Study: Percent "Angry" Over a Female President of the United States

[BurtWorm]

I'm an Obama supporter, but I am 100% furious about the idea that anyone would be angry over the mere idea of a female president of the US.

Venting: ====> What the fuck kind of backwater is this shithole of a country anyway? :grr:



http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2008_04/013495.php

[leftofcool]

1. I bet this was a repuke poll

[ecstatic]

55. yeah. something is definitely fishy about this sample nt

[galaxy21]

2. 1/3 of men!

What the fuck? Why because she's not ironing or doing the laundry?

[Abacus]

7. Looks like 1/4, and surprisingly, women tie them.

I was also surprised that the younger generations seem to be angrier.

[Political Heretic]

25. erm.. same number for women.

:shrug:

[Bicoastal]

3. Thank god racial/ethnic background isn't figured into this...

GD-P would explode. Nothing would remain but a crater....

[galaxy21]

6. why is a woman going to be angry?

[Bicoastal]

8. I didn't say "gender."

:shrug:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

4. That's disgusting.

The percentages are pretty shocking too. Why so many angry females?

[PA Democrat]

11. Members of the "Concerned Women for America"? They certainly seem to hate their own gender.

They don't even trust a woman to act as their spokesperson and use a guy. I don't understand people at all.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

22. Oh right. Those guys.

Patricia Heaton et al.

[Patchuli]

40. Love the bumper sticker! nt

[Starbucks Anarchist]

5. That's... fucking disgusting.

[FlyingSquirrel]

9. I would be willing to bet....

that the reason is because they know exactly who the particular woman is. They're not just thinking abstractly, they probably don't have that kind of higher thinking ability.

[napi21]

I don't think so. Mayber some might feel that way, but the majority, by far,

of the people who are dead set against a woman Prez. still strongly believe in "a woman's place is in the home", "women are too emotional", and the all time favorite..."A woman just doesn't BELONG THERE!"

[Arkansas Granny]

28. Here's another possible explanation mentioned in a comment at the link.

"The number seems to be remarkably close to the percentage of wise and loyal American patriots who support our President (Praise Be Upon Him) at this critical juncture in our nation's history."

Posted by: gregor on April 9, 2008 at 2:01 PM | PERMALINK

Hmmm. There could be a correlation here.

[FlyingSquirrel]

29. OMG

I know there are stupid people in the world but......

[napi21]

10. That doesn't surprise me one bit! The only thing that I find a bit

different from my own observations is that there isn't more of a diff. between the north & south %. I've met a LOT more people in the South who are 100%+ against a woman EVER being POTUS!

[galaxy21]

12. I feel a bit sorrier for Hillary now

She was at a disadvatage from the beginning.

[Auntie Bush]

16. Yup! Those Southern men would be 100% for woman to be

barefoot, pregnant, ironing shirts and cooking...after they finish licking boots.

[Hugabear]

13. I honestly would LOVE to have a female president

Just not Hillary.

[melody]

20. Same here n/t

[WinkyDink]

14. I think the answer is contained within your question.

[galaxy21]

15. I thought a lot of Hillary's voters where women though

[Texas Hill Country]

33. only 75% of them apparently

[dchill]

17. Why is it that I now want to see polls...

replacing the word "female" with "male" or "black." I think some people are just angry about whatever comes down the pike. Why would they be ANGRY?

[Texas Hill Country]

34. they did a poll about Black... overwhelming majority said it would be ok.

[lastliberalintexas]

18. I would actually imagine the stats would be similar if

the question had been asked based on race rather than gender. We're still a very backward country for the most part, unfortunately. :shrug:


And for those surprised about the women hating women, I would just point out that one can find prejudice among the strangest groups of people. A black female Obama supporter was quoted in our local paper as saying that she couldn't support a female for president because that went against the biblical leadership role for women. I wondered if that lady had ever heard that Southerners used to argue that the bible supported the slavery role for African Americans, but I've never run into her to ask that. It's amazing that one group of oppressed people can sometimes find it just as easy to discriminate against another group, just for different reasons.

[melody]

19. When Geraldine Ferraro was VP candidate, I had an interesting exchange with an angry person

It was an older woman -- the mother of a friend of mine -- and she was absolutely livid about it. Her son chimed in his agreement. When I asked why they both said "because we shouldn't vote for someone because of their gender." To this I replied, "so you'll vote for the male candidate instead." They said, "Yes!"

I think that's the level of mentality we're dealing with.

Women must be kept submissive for sexual purposes in the minds of some.

[hfojvt]

27. supposedly the male candidate was the "best" choice.

