Should Women Retain the Right to Vote?

Recently Think Progress reported on the issue as discussed on Alan Colmes radio program where Colmes interviewed John Derbyshire about remarks the latter had made in his book entitled, We are Doomed: Reclaiming Conservative Pessimism in which he has a chapter entitled “The Case Against Female Suffrage.” Colmes asked him to explain his position. Derbyshire maintained that “The conservative case against it is that women lean hard to the left. They want someone to nurture, they want someone to help raise their kids, and if men aren’t inclined to do it — and in the present days, they’re not much — then they’d like the state to do it for them.” When Colmes pressed Derbyshire specifically on women’s right to vote and asked if countries like Great Britain and the United States would be a better country if women didn’t vote, Derbyshire responded. “Probably. Don’t you think so?” Colmes said, “No I do not think so whatsoever.” Derbyshire continued his argument by maintainting that we “got along like that for 130 years.” When asked, however, if he also wanted to bring back slavery. Derbyshire stated, “No, I’m in favor of freedom personally.” Later on in the interview with Colmes he said there’s a case for repeal of the 1964 Civil Rights Act because, as he explained, “You shouldn’t try to force people to be good.” Anne Coulter, another conservative pundit, gave her opinion about women’s suffrage in October 3, 2007 for the New York Observer, according to The Raw Story. She fantasized a better world were America to repeal women’s suffrage. This was her take on the subject: “If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. And it is a good way of making the point that women are voting so stupidly, at least single women.” Women were given the right to vote following the passage of the 19th amendment on August 16, 1920. Although initially those against women’s vote were concerned there might be a gender gap with voting, history shows this did not initially materialize, as women tended to vote Republican and more conservative than men until 1980. It was after that there began to be a slight difference between men and women in voting. This occurred during the Reagan – Carter election where women gave Carter 47% of their vote and 45% to Reagan. What has been more remarkable is that women vote in greater numbers than men, which is the reason political parties look to the women’s vote in political matters since they have constituted approximately 52% of the vote since 1980. Where the difference in gender voting has been more pronounced is between stay-at-home mothers versus stay-at-home fathers where mothers vote more liberally on social issues than men according to a study reported in mid-September 2009. It has also been found that since 1980 the definition of “family” and therefore “family values” has become more value and therefore the play to “family values” has had varying effects depending upon how those values have been described. So as women have expanded political power following the right to vote, how they vote has differed throughout history and according to present accounts can’t be predicted unless they happen to have children at home. This information provokes the question once again: Should women retain the right to vote if it is principally young mothers where the gender gap in voting is shown?