ジェンダー研究

Special Section

第 21 号2018 年

Gender and Political LeadershipToo Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the2016 US Presidential Election
Melissa Deckman
Washington College
This article examines how attitudes about masculinity factored into voters’
choices in the 2016 US presidential election. It also examines how other factors
influenced voters’ choices, especially the choices of women voters. While themedia portrays women as a unified and homogenous group in terms of theirvoting behavior, this analysis shows that women voters constitute a rather
diverse group. Their voting choices vary greatly, and are influenced by factors
such as partisanship, race, education, and their views about masculinity. The
impact of these factors is more pronounced among male voters. However,statistical analysis shows that women who believe that society has become too
soft and feminine were more than three times as likely as women who do nothold such views to have voted for Donald Trump. Despite Trump’s overtly
sexist campaign, a strong cohort of conservative white women cast their ballots
for him. Whether conservative women voters will back Democratic candidates
in the near future as a result of the #Me Too movement remains to be seen;
however, based on this analysis of the 2016 election, this seems unlikely.
Keywords
gender gap, 2016 presidential election, voting behavior, conservative women, masculinity

The 2016 presidential election in the
United States was historic on several fronts.
Hillary Clinton, the former First Lady, UnitedStates Senator, and United States Secretary ofState, was the first woman to be nominatedfor the American presidency by a major
political party. The Democratic Party
officially nominated her at its convention in
August 2016. The Republican side, on the
other
hand,
nominated
Americanbusinessman and television personality,

Donald J. Trump, a political novice who ran
a campaign touting his outsider status.
Trump’s campaign was also arguably one of
the most negative and sexist campaigns in
American political history; he chastised
female reporters, as well as his two female
rivals in overtly sexist terms. In particular, hemocked the appearance of his only woman
primary opponent, Carly Fiorina. He also
lambasted Hillary Clinton by runningtelevision advertisements that questioned

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Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

whether she had the “fortitude, strength, andstamina” to run the country. The early
September 2016 release of the Access
Hollywood audiotape, a 2005 recording of
Trump bragging about his sexual conquests
and the impunity with which he could afford
to sexually assault women (Transcript 2016),
combined with more than a dozen allegations
from women who stated that Trump had
made unwanted sexual advances toward
them in the past (Pearson, Gray, and Vagianos
2017), led many pundits to predict that
Clinton would emerge victorious in the 2016
presidential contest (Deckman 2016a).
Pundits claimed that women voters werelikely to favor her candidacy en masse given
the accusations levied against Trump.
Notably, Trump denied all these accusations.
To be sure, Clinton’s prospects were notparticularly strong. Certain political scientists
and commentators suggested that thepresidential race would be very a closelyfought affair, especially since the Democrats
had held the presidency for the last eight
years. Moreover, only once in the past six
decades had a party successfully maintained
the White House after an incumbent
president was reelected—in 1988, when
George H.W. Bush replaced Ronald Reagan.
Additionally, while the U.S. economy had
certainly improved since the Great Recession,
which began in 2009, many voters felt andclaimed otherwise. This was because there
was no significant increase in their wages inmore than a decade. Typically, the party inpower in the White House tends to lose its
position whenever economic conditions
become uncertain.

10

While Hillary Clinton did win the popular
vote by more than 3 million votes, Donald
Trump secured a majority of Electoral
College votes in November 2016. He was
successful in 30 states, including narrowwins in Michigan, Wisconsin, andPennsylvania—three states that also voted
for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012 (Meko,
Lu and Gamio 2016). Overall, Hillary
Clinton did secure more votes from womenvoters, and this fact mirrors a longstanding
American political phenomenon known as
the “gender gap,” in which women are more
likely to vote for Democratic presidential
candidates than men. However, a majority ofwhite women voters backed Donald Trump.
Why did so many white women vote for
Trump? And how did Trump’s overtly
masculine campaign influence America’s
voting calculus in general?
This article seeks to address thesequestions by analyzing voting behavior in the2016 American presidential election; it
especially focuses on women’s voting
behavior in this election. The article is basedon a careful review of the literature pertaining
to the phenomenon of the gender gap in
American politics. In addition, it also uses
data published by the Public Religion
Research Institute (PRRI); this data breaks
down the presidential vote by gender, and it
also considers other factors, such as party,
race, education, and marital status. Next, thearticle seeks to identify the underlying factorsthat may have influenced women’s choice inthe election. To this end, this analysis focuses
on women voters’ attitudes about social,economic, and national security concerns.

