Hello Team Supervixen! Our founder hrh has asked me to fill in this week. As hrh has stated:
Welcome to the Planet! "Feminist Supervixens", both female and male, are invited to come and participate in this discussion of feminism, women's issues, and anything even tangentially related.
This is a regularly-occurring "Feminists' Circle" for Daily Kos, where all the supercool feminist Supervixens can pull up a chair and chat, get things off their chests, and get to know each other.
Everyone is free to bitch (yes, BITCH!) and moan - this forum can be "What's Your Fucking Feminist Problem?!" if you're in that frame of mind - but humor, fun, happy stories and congeniality are encouraged.
Notice to anyone who is NOT a feminist and wants to come here and complain about how bad feminism is, the problems inherent in feminism, etc.: fuck off and write your own diary on the topic. That's not what this one is for.
But in addition to our regular session, there is a topic that I wanted to place in front of Team Supervixen for comment.
Several months back I ripped out a fragment of the Boston Globe, which has been turning yellow on my end table because I wasn't sure what to do about it. The title of this tiny story: Get out (unmarried) women's vote. It describes several reasons that 20 million single women do not go to the polls, including a newly identified reason (referred to in the "mix" below). The study was sponsored by Women's Voices Women Vote. The story is now behind the Globe firewall, so I can't link to it, but here is an interesting factoid from it (directly
transcribed from my copy; parenthetical statement is original to the text):
But a new study, sponsored by the group Women Voices Women Vote [sic], adds a more basic cause to the mix: female insecurity. Women in general know less about politics and public affairs than men, says pollster Anna Greenberg. But the study released last week shows that unmarried women, especially, feel they aren't informed enough to vote.
"Men don't have as many doubts about themselves and their knowledge," notes Greenberg. Women take the act of voting so seriously, she adds, that they feel "it's almost an irresponsible act" to go to the polls without knowing the issues. (Greenberg, by the way, notes that men who vote strictly along party lines whether Democrat or Republican typically don't know much about the issues either, but that doesn't stop them.)
There are several interesting items in that study, aren't there? You can actually go to WVWV's homepage and download the whole thing, and some other possibly useful information. (aside: I would love to see our resident stats/demographic folks take a look at it and go deeper into the details.)
But let's focus on "knowing the issues" that seems to be of concern. Where could a single gal go to learn more about the issues around an election....hmmmmm...?
Blog readers are definitely more XY than XX at this time. The recent Blogads Political Blogs study showed that:
Of course, let me remind you what Republicans (in this case, G. Gordon Liddy) think women's votes rely on (courtesy of Atrios):
You know, he's in his flight suit, he's striding across the deck, and he's wearing his parachute harness, you know -- and I've worn those because I parachute -- and it makes the best of his manly characteristic. You go run those -- run that stuff again of him walking across there with the parachute. He has just won every woman's vote in the United States of America. You know, all those women who say size doesn't count -- they're all liars. Check that out.
Clearly, here at this blog and most other political blogs we aren't the target audience for this study, we're already confident and informed. But you probably know someone who lacks a little bit of confidence on the issues, right? Talk them into some blogging, instead of going straight at the issues! Tell them they can learn about the issues, but that there are some great other features of the blogs, like the community building. Tell them that it isn't just politics here: there are groups of gardeners, groups of people who discuss food, groups that just vent (how great is WYFP for that!?!). One of our strengths is certainly the community we have built, in addition to being so strong on the issues. Use it.
So, Team Supervixen, here is your mission if you choose to accept it: identify single women who you may know, who need more information on the issues. Help build their confidence. Lure them to us. Seriously, though, it is for their own good. It is for everyone's good.
And if you have had any success with this, tell us how you did it! Or, if you are one of the people who might have felt less informed, and came here to fix that, tell us what brought you in!
Please, we have to get these people to the polls. Help us out!