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    Comments

    You're just not paying attention. Hillary has given a robust defense of Planned Parenthood at least as much if not more than Sanders.


    Well, just to be the Bernie's advocate, which is pretty comfortable work about now, I think the sequence of events says a lot. The notion that Sanders reacted according to his expressed values while Clinton ducked and calculated until the right political strategy was obvious is one way to look at it. Not that that settles anything about anything. 


    People see what they want to see. From the beginning Hillary has defended Planned Parenthood.


    For nearly three years, House Republicans have engaged in absurd partisan investigations desperate to find evidence of wrongdoing by Clinton that led to or in the aftermath of Benghazi.  They've turned up nothing and wasted time, energy, and millions of dollars in the process.  Now they're latching onto obviously phony purely partisan allegations against the wholly estimable Planned Parenthood based on three year old videos. 

    But Clinton's reacts  by saying if we're going to have hearings about funding Planned Parenthood, we need to look at other groups too.  How can this be okay?  I get she's better than the Republicans on abortion/healthcare by a mile.  But she's not better than Bernie Sanders on this issue.  In fact, she's worse.  So how come her support among Democratic women is 22% higher than it is among Democratic men?  Can there be any other explanation besides gender identity politics?  Is that a good enough reason to support her?


    I agree about the gender identity politics. Men have to start taking viable female candidates more seriously. There was a large male preference for male only candidates for President and Vice President back when Geraldine Ferraro ran with Walter Mondale. We have to work to combat anti-female bias among male voters.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/politics/27geraldine-ferraro.html


    The very real threat, once again, to Planned Parenthood and the need to fight against that threat and defend the reality and legitimacy of tissue research is of utmost importance. Trying to use it as a political jab against Clinton/for Sanders demeans that fight, and frankly creates a false division among the supporters of both.


    Clinton is better on reproductive rights than she is in many other areas.  But criticizing her for taking a nuanced position when she should have issued a full-throated defense of Planned Parenthood doesn't demean the fight for women's control over their bodies and tissue research in any way.  It's an exploration into who would be the best President.


    I agree with Missy on this.  This does demeans the fight by using it to get at Clinton.  Right now Clinton has the majority of the female vote and for good reason.  She is very qualified to be president. I support Bernie because I want his push back of the oligarchy to remain in the campaign as long as possible. There is plenty of frustration in the population with the current control of the government by the rich that started with OWS and has not gone away.  This needs to be expressed so the politicians see how big it is and that it is growing. They are seeing it in the huge crowds that he is drawing at his rallies. Her style of campaigning is not the locker room pep talk that is Bernie's style. He is out there teaching the population that you can change things if you get involved. 

    He will be able to take that national support back to congress if he doesn't win the primary and turn it into a powerful coalition with Senators like Warren and Brown.  There has been a vacuum left after Ted Kennedy died in the power structure of the Senate.  Having a strong left leadership in congress is very important and just as important as a Democrat in the Whitehouse. He will use his grass roots supporter list to keep a fire lit under the congress to pass bills in favor of the 99%.


    Hi Hal,

    You like Bernie, that is fine. One thing we women hate is when men presumptuously tell us they know better about our issues.  Hillary Clinton will always be a better advocate for women, because she is a woman and she lives it like we do. I do see a tinge of anti-women in your blog, you seem to believe Bernie is better on women's issues and then you give some arbitrary reason. It is telling that you want us to realize you believe Sanders has a better grasp of women's issues, and that you have tried to tarnish Clinton in a way, to make her seem weak on our issues. But we women know much better than that, we know Hillary Clinton has been speaking forcefully about women and children's issues since the 1970's.  In 1995 she gave a powerful speech in China about women's rights as human rights and she took the Chinese government to task right there. Why is it you want to pick a fight with women? You sound like a Republican man telling us we should just pay attention to what you say, because you know better than we do. Dude, Bernie Sanders has nothing on Hillary Clinton when it comes to our issues. She has defended Planned Parenthood and just because you don't think what she said was important, we women know better. You are really making our case for us, your constant search to degrade Clinton's run is telling women overall that most men fear a woman in charge, even Democrats. You like Bernie, great, but your constant attacks on Mrs. Clinton will solidify the our vote for her. We see men of all shapes and sizes and their utter fear of her and we say to ourselves, hell yeah, we are voting for her, it is time to crush that glass ceiling. So thanks for making sure women know what we need to do.


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