However, there are some other aspects to gender and migration which might also be usefully considered. First is the issue of socially conservative communities, which take a censorious attitude to women working outside the house at all and certainly frowns upon women leaving the family home for work elsewhere. Those women in developing countries that accept inward investment in factories for intensive manufacturing and who are recruited to work in those factories face, therefore, an ambivalent response from family members who on the one hand are happy to receive the salaries remitted by the women but on the other hand blame them for a negative impact on family stability and security.

The women themselves, of course, face similarly divided loyalties and emotions in terms of their ability to respond to the need for more money and the other need to live with their family members. When the women are forbidden from travelling, they can be left behind and required to fulfill many tasks at home and cannot always rely on remittances arriving as promised. Despite promises made to migrant workers, the salaries do not always arrive as expected and, of course, workers may have to pay off brokers’ fees that can amount to as much as two to three years’ worth of salary. In addition, workers can face unexpected expenses (e.g. ill health or workplace accident) or they might even decide to spend their money on entertainment or leisure activities (gambling is an occupational hazard).

When women travel for work internationally, they often do so in industries in which they become isolated in the workplace. For example, they may be offered employment in domestic service or else in various aspects of the entertainment industry. In these cases, the women often work alone and cannot obtain support and solidarity from their colleagues. This also makes them more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation in the workplace. Men who travel to join a large-scale infrastructure construction project or similar kinds of work have the advantage of working and living together and this enables them to have more chance of bargaining for better terms and conditions of work.

Gender Character Disorder- Active with the Amiss Body

If you’ve sometimes acquainted that your apperception and physique are of altered genders, you may accept a transgendered character or transgendered leanings. A transgendered getting is anyone who identifies psychologically with the adverse gender. This is altered from a transvestite, who feels a able charge to dress in the clothes of the adverse gender but does not ambition to be the adverse gender.

Being transgendered is aswell altered from getting gay. While it’s accurate that abounding transgendered humans feel sexually admiring to associates of their own biological gender, abounding others do not. Even those fatigued to their own gender tend to appearance themselves as heterosexual associates of the adverse gender, rather than as homosexuals. Getting transgendered is about how you acquaintance yourself, not who turns you on.

“Trapped in the amiss body”

The action alleged “gender character disorder,” or annoyance with one’s biological gender, is aggregate by abounding humans in all locations of the world. While some of these humans opt for anaplasty to change their gender, others may reside all or a lot of of their lives with the activity of getting “trapped in the amiss body”. Some humans acquisition their cross-gender leanings blow as they get older; for others, the appetite to reside as the adverse gender gets stronger with age.

Most transgendered humans become acquainted of their animosity in aboriginal childhood. Abounding accouchement agreement with cross-gender behaviours, a adolescent with “gender dysphoria” (the analytic appellation for dejection with one’s gender) has a assiduous and acute anxious to be the adverse gender.

As you abound older, you may ache as you watch your physique advance as a gender that seems adopted to you. You may abhorrence your deepening articulation or adorning shoulders, or ambition to band down your growing breasts. Such animosity are accustomed for transgendered adolescent people.

At some point you’ll apparently ambition to acquaint the important humans in your activity like parents and accompany that you’re transgendered. You may acquisition it accessible to apprehend the advancing out area for homosexuals, address in apperception that your own affair action ability be even added arduous – Abounding humans will acquisition it harder to accept how you could feel the way you do.

Set the stage

You may ambition to set the date for the altercation by advertence that you accept been accepting questions about gender and are alive to array them out. For example:

“Some humans ascertain something altered about their animal orientation. In my case, the big analysis has been about gender. I’ve consistently acquainted added like a guy (girl) than a babe (guy). I’m now aggravating to amount out what to do about these feelings, and I’d like to allocution about the possibilities with you.”

Because your animal aberration is beneath accepted and beneath accepted than homosexuality, you may feel abundant added afraid and abandoned than gay teenagers. If you’ve accomplished adolescence after accomplishing annihilation about your cross-gender leanings, you may admiration whether you’d be happier as the adverse gender. As you’re belief your options, you’ll apparently acquisition it accessible to get abutment from humans who apperceive what you’re traveling through.

