Barack Obama is at it
again. Once more he is wooing young
women in hopes of drumming up support for ObamaCare. And why not?
He knows that he probably owes his re-election to having succeeding in
attracting their votes last year.
In any event, he is now
telling women about all of the “free” stuff they will be getting because of his
medical initiative. Never mind that, as
any thinking person should know, the promised benefits are not free. They will actually be financed by new taxes
and increased insurance premiums.
Nevertheless they may appear
free because they are not paid for directly.
The same was true of the “free” birth control promised during the
campaign. It too would ultimately come
out of the pockets of the recipients.
My question is, therefore,
this: Were these promises the real reason so many young women voted for
Barack? In fact, I doubt it. They may have believed our
campaigner-in-chief was more concerned about their welfare than his opponent,
but it is unlikely they could have been bought off with a few trinkets.
The central motive why so
many women favored Obama is more profound.
It has, I believe, to do with some basic differences between males and
females. Feminists may be appalled by
what I am about to write; yet there is good sociological evidence to
substantiate it.
First, I see this difference
in my KSU classrooms. By and large
female students are more diligent than males.
They are more likely to read the assigned books and to research the
assigned papers. Indeed, on average they
get better grades.
Lest it be suspected that
this is a local phenomenon, nationwide women are also obtaining better grades
and graduating more frequently. They are
simply more respectful of authority than are men; hence they do what is asked.
This disposition can be
attributed to a deep-seated difference between the genders. Roughly a half-century ago social scientists
began discovering a significant disparity in how the sexes dealt with the world
and with other people. They concluded
that men were likely to be “instrumental,” whereas women were apt to be
“expressive.”
What does this mean? It refers to the fact that men are generally
more concerned about getting a job done, while women are more interested in
maintaining good social relationships.
Women, in short, tend to be peacemakers, while men are more
task-oriented.
And so let us return to
Obama. Because women like peace, they
are less inclined to challenge authority.
Obama, as president, is obviously an authority. Therefore challenging him was apt to feel
uncomfortable to many females. Attacking
him plainly rocked the applecart and hence seemed dangerous.
But there was more than
this. Men disliked the fact that the
president had not accomplished his mission.
He made many promises that he did not fulfill and consequently was
judged incompetent. Women, on the other
hand, liked the tone of his promises.
Thus they wanted to believe him when he spoke of helping the
downtrodden.
From the female perspective,
Obama and the Democrats were compassionate, whereas Romney and the Republicans
were mean-spirited. Evidently liberals
wanted people to get along, while conservatives were nasty, selfish and
demanding.
What then can these uncaring
Republicans do to attract women voters?
The task is a daunting one, but they can begin by making it clear that
failing to keep one’s promises is not compassionate. Help that is pledged, but not delivered, is
not help. It is manipulation grounded in
a perceived vulnerability.
Nor is getting a job done
inherently callous. If that job is
getting our economy going again, and/or protecting us from external enemies,
then achieving it will bring the peace and prosperity that women too desire.
If this is so, then the
challenge is to communicate in ways that are understood by both genders. Responsibility is not inherently mean, nor
are honeyed-words inherently kind.
Consequences matter and must be seen to matter.
Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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