ジェンダー研究

Additionally, the article also considers voters’
perceptions of masculinity and the likely
influence of these perceptions on theoutcome of the 2016 American presidential
election. Last, the article examines thepolitical developments that took place during
the first year of Trump’s troubled presidency;
in particular, the article focuses on the#MeToo movement, which has put a brighter
spotlight on sexual harassment. In the wakeof a controversial Senate campaign to fill theseat of one of President Trump’s cabinet
officials, the United States has once again
been captivated by talk of women’s rights inthe electoral context. Therefore, it is also
relevant to consider whether issues such as
sexual harassment and “toxic masculinity”
will continue to shape the phenomenon ofgender gap in future American elections.

The Gender Gap and Voting Behavior
in American Politics
Scholars have long considered the factorsthat influence the voting decisions ofAmerican men and women in American
politics, especially since the election of
Ronald Reagan in 1980, when a gender gap
first emerged, showing that women, overall,
were more likely to vote for Democraticpresidential candidates and to identify as
Democrats than men (Ondercin 2017).
Although the size of the gender gap hasvaried, it has become such a predictablefeature of American politics that Democraticpresidential candidates routinely strategize to

第 21 号2018 年

widen this gap and, Republican candidates
aim to minimize it. Figure 1 shows the gender
gap as defined by the percentage of women
who voted for the Democratic presidential
candidate compared with the percentage ofmen who voted for the Democraticpresidential candidate since 1992. Thisillustration was compiled using data
published by the Center for American
Women and Politics at Rutgers University(CAWP 2016).1
As Figure 1 demonstrates, the gender gap
in the Democratic votes for Hillary Clinton
was 13 percent in 2016: 54 percent of womenvoted for Clinton, whereas only 41 percent ofmen voted for her. Likewise, (and this is notreported in Figure 1), 52 percent of men and41 percent of women voted for Donald
Trump, which indicates a gender gap of 11
percent. If the gender gap is considered to be
the difference in the percentage of womenand the percentage of men voting for thewinning candidate, then this 11 percent
difference is the joint all-time high gender
gap measured in an American presidential
election: the 1996 election, which was won
by Bill Clinton, also displayed the samegender gap (CAWP 2016).
Why is the gender gap a constant featureof American electoral politics and voting
behavior? Scholars have typically relied on
three major theories to explain thisphenomenon, as well as its persistence. These
theories tend to focus on aspects such as
biological differences between men andwomen, culturally defined gender roles, and

1 The Center for American Women and Politics uses exit poll data from Edison Media Research,
Voter News Services, and the CBS News/ New York Times.

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Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Figure 1. General Election Gender Gap: Democratic Party Candidate.
Men ( D )60%

Percentage of Voters

50%

Women ( D )
55%

54%

49%
45%

56%

55%

51%

54%

45%

44%

49%
40%
30%

36%

37%

1980

1984

41%

41%

1988

1992

44%

43%

44%

1996

2000

2004

45%
41%

20%
10%
0%
2008

2012
2016
General Election Year

Source: Center for American Women and Politics, Rutgers University.

economic concerns. Some argue that men are
more aggressive than women mainly due tobiological factors; conversely, they argue thatwomen are more nurturing than men(Ruddick 1989). As a result, women’s more
pacifist attitudes toward the use of militaryforce has led them to be more likely to vote
Democratic than men. Others argue that men
and women are socialized from an early age
to learn specific gender roles. Typically,
women are taught and expected to be
nurturing, whereas men are expected toconcern themselves with questions such as
justice or fairness (Gilligan 1982). Somesuggest that women’s capacity to mothertends to make them more concerned aboutsocial welfare policies aimed at protecting
children and families. This capacity is also
associatedwithwomen’spacifist
dispositions; it is argued that women do notprefer military engagement, whereas men
tend to do so to a significant extent (Elshtain
1981; Sapiro 1983; Elder and Greene 2012).

