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Mailman: How did voting get to be so ... feminine?

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Given the red tsunami on Election Day, the persistent male turnout glut may quickly fade from memory. The narrative of decreasing White male support for Trump might likely indicate fewer working-class men voting.  

However, let’s rewind a few seconds. On election eve, I received a text from a friend in the Trump campaign. It was a tweet from a MAGA influencer whose message permeated social media, including from Elon Musk: men must vote; the election turns on it. Particularly White men.

Before Election Day, men were polling for Trump by 15 points, depending on the poll. Afterward, exit polls showed a 13-point preference for Trump. However, men don’t show up like women, and this election was no different. The number of female voters has exceeded the number of male voters in every presidential election since 1964. In 2020, 10 million more women voted than men (where they preferred Biden by 11 points). In 2024, women made up 53% of the electorate, the same percentage as 2020 and essentially all recent prior years. (Versus women make up 51% of the eligible voting population.) 

Moreover, while the White male theory was correct, as they voted 59% for Trump, that’s actually a loss of 2% from 2020, which was a loss of 3% from 2016. Trump hasn’t changed. The way that declining support makes sense is that the White men showing up are over-educated, metropolitan, non-religious White Dudes for Harris. The working-class man stays home. All this despite Joe Rogan! And Charlagmagne, and the Obamas yelling at men, and ads featuring manly men, and the list goes on. 

This trend deserves attention. If women were out-voted by men in these numbers, we’d hear about it. We generally don’t lament male turnout, and when we do, it’s during election week. Democrats are unlikely to care because they aren’t looking to juice Republican numbers, though, after their dumpster fire, all ideas should be on the table. Republicans should obviously care. 

During the get-out-the-bro effort, some theories emerged: women are uniquely motivated by abortion; men don’t want to vote for a woman; men are busy; or men are demoralized. I don’t buy any of it. This is a persistent trend; perfectly chipper men with free time also don’t vote. It’s deeper than this. 

Voting feels feminine. 

Instagram is lined with sun-kissed ladies sporting their “I voted” stickers. Ladies work the polls. Ladies hold signs up outside polling locations. Ladies mobilize their communities, whether through the League of Women Voters or local GOP chapters.

Today, voting is a communal activity, an exercise in mobilization, enthusiasm and messaging. Most “go vote” encouragement, whether from your employer, the NFL, Google, your Instagram friends, or even Joe Rogan himself, are completely policy-free and instead reflect morality and community in voting. That plays to women’s strengths and desires.

In addition, voting is all input with no appreciation. It allows the government to “listen,” but doesn’t create a mechanism for recognition or appreciation for the feedback received. Whipping out my “Women Are From Venus,” this feel structurally advantages women, who get to be heard more than men, who don’t have an opportunity to sense respect from the politicians they elect. 

Voting could be seen as a different type of activity. It could feel somewhat exclusive, a task made for those with the requisite knowledge. Do you understand the effect of this ballot measure? What about the candidates’ foreign policy visions? 

The “confidence gap,” where men move forward despite doubt where women would hesitate, might make this vision of voting an ultimately masculine endeavor. (The confidence gap does not reflect a difference in ability; it is just self-assessed ability and assuredness.) This view might still feel feminine where women are particularly confident about an issue like abortion, but it certainly would be a different vision of what voting is: voting is, in some sense, a test. The feeling post-voting might also play to a male need for trust; politicians are, essentially, listening to expertise. 

As a nation, we’ve messaged the former view. Like a pep rally, attendance, i.e., turnout is a good thing. We all know voting is more than that. A thriving democracy depends on some level of knowledge and vision. The problem, however, is why spend the time getting up to speed? 

Voting for a candidate 1,000 miles away whose power is blunted by 535 members of Congress and 890 federal judges, not to mention millions of federal bureaucrats, does not feel consequential to daily life. So long as elections feel like gathering people for a pep rally and less like a personal transaction requiring hours of thought, it may be hard to pique male interest. 

We should treat the male turnout gap with the seriousness we would treat a female turnout gap because this many men who shrug off political research, engagement and vision do not give me great optimism.

Before goading men with, “Why weren’t you at the pep rally?,” it’s worth asking whether voting itself should be presented through a radically different and less peppy lens.

Editor’s note: May Mailman is director of the Independent Women’s Law Center. She wrote this for InsideSources.com. Reader reactions, pro or con, are welcomed at AzOpinions@iniusa.org.

2024 election, Election Day, voting, turnout, men, women, feminine, masculine