Did Mondale pick the most qualified Veep or did he restrict his choice to women in the hope of getting more women voters?

[melody]

30. They just didn't see that voting for the male candidate was voting for the gender

I think Mondale made an educated and courageous choice. Unfortunately, I don't think we were ready then. I think we're more ready now, but women will always be at a greater disadvantage than men, no matter the race.

That said, I'm still supporting Obama.

[hfojvt]

21. puzzling to me that the $25,000 - $50,000 income level would be so low

It does not fit with the rest of the survey. Why? Also, how do they define angry or upset? What are the other 4 items that most people find more than half of them to be upsetting?

[NashVegas]

43. Could Be They Are Less Angry In General, or More Likely to Be Women

I've seen studies claiming that people making around $40k are happiest, overall.

[hfojvt]

48. it seems to be the opposite

they started out at 2.43, a higher anger score than any other group. Then adding a woman President only moved them to 2.49. Are they going by personal income or household income?

[Window]

23. They must be women stuck in a rut and are envious or something.

That is very strange.

[Terran]

24. 26% of women are angry

that a woman might be president? Yeah, right.

[Political Heretic]

26. Friggen crazy.

[Texas Hill Country]

31. sexism doesnt exist and racism is the biggest issue of our time.

lol


:sarcasm:

[Raffi Ella]

51. right !?

:eyes:

[MethuenProgressive]

32. They must've only polled DU's Obama followers.

NBormal people don't think like that.

[4_Legs_Good]

35. Anger? Anger???

WTF!

Anger? That's the nuttyest thing I've ever heard.

Anger over having a female president. I can believe (though strongly disagree) that some people are dubious, some people are skeptical, some people don't think we're ready, but anger?

Nutty!

David

[Writer]

36. The funny thing is that this is not a sample poll conducted by a research firm...

this is a fully controlled regression analysis that also controlled for people of certain "moral" "individualistic" or "traditional" traits.

So, there it is, folks. Plain as day.

On edit: I misread the analysis. It's not a regression analysis but a fully controlled scientific experiment with human test subjects. My bad.

[adoraz]

37. THATS SEXIS- oh wait!

Women tie men in this regard??

LOL! wtf?

I saw a survey which showed most females prefer a male boss over a female boss. Maybe this is similar.

[Arugula Latte]

38. God, I'm so ashamed of my generation (30 -50)

More than a third are backwards assholes.

[Writer]

42. Too many f'ing lipstick feminists and fundamentalist Christians...

too many of us, because we were latchkey kids, decided to devolve back to dominant male households in order to reestablish the type of parenting environment we missed as children.

On edit to include: Or decided to adopt "Sex and the City" as our new feminist model. :puke:

At least that's my .02 on it.

[Arugula Latte]

44. Also, the 40-somethings came of age during Reagan.

Those were the preppy years, at least at my high school. x(

[JerseygirlCT]

59. 40-something here, and believe me, I don't agree with these

idiots!

I've long been frustrated at the lack of female representation in our government. A woman would president would thrill me. Unfortunately, I'm not of the belief that this particular woman would be a good choice. Wish she were someone I could be more enthusiastic about, but she's not.

[Arugula Latte]

60. I agree. I really don't want Hillary, either. I'm totally for Obama.

As the campaign has gone on, she has made me more and more angry, too (e.g. the "two of us love our country" remark, etc.)

However, I would love a woman president someday, and people who are "angry" at that prospect are idiots.

[JerseygirlCT]

65. Yes, exactly

I defended her for years, and challenged people who seemed to have this irrational dislike of her - nothing they could define at all.

But her behavior during this campaign, and the behavior she at the least tolerates (if not encourages) from her staff and spouse -- such a huge turnoff. The simple truth is I don't like her, I don't trust her.

And I so wish our first really serious female candidate were someone else.

All other things being equal, I'd vote for a women in a heartbeat, because it so needs to happen. Unfortunately, all things just aren't equal.

Obama offers much greater hope to me, and a much better and different attitude. I'm ready to move forward.

[NashVegas]

45. Did You See the Speculation There?

Why would 35-50s be the most upset? Well, that's the generation of people that were kids when married women (their mothers) started moving into the workforce in large numbers. For the generation before that, the working mother was an anomaly. For the generation after, it was given.

I think that's a piece of psychic baggage that people of that generation (my own) unfairly project onto women like Hillary. Behind all the Hillary hatred there are some resentful latchkey kids.

Not just working women, but divorce and in the full-time custody of a working mother at a time when the popular wisdom was "kids bounce back," and little was done to protect childrens' long-term emotional well-being in divorce.

