Today I read what feels like my twelfth think-piece written by a white woman about how white women vote. I’m not linking them, because they are tiresome. You’ve probably read them, too. They all say, at greater or lesser length, that white women vote against their own interests because they like white supremacy more than they like womanhood.
Setting aside momentarily the fact that white feminists co-opted this entire argument from black women, which I’ll get to, can we please consider the implications of this whole discourse?
Before I begin, two points. First: I’d like to ask why we are discussing at such mind-numbing length how white women vote, when I haven’t seen a single piece about how white men vote. Is it that we think we have an “in” with women? That they aren’t so hopeless? Why are we more frustrated with our sisters than our husbands, for the same behavior?
Secondly: I’m skirting a “not all white women” line here, which, somewhat contrarily, is the opposite of my intent. Stay with me.
Now, let’s talk through some numbers.
Nationally speaking, using the exit polls from the 2018 midterms, women as a whole strongly prefer Democrats (59/40), while men as a whole slightly prefer Republicans (47/51). White women are either evenly split or very slightly left; the Pew poll has them at 49/49, but I’ve also seen 50/49. White men are heavily conservative, at 39/60. If this would make more sense to you in a chart, you can see it here.
White women are much more likely to be liberal than white men, while black women are overwhelmingly more likely to vote for the Democratic candidate (in the 90% range). This is what tips the “all women” vote that extra ten points left.
There are some great details in this long piece here, which I will summarize with the following generalities:
-College educated white women are majority Democratic
-Millennial white women are majority Democratic
-Non-religious white women are majority Democratic
-Urban women are majority Democratic
Statistically, then, everyone reading an article written by a white woman about how white women are terrible voters (and thus white supremacists) is probably a white woman who is not a terrible voter. Which makes them not think pieces at all, but a weird kind of defensive take down of those “other” women. The “not all white women” isn’t usually stated–some of these articles even work against it–but it remains right there for the taking. “Well, I didn’t vote for patriarchal white supremacy, so I’m not who this article is about.” That’s where it matters that this idea re-entered popular consciousness from black women, who mean all white women, without the implicit “except me and you, dear reader.”
“Except us” is obscuring that most fundamental problem–white women are all complicit in white supremacy, no matter how we vote. It glosses over the work that we all need to do. It turns voting “correctly” into a pass, no matter how you frame the argument. You can’t write an article about how women who vote a certain way are white supremacists and not, in some way or another, put your readers, who voted the opposite way, on a pedestal, even if that pedestal is the lowly “we aren’t as bad; at least we voted right.” This is a disservice to white liberal women, who need to take anti-racist work much more seriously at the daily level, not just in the voting booth.
It also does a disservice to white conservative women by stripping them of their legitimate concerns. Once liberal white women argue that conservative women, and only conservative women, are voting for white supremacy, they lose every chance of actually broadening the percentage of white liberal voters. Instead, consider that rural/older/more religious white women might have (however misguided they seem to you) valid priorities. From the assumption of valid priorities, you can build sensitive and inclusive platforms and legislation, or at least have sensitive and inclusive conversations about things like race. From “conservative women are white supremacists” you can’t build anything except hate, which entrenches and justifies the entire divide you are pretending to explain.
Jessica Thinks 