This article was published in Spanish in Foreign Policy en Español. Keep in mind that this was written for Spanish readers who need more context about the American political system than American readers would.
Outside the US, the 1992 election might be best remembered for Bill Clinton's victory, but it's an election year also remembered as the “Year of the Woman”. Many women were galvanized by Anita Hill's testimony about Clarence Thomas in front of an all-male Senate Judiciary committee. The results were an additional four women in the Senate, bringing the total to an unprecedented six. My home state of California became the first to be represented in the Senate by two women—Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein—as a young feminist and recent UCLA political science graduate, I was ecstatic.
20 years later, despite Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi's achievements, we are still far from achieving gender parity in the Senate (with a total of 17 women out of 100 members) and House of Representatives (76 of 450 members). In fact, the Inter-Parliamentary Union has ranked the United States 79th in the world this year for women’s representation in the national legislature. Sadly, 2012 is not shaping up as a year in which we will significantly change these dismal numbers. It will be the women casting their votes rather than the ones running for office who might significantly affect the outcome of the election.
The so-called “gender gap”—the difference between the percentage of women and percentage of men voting for a given candidate—has been evident in every presidential election since 1980 with women preferring Democrats by a margin of 4 to 11 points. This is supported by a strong gender gap in party identification: a Pew Research Center Poll shows that 52% of Women identify with the Democratic party while 43% of men do. Perhaps more important is that women turn out to vote in greater numbers: 10 million more women voted than men in 2008. Obama holds an electoral map advantage at this point and is focusing his time and campaign's resources on the all-important swing states. But the female vote slices across all state, race and special interest targets and in order to win, he needs to energize and turn out this vote in large numbers. On the other hand, Romney just needs to move these numbers a bit further in his direction.
Understanding this electoral math and that anger is a great motivator to action, it has been surreal to watch Republicans sabotage their image with women by rolling back the clock to the 1960s through a series of events that brought the uncontroversial issue of contraception into the limelight. In January, Republican candidate, Rick Santorum said states should have the right to outlaw the sale of contraception. Shortly after, Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation announced that it would stop funding Planned Parenthood (the nation's largest provider of reproductive health services) in a move that provoked general outrage. The foundation had to reverse its stance and their president had to step down.
This outrage, however, didn't deter the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops from picking a fight over President Obama’s contraception policy within the Affordable Healthcare Act, which required all employers, including church-run schools and hospitals to include free contraception in their healthcare plans. Soon after, American women experienced a flashback to 1992 when House Republicans invited a panel of five religious leaders and professors—all of whom were male—to testify about religion and contraception. House Democrats pressed Republicans to include Georgetown University Law student Sandra Fluke on the panel, but they rejected her because she was "not found to be appropriate or qualified" to testify about religious liberty. Democrats and women's activists alike called the Republican's actions a “war on women”.
And a subsequent and inevitable war in the media broke out: the ultra-conservative and famously sexist radio host Rush Limbaugh called Sandra Fluke a slut. These comments provoked more outrage and President Obama very publicly called Fluke to offer his support. Shortly after, a prominent supporter of then candidate Rick Santorum wistfully remembered when simple aspirin was used for contraception “the gals put it between their knees” to avoid pregnancy.
Romney bore the brunt of the punishment for these Republican deeds in the polls: Pew Research gave Obama a whopping 20 point lead among women at the height of the “war” back in March. It was perhaps unfair for a man who once supported abortion rights in deference to his mother, a woman who had ran for Michigan State Governor. But he never spoke out against any of this because while his Republican colleagues waged this war, he was in the middle of the primary and not in a position to risk angering the conservative base.
For his part, Obama took full advantage of this opportunity to showcase one of his legislative priorities, Paycheck Fairness Act, which aims to bring about equal pay for women. American women currently earn 77 cents for every dollar a man earns, but Senate Republicans once again showed their disregard for women, and for Romney's campaign prospects, by blocking this bill from a vote in early June.
Although the gender gap between Obama and Romney has narrowed to 13 points in the most recent Pew Research survey, Limbaugh is back at it, complaining that “when women got the right to vote is when it all went downhill.” Romney hasn't discarded choosing a female VP candidate and names floating around include Condoleeza Rice and Kelly Ayotte. Both are well-respected Republicans who don't come with the same risks Sarah Palin did, however, it would still look like pandering, just as choosing Marco Rubio to attract the Latino vote would and would be in no way a guarantee of more female votes.
The mobilization of base voters may prove, in the end, to be more important than the persuasion of undecideds in this cycle. And if Romney's Republican colleagues and pundits keep up the repulsive rhetoric and action against issues women care about, they might just find themselves on the receiving end of some female rage.