Support groups

Fortunately, transgendered abutment groups abide in all locations of the country. Abounding of these groups accept programs for transgendered youths, and can admonition with admonition about advancing out and ambidextrous with society’s accusatory stare. In accession to alms affecting support, these groups can admonition analyze the assorted choices accessible to you as a transgendered person: active “in role” as a getting of the adverse gender with the accessible ambition of gender-reassignment anaplasty (a sex-change surgery) in the future, active in role alone allotment of the time (such as on weekends), or ability hormonal treatments that will accomplish you feel and attending afterpiece to the adverse gender but endlessly abbreviate of surgery.

Surgery

Changing your physique through anaplasty is a desperate and irreversible step. It makes faculty to accord yourself time, anticipate anxiously and analyze added alternatives, to accomplish abiding you’re not authoritative a accommodation that you’ll appear to regret. You will apparently be appropriate to reside “in role” for a year or best afore your healthcare aggregation will accede gender-reassignment surgery. While the delay may assume continued to you, it makes faculty to anticipate anxiously and analyze added options afore demography such a ample and irreversible step.

Society has created an idea/norm of how males and females should act, dress, and even what they should do for their career. These ideas have been accepted by the majority of society and became the basis for how parents attempt to raise their children. However when someone goes against these ideas they are thought of as different and often ridiculed and even possibly mistreated. These ideas create prejudices towards the people that do not follow these norms/ideas.

One of these ideas is that males should like more masculine colors and females should like feminine colors. Masculine colors include blue, green, etc…While feminine colors are pink, yellow, purple, etc… When a child is born the parents usually have things in the color blue if it’s a boy and pink if it’s a girl. As a child my carpet in my bedroom was always navy blue. It’s been drilled in my head that I should like colors like blue and green.

In the past there was the idea that men should like doing sports and females should do things like play with dolls. Another idea deals with certain sports that each gender can’t do. For example, in America there is not a single female that plays on an organized football team. Also, it is very rare to find a female on a baseball team. It is thought of that softball is for females and baseball is for males. However there are some exceptions. As a child my dad introduced sports like baseball, basketball, and football.

            The final idea is on what occupation each gender should pursue. There’s an idea that dates back years that the ideal male job is being a doctor or lawyer, and females should be nurses, teachers, etc… There is currently an idea that females shouldn’t be construction workers. Another idea that big time CEOs or bosses should be men has created a sort of restrictions for females. It has made it completely difficult and rare for females to obtain a position of these sorts. By seeing how people follow these ideas and seeing that certain jobs are dominated by certain genders I have been inadvertently told what profession I should seek. 

This racial ‘trap’ is exploited daily, all over the world.  The Con man will always find a group of ‘his people’ and exploit them, rob them, and feel not a tinge of remorse.  Why should he?  ‘His People’ won’t rat on ‘one of their own.’

This factor has played a significant role in scams. 

Gender is another feature often used to gain dupes.

Many quite dishonest women have pushed themselves into feminist organizations or offered themselves to groups as a professional. They gather a great deal of money for their own use, and often, with Outsiders eyes scrutainizing, they are not sent to prison.  How would it look? 

The racially conscious person puts him or herself in the path of disaster.  He hires on complexion.  He finds one of ‘his own’ to transact business.  He is not judging on character his choice is based on color.  

For example, at a particular University one of the maintenance men was arrested.  He asked another to ask one of the Law Students who was working in the Legal Aid Office to help him, specifying that he didn’t want any white boy or gal.   The only student willing to run to the police station to assist was a white one.  The black ones who were asked declined.  

The maintenance man not only spent two weeks in jail but lost his job. 

This could have been avoided if he had accepted the white student’s assistance.

An agency needed a specifially qualified person for a very important position.  The top six candidates were not black.  The 7th was and gained the post.  The work was beyond her, and she had to take a leave of absence. As the criterion the Board had used became notorious, the higher ranked candidates demanded very high perquisites before ‘filling in’.  The agency had no choice but to comply.

When one can chose among a very large pool of persons of one’s ethnicity, the selection is based on merit. When it is looking for the one or two ‘brothers’ one will usually find their downfall.

