Repeal the 19th Amendment

I've long held that, while there are many examples to the contrary, as a general rule, the country would be better off if women could not vote.

When did the nanny state develop? Shortly after 1920. Why's it called a nanny state? Exactly!

As if we needed further evidence, I direct you to a Washington Post article, written by a self-described feminist woman, by the way.

In describing women: "they're not rational political actors -- they don't make firm policy commitments and back the candidates who will move society in the direction they want it to go. Instead, they vote on impulse, and on elusive factors such as personality."

Her survey of Washington women:

"There are some constants. Most of the women read People and Real Simple magazines. They all listen to news on the car radio, mostly National Public Radio. And almost all their full-time working husbands consume immeasurably more political information than they do ("He reads 10 times what I do," one told me), reading news magazines and political Web sites and bringing home political information from their jobs. The women gather little information from their almost exclusively female society of other stay-at-home moms."

They all said that after Clinton announced, they were "really excited." "She's been in politics a long time," a woman coincidentally named Hillary said. "She's tough as nails," added another gleefully. Jennifer, meanwhile, was won by Clinton's "combination of soft edges, as a mother and a nurturer and a strong person."

No one focused on any political agenda, policy or program. What seemed to matter to them all was character.
Jennifer contrasted herself with her husband, who, while a Democrat, was not so sure he would support Clinton. "He doesn't look at character or personality," she said. "He's very much of an issue/policy person. I look at the whole picture."
Explaining why she did not vote for George W. Bush in 2000 even though she expressed concern over taxes, Hillary said: "I just could not get past the fact that I didn't like the man."
As inattentive as they were to Clinton's policy record, they were knowledgeable about her biography. They saw her as "smart" and determined not to be just another first lady.
Their delight in seeing a woman so close to real power was palpable. Yet I couldn't escape the fact that they took in little of politics, especially compared with their husbands, that their decision-making seemed impulsive and that their response to Clinton's candidacy was driven to an amazing extent by personality.


Back to her general research:
women consistently score 10 to 20 percentage points lower than men on studies of political knowledge, regardless of their education or income level.
Studies dating to 1997 have shown that fewer women than men can name their senator, or know one First Amendment right. They even know less about the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade than men do.
Two million more men than women read either Time or Newsweek; more men listen to radio news and talk radio, read the paper and get news online. Only broadcast television news plays to more women than men, and a lot of that is TV news magazines and morning shows. Not only do fewer women read the newspaper, but almost half the women surveyed said they "sometimes do not follow international news because of excessive coverage of wars and violence."
When it comes to women who vote, the political is the personal. The Wednesday Morning women spoke passionately about Clinton's public and private travails but seemed oddly indifferent to her position on the Iraq war.
She (Clinton) has had the soap opera story of the century with that charismatic, faithless husband. This has made her suffer, something one of the Wednesday women specifically singled out as a reason to support a candidate.

The second lesson is that elections that turn on the female electorate bear an unfortunate resemblance to a popularity contest.

Atlanta's paper has an article, under the byline MOMania, which responds:
So Mothers go with the gut when Voting. Your point?

The author spins a load of crap about how women have finely honed instincts that will cut through all the political-issues-gobbledy-goop and gives them the REAL truth on the candidates.
Besides, women are just too busy caring for the family to have time to learn all that stuff.

My husband can name our senators (I could too if you gave me a minute —- two old white guys, right?), but he can't tell you which child reacts badly to which medicine.