[Writer]

47. Word.

I think there is a bit of resentment in the Gen X group (my group) because of this. However, I think the parents of the Gen Y generation way over-compensated for this.

I think indeed there is a lot of projection of the unsexy, career-minded "mother" in this. Paging Dr. Freud!

[NashVegas]

56. This Is a Conversation for Another Thread, Sometime

In a different forum.


That said, Hillary is "unsexy" by today's terms. I've just never seen an era where having a "fuckable" appearance at all times was so important.

[juno jones]

39. It's cultural

If we can keep the heat on, it will pass in a generation or so due to attrition.

If you posed this question a generation or so ago, I bet those numbers would have been higher than that.

Actually, I'm surprised that we've come this far. With either democratic candidate.

[cbayer]

41. Always great to see a real study (not a poll) back up a hypothesis.

Sadly, the results don't surprise me at all.

The study was published in March, 2006, and is probably not a reflection of anyone's personal feelings about Hillary Clinton.

Thanks for posting this.

[DarienComp]

46. It's clear that 1/4 of our citizenry are

utter morons who would get angry over the sun rising and setting if Pat Robertson told them to.

[kdpeters]

49. Yeah. We've known for a long time that about 23% of Americans are incurably

nutso. Looks about the same percentage of folks still loving Bush. No surprise. They've probably seen UFO's too.

[nichomachus]

50. Pretty hokey methodology

They never asked people directly whether a woman president would make them angry. They asked them a bunch of questions about different things, asked them how many of those things made them angry, and then calculated from the results that the people must be talking about a female president.

Also, respondents were only given angry or not-angry as choices -- not things like, "concerned" "doubtful" or anything else.

I think this study is important -- as long as you have a bird cage that needs lining -- or you need to have a study paper to keep your faculty adviser happy.

[stillcool]

52. can't imagine..

but then again I can't imagine the sentiment expressed by a lot of polls, and people. Seems like some really like to highlight the ignorance of some in our society, and the differences by race, sex, religion, etc.,

[Umbram]

53. I have a hard time believing men and women are equally "angry" at the prospect? (nt)

[Bensthename]

54. Is there one on anger over a black president? Obama supporter asking..

Whitey male here living in the middle of conservative redneck central. I hate to say it but there is alot of racism around here. So I wonder if there is a similar poll on blacks.

[JerseygirlCT]

57. Look at the 30-50 age group!

Holy cow. How sick is all that?

Burtworm, I completely agree with your analysis. This is just f/u.

[femrap]

58. I want to secede

from the shithole, thank you very much.

[Orsino]

61. Nice post, Elton.

Seriously.

[beandoc]

62. Hillary's possible presidential bid may have affected results

Follow the links to the study. The authors themselves discuss this. The study was done in March of 2006. Clinton had not formally announced her candidacy, but at the time was alreadly leading polls regarding the 2008 election (noted in the study).
Therefore when people were asked about a woman being president, they may have concluded that most likely meant Hillary Clinton, even though the study did not specifically name her. Whether or not it is fair, there is a percentage of the population that has maitained a negative view of her, especially among republicans. BTW, The study also did not identify political affiliation, so many of these men and women could have been republicans.
It's a possible confounder that may account for higher than expected numbers, especially among women... or there are a lot of stupid people out there (likely both true to some extent).
It would have been interesting to see the results of this study if there were more than one specific likley female presidential candidate. But for that to happen, the social landscape would have to have already changed. The truth is elusive and context matters.

[PA Democrat]

64. I just showed two recent poll which seem to prove your point.

See my post below. Welcome to DU.

[PA Democrat]

63. There have been other recent polls asking people if they would vote for a woman

if she were their party's nominee. A Newsweek poll found that 86% said yes. There was no difference between male and female response.

Link to poll:

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/12-17-2006/0004492582&EDATE=

Am I the only one who finds the frame of the poll question puzzling? I am curious as to why the pollster decided to ask about anger rather than whether people would vote for a candidate. Is the "anger" expressed due to people assuming that the woman would be Hillary Clinton?

Rasmussen did a similar poll asking if people would vote for a woman for president, but the poll did not specify is she were your party's candidate. 74% of those polled said yes. The results were very different for Democrats vs. Republicans, and the Republican response pulled down the overall yes response percentage. This explanation from Rasmussen:


One-third (34%) of Republicans say they would not be willing to vote for a woman for President. This may be partially due to the particular woman who is running for the Democratic nomination. Only 7% of Democrats say they would not vote for a woman.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/election_20082/2008_presidential_election/54_say_their_peers_would_vote_for_a_woman_for_president