There are some very practical reasons why a man would prefer to play a female character online. For instance, it is widely known that others players are much more generous with items and in game guidance to female characters. Females who play a male character give up this gender specific advantage, which likely explains the far lower female gender bending tendency. It has also been noted that in third party MMORPGS many men prefer to spend their game hours staring at the back of a slim female body rather than a bulky man’s. Many do not accept these utilitarian reasons alone as being the explanation for gender bending. Some suspect that there are darker and more psychological reasons why a man would dress in women’s garb, virtually speaking that is.

That a man would want to play a female character is often evidence enough for many in the online community to label someone a homosexual. But surprisingly, feminist organizations see gender bending as another sign of female oppression. In most virtual worlds, female characters are scarcely clad and are blessed with what we shall term “bountiful assets.” It is sexism on the men’s part to want to control these polished pleasure bots, or so the feminist argument goes. There is certainly some small minority of men who use female characters to approach other men online but doesn’t ultimate responsibility lie on the individual in defending himself against unsolicited advances online?

The issue has gone so far out of hand in some places that game publishers and governments decided they needed to step in. Recently in China Shanda Entertainment, a major developer of virtual worlds, issued a new rule that anyone wishing to create a female avatar must first prove their gender to the company via a webcam. Interestingly, women wishing to play a male character would not need to go through this procedure. Many players faced character deletion if their female avatars didn’t have a female face to defend them on the webcam. Not surprisingly, players wore wigs and put on make up to fool the developers into letting them keep their avatars. Shanda may of found the perfect way to reverse gender bending trends between the sexes – by putting additional barriers in front of male gender benders and encouraging female gender bending. (by forcing women to “prove” their sex) Soon China may have the first virtual world where half the men are women!

Many of my girlfriends also make lists. Sometimes when we meet we’ll have a good hearty laugh over our lists. And the many things we make not of. Why do we do it? We wonder though we unanimously agree that without it we just wouldn’t be ourselves!!! Do men also feel the same?

Wonder: Is list making a gender thing? 

I saw it coming, destroying everything on the way, it was big and anonymous, it didn’t have a defined shape or conscious, it just existed and was everywhere. I could not breath, I was so scared I could not move or react, my voice was shaky and I could not defend myself. Slowly I started to get blinded, a dark cloud appeared in front of my nose, I could not see clearly the objects in my surroundings and the cloud went far beyond my eyes and covered my conscious. How could I see it in first place? Where did it come from? Why everyone here had it?

I suddenly wake up and turn to see what time it was in my clock when suddenly I lost part of my vision since the green light of the alarm shook me. The image of that amorphous object was still in my mind and it burn even stronger in that moment where the green light shocked me. My eyes got better after a while and I could see the time, 2:00 AM. I was still scared about all what happened in my dream and could not concentrate enough to fall asleep again. I have had this dream since I have memory and it always scares me to the point I only sleep a few hours a day, I decided to sit in my bed and every night and write details that may explain what this dreams are. I started to write when suddenly I remembered when I was small, I used to go and talk with the girl next door. I remembered that situation since she had the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen and the blindness in my dreams remembered me about those eyes. Her eyes where blue and the color was so intense that one could not look her directly at her eyes for a long period of time without blinking. We used to play in the sand box at the park near our houses and we used to be friends. Her name… it’s not important, I just remember those eyes and that when we grew up she started to lost the color in her eyes. What seem estrange was the fact that I was the only one that believed that her eyes where losing their color, the other guys didn’t notice it. Slowly, she started to get away from our friendship to the point I cannot recognize her any more.