12

Other gender gap scholars argue that womentend to be less economically secure than men.
As a result, women are believed to be more
supportive of policies that encourage a largerrole for government in society and policies
that protect and expand social welfare
policies (Howell and Day 2000; Carroll
2006; Schlesinger and Heldman, 2001).
Given that the Democratic and Republicanparties represent distinct, and often opposing,
political views, women may be more likely tovote for Democratic presidential candidates,
whereas men may be more likely to vote for
Republican presidential candidates (Carroll,
2006; Chaney, Alvarez, and Nagler, 1998).
Moreover, male and female voters tend toprioritize different political issues (Chaney,
Alvarez, and Nagler, 1998; Kaufmann andPetrocik, 1999). For example, when voting,
women tend to focus more on the state of thenational economy, whereas men tend to focus
more on their personal financial situation(Welch and Hibbing 1992; Chaney, Alveraz,

ジェンダー研究and Nagler 1998). This observation lends
further credence to the cultural arguments forthe gender gap: women tend to place greater
emphasis on the needs of the group (in thiscase, the nation), whereas men tend to focus
more on their own economic concerns.
However, the state of the economy,
whether the nation is at war, the personalqualities of presidential candidates, and theeffectiveness of presidential campaigns canmitigate the size of the gender gap.
Moreover, most studies of voting behavior
show that the explanatory power of gender as
a variable often ceases to be statisticallysignificant when additional controls are
considered. Political scientists increasingly
find that partisanship explains much more
about voting behavior than attitudes towardspecific policies (Achen and Bartels 2016). It
is argued that the “tribal” nature of American
politics is exacerbated by an ideologicalmedia environment, which tends to divide
Americans by reinforcing partisanship (Darrand Dunaway 2017). This means that the
impact of partisanship is greater than theimpact of gender on voting decisions (Hayes
2011; Miller 2016).
Nonetheless, literature on the gender gap
focuses rather exclusively on the factors thatmake women more Democratic and liberalthan men (Barnes and Cassese 2017). In otherwords, it often fails to consider why or how asignificant number of American women are
Republicans (Deckman 2016b). It is also
worth noting that the gender gap in electoralpolitics is mitigated by race, religion, andmarital status. Interestingly, married people
are more likely to vote for Republican

第 21 号2018 年

candidates than unmarried people (Kingston
and Finkler 1987; Plutzer and McBurnett
1991). Kaufmann (2004) notes that religious
men and women (i.e. those who attend
church frequently and regard religion as an
essential aspect of their lives) tend to be morepolitically conservative and are also more
likely to be Republicans than men andwomen who are less religious or secular.
Compared to minority women, white womenare more likely to identify as Republicans andvote for Republican candidates (Deckman
2016b; Cassesse and Barnes 2017). Junn
(2017) argues that the gender gap is largely aproduct of “the steady growth of minority
voters in the U.S. electorate over the last six
decades that drives higher overall
proportions of female support for Democratic
Party candidates.”
These findings show that women voters in
the US have different political preferences
and support diverse causes. Yet, shouldn’t
Trump’s overtly sexist presidential campaign
and his well-documented misogyny, as wellas the historical significance of Hillary’s
candidacy—she was the first woman tomount a serious challenge in the politicalquest for presidency—have persuaded more
women to vote for her? Interestingly, moststudies find that women voters do notnecessarily vote for women candidates
merely because they are women (McElroy
and Marsh 2010; Dolan 2014; Fulton 2014).
In fact, as stated above, partisanship is more
influential in this context. In addition, genderconsciousness—the notion that women have
similar views and outlooks based on theirshared experiences—has never united

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Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

women voters in the same way racialconsciousness has united voters of color(Burns and Kinder 2012; Tesler 2016). Whilefeminist consciousness is strongly correlatedwith liberal values and policy preferences,
this correlation works similarly for womenand men (Cook and Wilcox 1991). Moreover,some studies find that feminist attitudes areinconsistent in predicting the voting choicesof men and women in presidential elections(Kaufmann and Petrocik, 1999).
While several studies have focused on theimpact of gender consciousness andfeminism on voting behavior in Americanpresidential elections, few have focused on
the role of voters’ attitudes about masculinity.
This article, therefore, aims to examine
whether attitudes about masculinity
influenced voters’ choices in the 2016
presidential campaign. First, however, thisarticle focuses on how party, race, education,and marital status shaped women’s voting
choices. It also focuses on the diverse rangeof political issues women were concerned
with, especially the concerns of women
directly affiliated with a party. The article
connects these concerns with the larger
themes and concerns discussed by the twopresidential candidates. Finally, the article
aims to predict the extent of gender gap in theaftermath of Donald Trump’s first year ofpresidency.

