The unforeseen gender dynamics influencing the 2024 political race
Former President Trump's latest statement to women voters that "I will be your shield" showcases his continued efforts to solidify the support of voters who uphold traditional gender roles and family structures – a group primarily composed of both men and women, but with a significant female presence. This group is culturally conservative and comprises a large portion of the electorate.
Despite this, political strategists in both parties believe that the Republican nominee risks further isolating various groups of voters who are comfortable with societal changes that challenge traditional family life patterns, especially women. Younger, educated, and single women are likely to reject the notion that they require protection from any man, let alone Donald Trump, who has been held liable for sexual misconduct in a New York civil case and faces numerous allegations of sexual misconduct from numerous other women.
For many women, the idea of needing protection from a man would be viewed as "awkward, outdated, and completely irrelevant..." from any man, especially Trump. As Republican pollster Christine Matthews put it, "But from him, in particular, it’s just the cringiest."
Trump's promise to protect women serves as a blueprint for his campaign's strategy to bridge the gender gap and close the deficit he faces with female voters, who currently overwhelmingly favor Vice President Kamala Harris in most national and swing-state polls. "You will no longer be forsaken, lonely, or terrified. You will no longer be in danger. ... You will no longer experience anxiety due to the problems our country faces today," Trump promised at a Pennsylvania campaign rally last week. "You will be protected, and I will be your protector. Women will be healthy, happy, confident, and free. You will no longer dwell on abortion."
In a positive light, Trump's argument that women need protection based on a heightened sense of anxiety they feel about their lives is inspired by the polls, which suggest that women feel more anxious now than a few years ago. Intending to channel this anxiety towards physical security, Trump emphasizes the perceived threats women face from crime and undocumented immigrants.
However, the primary reason for this growing anxiety is focused on different concerns; many women see Trump as part of the problem rather than the solution. "There's a growing sense of anxiety among a lot of women, single women, regarding their rights, freedoms, and opportunities in American society," remarked Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Trump's emphasis on physical security could prove to be a challenge, as highlighted by both Cox and Matthews, as it does not resonate with the driving factors that contribute to this heightened anxiety among women.
"There's this growing sense of anxiety among a lot of women, single women, about their rights, their freedoms, the opportunities they'll have in American society," remarked Daniel Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "It is a little ironic that Trump is using this language because a lot of those same people would point their fingers directly at him for making the lives of single women more difficult."
It was noteworthy that in his remarks, Trump stated women would feel so safe they "will no longer be concerned about abortion." This implied acknowledgment highlighted the outrage among women over the Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision, which repealed the constitutional right to abortion, and could potentially pose an insurmountable barrier even for women who favor Trump's stance on crime and immigration.
"Many women feel that Dobbs, and presumably the former President, has placed women's lives in peril and amplified their anxiety regarding women's rights," said Erin Cassese, a political scientist at the University of Delaware who specializes in gender and politics, via email. "But the President went on to tell women that they didn't need to be concerned about reproductive rights. It probably came off as dismissive of their concerns."
Furthermore, the explicit paternalistic language Trump employed to make his promise served as a reminder of his campaign's support for traditional gender roles. This dating back to the Conservative Party's prioritization of "Protecting the Suburban Housewives of America" during his 2020 re-election campaign, where he claimed that Joe Biden and the Democrats threatened the physical security of households filled with predominantly white families, primarily composed of married women.
The challenge the GOP faces in emphasizing physical security was highlighted by both Cox and Matthews, as the rising sense of anxiety among women is more often concerned with their liberties, rights, and the opportunities they will have in American society rather than their personal safety.
"There is this growing sense of anxiety among a lot of women, single women, about their rights, their freedoms, the opportunities they will have in American society," said Cox. "It's a little ironic that Trump is using this language because many of those same people would point their fingers directly at him for making the lives of single women more difficult."
In various surveys conducted recently, it's been observed that a considerable portion of Republicans, including a majority of GOP men and even some women, are reluctant to reconsider traditional perspectives on gender roles at home and in the workplace.
For instance, in a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center this year, 83% of Republican men and 55% of their female counterparts expressed the belief that the obstacles that once hindered women's progress in the US have largely been overcome. Over 60% of Republican men and nearly half of their female supporters agreed that prioritizing marriage and child-rearing benefits society. In fact, about 40% of Republican men and 30% of their female supporters were uncomfortable with women who maintain their own surnames post-marriage.
Results from an AEI survey published last week revealed that 60% of Republican men and approximately 40% of Republican women share the notion that women requesting equal rights are essentially seeking "special privileges." Most Republican men and women also agreed that society no longer needs to take further steps to guarantee equal rights for women.
According to a survey conducted by Politico and Ipsos last year, a majority of both Republican men and women believe that "traditional family structures," with a breadwinner father and homemaker mother, provide the optimal environment for children to succeed.
Tresa Undem, who conducts surveys for progressive groups, found in her polling that Republicans, both men and women, largely support the viewpoint that women are often too sensitive and that many women misinterpret innocent comments or actions as being sexist.
In PRRI polling this year, approximately 40% of Republicans concurred with two unequivocal statements about gender roles. The first: "In a genuinely Christian family, the husband is the head of the household, and his wife submits to his leadership." The second: "Society is better off when men and women adhere to the roles and tasks they are naturally predisposed for." In both cases, around 40% of Republican women shared this viewpoint.