The words matched with the paper of my diary where I have had write those details of my dream. It’s still uncertain why I have this dreams, a details that seem important about my dreams is that apparently everyone start without any sight and I start to get blinded by that darkness. I decided to start scanning my room for details as if my problems where somewhere hiding inside those four walls. I saw my television, it have made me so happy for so long but as it make me happy it makes me blinder, every single piece of light that passes through my eyes is nothing against what I actually see. I remembered that one commercial I saw few years ago where they displayed an abstract painting with apparently no sense at all. The only thing I remember is that during that year I went every two days to Burger King even though I didn’t liked the burgers they made. Two years later I studied more carefully the commercial I constantly saw in television and suddenly in the background I saw some shades in the orange sky, it was not easy to see since the colors of the background and of the shade where pretty similar, but there it was, the phrase that made me eat garbage for so long, it said “I LOVE BURGER KING”. I could not believe all that time I lived in a shadow, all the things that could have been better than those burgers but then, suddenly the image of those eyes came to my mind. The relation was clear as water, those eyes should have been a shadow, I couldn’t recognize easily but that was there, but a shadow of what?

I turned off the light and the shadow of my hand in the paper disappeared. Then, for having a shadow, there must be an object that creates it or something else that can make it. I turned the light again and remember that her character changed too, then, the shadow in her eyes was caused by her character? Or maybe the intensity of the color was caused by her character? A dualistic idea, it was the light in her eyes or the lack of light that was caused by her character?

I took a book that I had in a table next to my bed and went searching for an answer. I found something that could help, it was the ideal of dualism stated by Parmenides of Elea that didn’t just accept the idea of two opposites but also the idea that those opposites where divided into one positive and one negative term. He stated that things like the light, the idea of what is hot and the being where positive while the darkness, the idea of what is cold and not being where negatives. Then I realize that since her character changed, the positive component of her character that was when she was young was the one that gave the color to her eyes while the character she developed was the negative that made her eyes turn lighter and lighter.

I felt glorious since I just solved that issue my mind gave me but still I didn’t know what my dreams where like they were. I turned and took a look at my clock, 2:00 AM. The light didn’t shock me this time, but then the answer came to me as the other issues where solved. The blindness was caused by the negative change that took my friend into a stranger, that same anonymous mass that is everywhere is the one that attacked my friend and now I could see more than before, that same thing that she lost and that apparently I could recognize more than she could.

She lost something of extreme importance, something that made the human something different from the rest of the animals, something special and unique. That something was herself. The feeling of that cloud entering to me came again, when it came, it didn’t make the person completely blind since in the dreams I couldn’t see clearly the objects but that was just an effect of something much worst, the lost of the self, that was caused by the same shadow, by the same immutable cloud, the same in all directions and that didn’t just make you go and eat burgers but also make you lost the power of the self, the power of taking your own decisions, the power of believing in what you want, the power of creating was lost, it was replaced with a treaty, accepted by everyone like in a contract where one didn’t read the small letters, like when you don’t know something but you still need to make a decision on what you want. That treaty is the easy path to having a life, a path full of laziness in where one just accept what the amorphous cloud wants one to do, a path in where one accept all the terms that society gives, been global.

Now I could understand why I could see it and the reason was not complicated, I could see it because the clouds didn’t went beyond my eyes, I had still the power of the self and could understand everything now, everyone had it because they accept the treaty while they grow up and just decide to don’t care about what can they be, they are just anonymous as the cloud, and that cloud was not created, it existed from the moment society developed, it was the image of the weakness of humanity to develop as a social network of individuals, it’s the invention of a easier and accepted treaty where everyone just followed the same basic principles and where everyone could live in harmony. But then it flashed again in front of my eyes. I saw it coming, destroying everything on the way, it was big and anonymous, it didn’t have a defined shape or conscious, it just existed and was everywhere. I could not breath, I was so scared I could not move or react, my voice was shaky and I could not defend myself. I turned and saw the clock, 2:01 AM. Slowly I started to get blinded, a dark cloud appeared in front of my nose, I could not see clearly the objects in my surroundings and the cloud went far beyond my eyes and covered my conscious. And that was the last time I had that dream, but it was the beginning of the reality of that dream.

A journey on Indian trains will tell you the state of Indian transsexuals or transgendered people. As soon as you board a train and put your bums on the seats, you have India’s in-your-face people. Clapping their hands or rather their over-sized palms in a bizarre fashion, they are your local on-train extortionists: they don’t ask, but demand money. Hurling insults, swearing and threatening to even expose themselves should you say no, these so-called “to-be-pitied people”  create quite a scene — enough to make passengers — part with some dough.