Women Voters in 2016
A large portion of the data represented inthis article has been sourced from several
randomly
selectednational
surveysconducted by PRRI, a non-partisan, nonprofit research organization. However, first it
examines the 2016 exit poll data compiled by
CNN, the news organization, to break down
women’s votes into specific categories. As
Figure 2 shows, women’s votes in the 2016
presidential election were not entirely
uniform. Overall, 54 percent of women casttheir ballots for Hillary Clinton, whereas only
41 percent of women voted for Trump.
Hillary fared much better among minority
women and single women. An overwhelming
majority of African-American women—94
percent—voted for Hillary Clinton, and so
did 69 percent of Latinas. White women,
however, were more inclined to vote for
Donald Trump—52 percent—and only 43
percent of white women voted for Hillary
Clinton.2
As in previous elections, single womendisplayed a strong preference for the
Democratic nominee. The preference ofmarried women voters, however, tended to be
somewhat split between the two candidates.
In addition, the number of college-educatedwomen who voted for Clinton was slightly
higher than the number of college-educatedwomen who voted for Trump. Working-classwomen—defined as those without a college
degree—displayed a strong preference for
Donald Trump. Erin Cassese and Tiffany

2 There were several hi-profile third party candidates that drew a small percentage of voters, such as
Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, which is why the percentages do
not add up to 100 percent.

14

ジェンダー研究第 21 号2018 年

Figure 2. Women’s Vote by Race, Class, Marital Status.
Vote for Trump
100

Vote for Clinton

94

90
80
69

70

63

61
60
50

52

51
44

43

40

47

49

34

30

32

25

20
10

4

0
White

Black

LatinaWorking
Class

College

MarriedSingleSource: CNN Exit Polls (2016).

Barnes (2017) show that Trump’s margin of
victory among white, working-class women
was particularly large—even higher than his
margin of victory among white, workingclass men. They also note that low-income
white women who were more likely to havevoted for Barack Obama in 2012 switched
their allegiance to Trump in 2016. This is aparticularly underappreciated finding.
Figure 3 shows how party and genderaffected voting behavior (See Figure 3). 3
The data clearly show that partisanship had agreater influence on voting behavior thangender in the 2016 presidential election.

Interestingly, 96 percent of women who
identified as Democrats voted for Hillary
Clinton, and only 9 percent of women who
identified as Republican voted for her. On theother hand, 85 percent of women and 90
percent of men who identified as Republican
voted for Donald Trump. In addition, 13
percent of men who identified as Democrats
defected and voted for Trump. Among selfdescribed political independents, a majorityof the women voted for Clinton, whereas
majority of the men voted for Trump.
Interestingly, nearly one out of every fiveindependent male voters voted for a third

3 PRRI conducted this survey, the 2016 Post-Election White Working Class Survey, with The Atlantic
magazine. It had a sample size of 1,162 (both landline and cellphone) and was released December 1,
2016. https://www.prri.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/PRRI-The-Atlantic-WWC-Post-ElectionSurvey-Topline-FINAL.pdf.

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Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Figure 3. Vote for President by Party and Sex.
Vote for Trump

Vote for Clinton

Vote for Third Party

120

96

100
90
85

84

80

60

51

51

38

40

32
18

20
9

13

11
6

4

6

3

1

3

0
Republican Women

Republican Men

Independent Women

Independent Men

Democratic Women

Democratic Men

Source: PRRI, White Working Class Survey (2016).

party candidate, which is more than thenumber of independent female voters who
did so.
The reason Hillary Clinton was unable tosecure more votes from Republican women
was in part due to the latter’s distinct politicalstance from the Democratic Party—inparticular, their assessment of the party’s
policies and politics. Moreover, Trump also
attacked the Democratic Party’s stance in his
campaign, and his assessments also received
extensive media coverage. In particular, theissue of abortion occupied the political center
stage: The Democratic Party strongly

endorses abortion rights, the “pro-choice”
position, whereas the Republican Party
endorses a strict, pro-life position.
Nonetheless, some Democrats tend to be prolife, and Republicans to be pro-choice. Figure
4 shows women’s attitudes toward abortion
with respect to their party affiliation; it showsthat Republican women are far more likely tobelieve that abortion should be illegal in allor most cases than Democratic women, or
women who identify as politicalindependents.4
While abortion is not exactly a “make or
break” issue for most Americans, Gallup