Drawing from PRRI polling, evangelical Christians frequently hold the most conservative beliefs regarding women's roles. For instance, about three-fifths of evangelical Christians agreed with the statement that men are the head of the household in a genuinely Christian family.
Jones stated that "most Republican and White evangelical women share the same views as their male counterparts regarding gender essentialism, hierarchy, and predefined roles."
Trump's protective language signifies his affinity for the viewpoints of evangelical Christians, yet they are already ardently supporting him. According to Undem, there may be a small group of white evangelical Trump-supporting women who find comfort in this protective message, but it's not the demographic Trump needs to target. To secure the backing of suburban women is his primary goal.
Cox believes that if there's an audience beyond evangelicals for Trump's argument, its appeal will primarily resonate with married women, particularly those in traditional relationships.
Cox describes Trump's protective stance as an extension of the traditional macho symbols he emphasized during the GOP convention. "In a very Trumpian manner, it's a very overt effort to express that you have genuine reasons to fear for your personal safety....And I will be the one to perform tough tasks that Democrats are unable or unwilling to accomplish. That kind of message of traditional masculine strength and directness – certain voters will find that appealing," Cox explained.
Lake, a Democratic pollster, believes that some working-class White women, especially older ones, will react to Trump's relentless assertion that undocumented immigrants pose a risk to their safety, such as when he gloomily warned in Wisconsin last weekend that such immigrants would "break into your home [and]....slit your throat."
Lake noted that concerns about immigration and safety are particularly relevant to older, less-educated, protection-focused women. Such concerns reach into independent and Democratic-leaning women, many of whom share a receptiveness to Trump's message on safety due to their belief in lower living costs during his presidency.
Trump is presenting himself in a conventional "Father Knows Best" kind of light, embodying the strong man who offers the protection that women need because they are inherently vulnerable. His predicament is that most voters outside the core GOP coalition are generally at ease with the changes in gender roles and family dynamics since the "Father Knows Best" era in the 1950s.
In PRRI polling, for example, around 70% of all women and men who do not identify as Republicans rejected the idea that women should submit to their husbands in a Christian marriage, and three-quarters of non-Republican women (as well as two-thirds of non-Republican men) rejected the notion that society is better off when men and women stick to roles they are "naturally suited for." In the Politico/Ipsos polling, only 25% of independent women and 14% of Democratic women agreed that traditional family structures significantly benefit children.
The vital question for both sides is whether Trump's benefits among working-class women drawn to his financial track record and "protector" stance will be nullified by a retaliation from single, educated, younger, and Black women mainly repulsed by that message and his overall stance on women's rights. As Lake put it, "What older women perceive as protection, those women interpret as manipulation." "And they most certainly don't want Donald Trump to have control over their lives."
Trump's arguments that women require protection resonate with the same emotions that have fueled the strong feelings towards abortion for numerous women, Undem stated. Many women regard the Supreme Court's decision to limit abortion, with Trump's appointees providing the decisive votes, as a representation of a broader plan to reverse the advances women have achieved in recent decades. "For pro-choice suburban women, abortion is their top concern....due to women's rights, health, and personal autonomy," Undem wrote in her email. "It's ironic. One of Trump's major flaws is that so many women yearn for protection and autonomy from HIM as President! And [from] what he embodies - the government taking control over their bodies and endangering their lives."
Matthews questions whether Trump can swing more women voters in his favor who aren't already leaning his way by exploiting their fears of immigrant crime. "To me, this is not novel," she said. "This is just a revival of what he tried in 2020. It strikes me as an arsonist who starts a fire and then claims, 'I'm the only one who can extinguish it.'"
Harris is picking up significant margins among the female voter groups most likely to recoil from Trump's insistence that they need protection. The latest Harvard Kennedy School Institute of Politics youth poll ranked Harris leading Trump by 47 percentage points among young women – a lead substantially larger than Biden's advantage over Trump among young women in the institute's fall 2020 survey. National and state polls frequently show Harris leading Trump among college-educated White women by a bigger margin than Biden secured in 2020 (especially in the vital Rustbelt battleground states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin). Furthermore, despite their own financial challenges, Black women continue to present a formidable obstacle to Trump.
Harris will likely have to secure every last vote she can from women, as polls suggest Trump could improve his performance among men in 2020. The GOP candidate may present himself as women's protector, but it is the women who see him as an adversary to their rights and autonomy who may safeguard the Democrats' grip on the White House.
Despite the Republican Party's belief that former President Trump's protective language towards women could resonate with some voters, political analysts, like Daniel Cox, argue that this message does not reflect the driving factors contributing to women's heightened anxiety. Many women, particularly younger, educated, and single women, view Trump's promise to protect them as dismissive and irrelevant, given his past allegations of sexual misconduct and his perception as part of the problem, not the solution.
Furthermore, Trump's support for traditional gender roles and his emphasis on the perceived threats women face from crime and undocumented immigrants do not resonate with the primary concerns of the majority of women, who are more focused on their liberties, rights, and opportunities in American society. This disconnect could potentially hamper Trump's efforts to close the deficit he faces with female voters.