Often, called eunuchs, they are more commonly known as hijras or kinnars in the Indian sub-continent. Biologically, third genders represent an intermediate state between men and women. But not everyone here adheres to this classification to claim their identities: many castrated males in India also claim to belong to the third gender. Again, some claim a state of being neither male nor female, or both (a female spirit in a male body). Historically, the harems of Indian rulers have been faithfully guarded by this group of people.  

There is a belief current in these parts that the third gender has been ordained special powers to bless or curse. For example, many hijras claim that they have been compensated with special powers since they cannot mother or father any child. In both Hindu as well as Muslim societies here, many believe that these people are “blessed” with some aspect of divine energy and are thus able to bring benefits to newly weds or newborns  or harm through curses.

So, depending upon the occasion, you could see them gyrate wildly to the beats of drums such as after a wedding day or at a ceremony celebrating birth of a baby boy. It is customary for the hosts to offer cash, clothes and jewellery for this divine act of “blessing.”  Many now also venture to bless occupants of new flats and property. But for some time, the third genders have also come in for flak due to their high-handed tactics of extorting a “fixed sum of money” per affair. In many cases, even complaints to the police against this uncalled aggression falls on deaf ears as the latter also fear their powers to curse.

But not all hijras get so lucky.

Some in the third gender are also reduced to a state of begging, prostitution and illicit trade to survive. Many are also subjected to sexual harassment and teasing in much of the subcontinent. Some are also coerced to remain in the closet due to familial honour, shame and stigmas associated with being the other sex in these parts.

Winds of change are fortunately blowing for the kinnars though. New legislation recognising third-gender has come in place in both India and Pakistan recently giving the hijras a choice to manifest their identity without fear. Indian passports now have three gender markings: M, F, and E (for male, female and eunuchs respectively). Some eunuchs in India have also been able to elect themselves to state legislatures and municipal bodies heralding a new dawn of progress for the isolated community. Also in Pakistan, national identity cards show hijras as a “distinct gender.” But these are baby steps for the community seeking a greater role for itself in society here. Acceptance of third gender as equal citizens will mean that they will not have to clap in their now-trademark style to seek your attention.

The Feminine Woman Of Rise

The amaranthine apparition of defective to be adequate and looked afterwards denies the free artistic ability of women; denies them the amplitude of getting that is their affirmation and intrinsically inherent in their femininity. In western society, this arbitrary bent adjoin adequation of the genders is gradually breaking down, but insidious debris of contra-feminine attitudes still arise to apparent in a lot of areas of business, politics, sport, media and religion, to name a few.

Can we apprehend men to go out of their way to change this gender bias? Hardly! They accept too abundant to lose; not the atomic of which, as abounding men are discovering, that as women accost their claimed ability and aplomb in society, some men assume to lose their macho identity, accedence to a defeatist attitude of gender-swapping roles. But it does not accept to be this way. In fact, that is not what women wish at all.

It is neither acquiescence of one gender to the other, nor ascendancy of one gender over the added that serves the greater acceptable of either. This is the day and age if both women and men accept to angle able and abundantly in their own different and admirable gender roles.

It is our achievement for the approaching that adolescent women and men embrace the adverse sex in an attitude of joy and contentment in their differences: according and opposite. It is these differences that, ironically, accord to their wholeness. As the next ancestors acquiesce themselves and anniversary added to accurate their abeyant freely, with abundant joy and for alternate advance and satisfaction, activity on this planet will exponentially change for the better.

When will women accord themselves permission to be absolutely and abundantly alive: animate and in fact in the beginning of thought, of science, of creativity, of religion, of sport, of backroom and of business? Bear in apperception that women accept to accompany to the table of all these disciplines, their own different and feminine qualities. They accept no charge to “make it” in a man’s world.

As women’s acumen rises and they activate to accept in their ability to ascendancy their lives in a effectively feminine way, our apple will ascertain that adulation and account are far added able at breaking down the bent of differences than war and animal force.

Introduction

This paper attempts to integrate findings from both the political science literature and the NES times study series. This paper looks at the ability of an individual’s gender and race and how those factors affect voting behavior.  It also looks to see if women vote more democratically than men. The results of the experiment show race to have a significant effect on voting, and women to present tendencies to be more democratic than men.

