US elections. Where is my constituency (i.e women)?

[Yellownotblue]

I’ll start by saying I’m not American, and therefore I don’t have a constituency as such. But, I’m Canadian, British and have mixed race kids, so I’m as invested in it as any American 😁

There are obviously loads of Americans who are single issue voters (the single issue usually being guns/abortion). Nothing can be done to sway these voters.

Still, in the last election 52% white women and 68% white men voted for Trump. In itself this is a terrible indictment of white American men, who mostly managed to demonstrate they are unable to get behind and support a woman (HRC). I honestly don’t know how white men can ever redeem themselves for that. The fact that tho has been largely been swept under the carpet is bewildering.

Leaving white men aside, there are a few percentage points of the white women vote up for grabs, and this could sway the election. White women have been polling low for Trump this time. Still, I was struck by how the presidential debate had nothing to offer women. I don’t think Trump mentioned women a single time. It’s as if we don’t exist. How come this is acceptable?

To be clear - I’m emphasising white voters here, because the overwhelming majority of black and Latino voters voted Democrat last time, as in all the previous elections, and therefore there is a feeling (for better or for worse) that their vote is in the bag for the Democrats. I can’t imagine that changing now, especially after this awful debate.

So the issue is, where are the decent white men? And how come white women don’t matter in this election, that they are entirely left out of the debate issues?

@Goosefoot

Well, of course you don't agree - you're not a feminist, so far as I'm aware?

Whatever I am, I don't think politics can exist to consider only one segment of the population, and I think a great many feminists would agree with that. In any case, you might not have noticed, but women don't all agree about what they would like politics to look like.

Unfortunately some feminists that belong to the identity politics faction - a group I would certainly deny membership in - likes to present themselves as the representatives of women's interests, defining what "centring women" would look like. Even if that would mean not actually listening to actual women.

Personally, I'd love to a single election anywhere that put the welfare of the child at the heart of the manifesto, but that's just me.

Everyone is a child at some point, that's a much more defensible idea, though you still aren't likely to find consensus among women about it. A goodly number of American women would consider abortion restrictions an important part of child welfare.

Feminism prioritises female interests. It's odd to be on a feminist board arguing that this approach is just an identitarian subset of feminism. It's certainly no more identitarian than wishing for a party to centre in policy the worker, say, or the environment.

It's fine if you're not a feminist; most women aren't.

This white woman did not vote for Trump, but majority of white women will vote for him this time around too. I don’t think they care too much for women issues. They rather big Corporations of Americans take care of women

@turnitonagain

I strongly agree, of course. Trump is a pathological sadistic narcissist, among other problems. Still, the vicious part of me thinks that if it is now 'people' who get pregnant then let 'people' defend reproductive rights.

Honestly this type of la gauge is not in mainstream American discourse anywhere. Much is made on MN of random period pants brands who say “people with periods” but watch CNN or read the Washington Post, you don’t see that sort of talk. Let alone the large number of mostly evangelical Christian communities where people pray publicly at work.

I was talking about the bind the election might put someone who cares about the gender-critical issues, not about American voters in general. The 'menstruating people' language has appeared in the NYT, for instance, but you are correct that it is not yet mainstreamed.

The white evangelical Christians are an entirely different issue. They will vote for Trump at the same level as in the previous election (80+%). They wish to mold the society in the image of their interpretation of Christianity and many among the women in that group are single issue voters against abortion.

“The 'menstruating people' “ this bothers me a lot, when I hear “menstruating people “ first thing I think of is blood coming out of my vagina people. And I really do not want to be refer as that.