The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920 brought with it monumental changes for the United States. Any individual, regardless of sex, was now given the freedom to vote. What was once considered a man’s domain now included a woman’s voice, which went unheard for so long. Initially, there was much speculation on how women’s votes might affect the system. Many believed that the “newly enfranchised women voters would back candidates supporting a wide range of “maternalist” social policies such as protective wage and hours, laws, expansive health and housing policies, and other types of social provision for indigent women and families” (Paget): while others believed that women would vote along more conservative lines than men. This belief was mostly attributed to the role that women were perceived to have during the era; which resulted in many women aligning themselves with conservative values. 

For the first few years, the voting behavior between men and women did not differ significantly. Early work on voting behavior demonstrated that “men and women voted largely along the same lines, but when differences occurred, women consistently tended to be more conservative” (Studlar). It was not until recent years that women’s position on voting took a more leftist turn that resulted in an increase in democratic support (Paget).  This increase came to be known as the gender gap.  The term gender gap can be “understood as the partisan difference in behavior between men and women” (Kaufmann). The term was coined “ in response to exit poll data from the 1980 presidential race that showed women’s support for Jimmy Carter exceeded men’s support by a statistically significant margin of nearly 8 percent” (Paget).

In the historic 2008 presidential campaign, democratic candidate, Barack Obama, won the office for presidency over the republican candidate, John McCain. The results of this election held constant with the theory of the gender gap, as more women supported the democratic candidate versus the republican.  Although the gender gap encompasses a growing divide between male and female voting behavior, race is often a detrimental factor that is overlooked when analyzing the variations between male-female voting patterns. The gender gap fails to take into account the male-female variations within a particular group, as noted by Welch and Sigelman (1989) who observed that variations in voting behavior were more prominent in whites, as compared to blacks.

Political Science Literature on The Gender Gap in Voting

Can gender be attributed to the way men and women vote? The political science literature on the effect gender has on voting is mixed. For instance, some studies have found that gender’s role is minimal (Lien 870). While others argue that gender is a central factor that affects whether an individual votes democratic or republican (Kaufmann).

After carefully reviewing the various articles written on the subject, Kathleen Frankovic concluded, “since the 1980 presidential campaign, sex differences in basic political evaluations have appeared and have persisted.” (Frankovic). Her theory, while vague, demonstrates that there is, in fact, an underlying difference in regard to the way men and women vote that can be attributed to sex. Using data collected from the 1980 presidential campaign, Frankovic noted that a larger percentage of women favored Democratic candidate Jimmy Carter as opposed to republican candidate Ronald Reagan. However, Frankovic expands her findings noting that among race there are other factors that could have influenced the opinion of women. Such factors included opinions on war, the economy and education. Although Frankovic is not explicit in defining the relationship between sex and party identification, she provides a foundation for the further evaluation of party support due to gender.

Daniel Wirls presented another plausible theory stating that, “women [were] more liberal or democratic than men at discrete points in time over the last several years” (Wirls). Wirls also proposed that the gender gap is the direct result of both men and women moving away from the Democratic Party at distinct pace. Essentially, Wirls believes that the gender gap does not measure how much democratic support each gender has, but how much each gender is moving away from its liberal values and more towards conservative views. He argues that “both women and men [were] defecting from the Democratic Party and liberal values…” (Wirls 317). In his data, Wirls supports his theory by noting that in 1980, women as well as men made a shift toward the republican vote, as compared to previous years. Furthermore, he stated “male voters made the [most] dramatic shift in voting behavior…from a slim majority for Carter and the Democrats in 1976 to a 61 percent majority for Regan in 1980” (322). Although Wirls supports a “dynamic” interpretation of the gender gap, it is clearly evident in his data that gender still plays a determining role in the party identification of an individual. Wirls data suggests that men still hold more of a preference for republican candidates, which explains the major shift in voting behavior. Thus, it can be said through his data that in this particular instance, women voted more democratically compared to men.  Similarly, findings from Kaufmann and Petrocik’s analysis on voting also support the idea that women vote more democratically compared to men. They found that “Democratic identification among men, by contrast, consistently declined after 1964 and has not been above 50 percent since 1980 “ (Kaufman). Their findings are consistent with the data that Daniel Wirls and Kathleen Frankovic found as well, thus illustrating a possible connection between gender and party identification.

Political Science literature on the Gender Gap and Race

Is the gender gap even more prominent when race is factored into the equation? The political science literature that takes into account race argues, for the most part, that voting disparities are larger in whites, compared to non-whites. Welch and Sigelman suggested that “black men and women appear to have more in common politically than white men and women do” (Welsh). In other words, the gender-gap between blacks is significantly smaller than that of white individuals. Welch and Sigeleman analyze the differences between the size of the gaps across Hispanics, Blacks, and Anglos; maintaining that across all three groups, women were still more liberal and democratic than men. They also noted that the gender gap was least pronounced among blacks, with “mean differences ranging only from 5.2 for vote choice to 6.8 for party identification” (Welsh). These findings correlate with the idea that women vote more democratically then men.

Theory and Hypothesis

The literature on the gender gap suggests that men and women do in fact have apparent differences when it comes to choosing a democratic or republican candidate.  Wirls notably made the astute observation that males were drifting away from democratic values faster than women, therefore leaving women as the majority who favored democratic candidates.  Similarly, Welch and Sigeleman noted the differences within each race, which still held constant the idea that women were more democratic: although men fluctuated in party preference when race was added as a measurement.  In accordance to the various sources that I have acquired and the data from the experiments, I propose that not only are women are more likely to vote for Democratic candidates, and less likely to vote for republican candidates, but—with only slight variation—this preference is relevant across population subgroups as well.  In essence, strengthening the idea that women possess more of a democratic viewpoint compared to men, regardless of race. 

This paper will attempt to measure the connection between gender, race and voting using the 2008 election data.  This present experiment will address the following hypotheses; if gender is related to voting behavior, then females are more likely to vote for a democratic candidate, as opposed to males; second, is there a relationship between race and voting behavior across the gender?

Methods

For this paper, I utilized the 2008 NES times series study. NES is a representative survey that was conducted in two waves: one before the 2008 election, which surveyed 2,322 individuals, and after the election, which surveyed 2,102 individuals (American).  Surveying was done face to face, and covered a variety of topics ranging from public opinion to electoral participation.  The variables I used to conduct my tests focused on gender, race, party identification, and provides an estimate of the population in regard to candidate preference.  The data collected however, can be questionable due to the fact that many individuals cannot be forced to tell the truth, but I digress.  The dependent variable in this paper is the voting behavior and the independent variables are race, and gender.  For my dependent variable, I am focusing on two levels, Democrat and republican. And for my independent variables, I will be focusing on five levels (Black, White, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American).  My other independent variable will consist of two levels, Male and Female.  Although there are more levels given in the output, I chose to focus in on those key ones in order to produce data that is consistent with my hypothesis.  The question that I used in order to measure my hypothesis was, “Q1a. Who does R think will/would vote for President”; which is taken directly from the NES data.  In addition, for my particular hypothesis, I utilized a chi-square as well as a factorial ANOVA respectively.  For my hypothesis measuring gender and voting behavior, I applied a chi-square test in order to see if women voted more democratically than men, since I was dealing with two nominal variables.  And for my other hypothesis relating gender, race, and voting, I employed a factorial ANOVA to observe the effect that race and gender had on voting behavior.

Results

Based upon the data, most individuals (both men and women) claimed that they would vote for candidate Barack Obama for he had a 58.8 percent frequency, which is significantly higher, compared to the other candidates.  However, when you further break down the data in terms of gender, the disparities between the male-female votes are evident.  Out of a total of 1081 females, 721 claimed they would vote for the democratic candidate Barack Obama.  Conversely, the males turned out only 515 individuals that would vote for the democratic candidate.  While both groups preferred Barack Obama to republican candidate John McCain, women in this aspect had a larger number of individuals willing to vote for the democratic candidate.  Based off of this data alone, one can begin to see that females are more likely to vote for a democratic candidate.  Similarly, the results of the chi-square test that was administered to see if there was a relationship between gender and voting behavior, demonstrate there is in fact a statistically significant relationship between gender and voting behavior (chi-square with three degrees of freedom = 7.708, p=.052).  Thus solidifying the hypothesis that females vote more democratically than males.

By utilizing a factorial ANOVA on race gender and voting behavior, I was able to see if race and gender truly had an effect on who an individual votes for.  As indicated in figure 3, because the significance value for race (.000) is less than the threshold value (.05), it can be concluded that race affects who an individual votes for.  Conversely, the value for female is (.362), which is larger than the threshold (.05), therefore the factor of female does not affect who an individual votes for.  Similarly, the interaction between the two factors, race and females (.107), is more than the threshold (.05). Essentially, this signifies that the interaction between race and female do not have an effect on who an individual votes fore.  Therefore, leading to the conclusion that race is the only factor that affects who an individual votes for.

Conclusion

The political science literature on the gender gap in voting presented a variety of opinions regarding the idea of gender affecting an individuals voting behavior.  Kathleen Frankovic supported the idea that there were differences in voting between men and women, but advocated that other factors were at play as well.  On the other hand, Daniel Wirls indicated that the disparities between voting behaviors were the sole purpose of men.  Wirls also made an important observation in regards to voting behavior.  He noted that men were moving towards Republican Party at a faster rate than women, thus allowing women to take the reigns as the main supports of the Democratic Party.  Both Frankovic and Wirls notably came to the conclusion that there is in fact a disparity between male-female voting behaviors.  The hypothesis of this paper, which takes into account gender as the main reasoning for women choosing to vote for a democratic candidate is in fact, supported though the data.  The chi-square test that was preformed resulted in significance at the .05 level between gender and intention to vote.  Although one can never fully be sure whether the individual is truthful in responding to the survey, the NES times series study does provide data that is useful.

The hypothesis on race and gender affecting voting behavior turned out only one variable that proved to have an affect.  Utilizing a factorial ANOVA, the affect race has on who an individual votes for is significant at the .05 level.  Gender, and the interaction between race and gender proved to not have any affect on who individual votes on: for they did not present any significance at the .05 level.  This finding thus illustrates that there are other underlying factors that go into the processes of choosing a candidate to vote for.  This experimentation is not detailed, and if one were to delve further into the underlying factors that affect voting behavior, aside from gender and race, one would be able to understand (to a point) what truly influences an individual.  Untimely, this experiment is limited to the categories of gender and race; and with those variables, demonstrate that women do tend to vote more democratically than males, and that race affects who an individual votes for.

Figure 1.

Figure 2.

Figure 3.

Figure 4.

Works Cited

Frankovic, Kathleen. “Sex and Politics, New Alignments and Old Issues.” PS 15.3 (1982): 439-47. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

Kaufmann, Karen M., and John R. Petrocik. “The Changing Politics of American Men: Understanding the Sources of the Gender Gap.” CSA. EBSCO. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. .

Lien, P.-T. “Does the Gender Gap in Political Attitudes and Behavior Vary Across Racial Groups?” Political Research Quarterly 51.4 (1998): 869-94. Print.

 Manza, Jeff, and Clem Brooks. “The Gender Gap in U.S. Presidential Elections: When? Why? Implications?” American Journal of Sociology 103.5 (1998): 1235-266. Print.

Paget, Karen. “The Gender Gap Mystique.” The American Prospect. 19 Dec. 2001. Web. 1 Dec. 2011. .

Studlar, Donley T., Ian McAllister, and Bernadette C. Hayes. “Explaining the Gender Gap in Voting: A Cross-National Anaylsis.” JSTOR. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

The American National Election Studies (ANES; www.electionstudies.org). The ANES 2008 Time Series Study. Stanford University and the University of Michigan.

Welsh, Susan, and Lee Sigelman. “Gender Gap Among Hispanics? A Comparison with Blacks and Anglos.” The Western Political Quarterly 45. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.

Wirls, Daniel. “Reinterpreting the Gender Gap.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 50.3 (1986): 316-           

            30. JSTOR. Web. 1 Dec. 2011.