4 Data here come from PRRI’s 2015 American Values Survey, conducted between September 11 andOctober 4, 2015. The sample size was 2,695 and was released on November 17, 2015.
https://www.prri.org/press-release/news-release-american-values-survey-finds-troubledelectorate-7-in-10-believe-u-s-in-recession-most-say-americas-best-days-are-in-the-past/.

16

ジェンダー研究第 21 号2018 年

Figure 4. Women’s Abortion Attitudes by Party.
Republican Women

Independent Women45

Democratic Women

42
39

40

39

35
35
30
26
25

23

23

20
20

17

18

15
10

9

10
5
0
Legal in All Cases

Legal in Most Cases

Illegal in Most Cases

Illegal in All Cases

Source: PRRI, American Values Survey (2015).

finds that an increasing number ofAmericans—about 20 percent, as of 2015—
tend to only vote for a candidate who shares
their views on abortion; and pro-life voters
are more likely to do so than pro-choice
voters (Riffkin 2015). In the 2016
presidential election, anti-abortion activists
were pleased with Trump for having selected
Indiana Governor, Mike Pence, as his
running mate, who is vocally pro-life. The
activists were also buoyed by Trump’s pledge
to appoint “pro-life,” conservative judges tothe judiciary (Ertlelt 2016).
Abortion, however, is not the only issue
that divides Republican, Democratic, andIndependent women. Figure 5 shows that
Republican women are far more conservative
than other women when it comes toeconomic issues, such as tax policy and theminimum wage. They also tend to believethat increasing infrastructure and education
spending is not the best way to spur economic
growth. For instance, 83 percent of
Democratic women believe that increasing
taxes on Americans who earn more than$250,000 in annual income is the right thing
to do, whereas only 44 percent of Republican
women do so. Moreover, 60 percent of
Republican women believe that cutting taxes
is the best way to grow the economy, whereas
only 12 percent of Democratic women holdthis belief. Interestingly, 85 percent of
Democrats tend to prefer spending more on
infrastructure and education as a way to growthe economy. Similarly, Democratic women
prefer increasing the minimum wage while17

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Figure 5. Women’s Attitudes on Economic Issues by Party.
Republican Women

Independent Women

Democratic Women

100
86

90

85

83

80
70
58

60

62

61

57

50
40

44
37

33

32

30
20

12

10
0
Favor Increasing Minimum
Wage to $15 an hour

Agree Cutting Taxes Best Way Agree that Spending More on
to Grow Economy
Infrastructure, Education BestWay to Grow Economy

Favor Increasing Taxes on
Americans Making More than
$250K

Source: PRRI, White Working Class Survey (2016).

most Republican women do not. During his
campaign, Donald Trump repeatedly pledged
to lower taxes—indeed, his only major
legislative accomplishment in his first year in
office was working with Congress to approvea massive overhaul of the tax structure,
thereby lowering taxes for many Americans.
Given that Republican women’s economic
philosophy is largely contrary to the views
espoused by Hillary Clinton and the
Democratic Party, it should come as little
surprise that Republican women found
Trump more appealing.
Trump also made his views about national
security and immigration integral aspects of
his presidential campaign. He adopted a
hard-right stance on immigration policy,
calling for the United States to build a wall18

along the Mexican border to stem illegal
immigration from Mexico and Central
American countries. Moreover, he routinely
touted a tough position on immigration from
Muslim countries, arguing that Muslims
should be temporarily banned from coming
to the United States; he argued that Muslims
were a direct threat to the safety of theAmerican public. While the majority of theAmerican public did not share such views,
his voters, including many Republican
women, found these views to be extremely
relevant and persuasive. Figure 6 suggests
why this move may have succeeded inpreventing Republican women from votingfor Hillary Clinton. Republican women tend
to consistently espouse a conservative
position: they tend to call for the banning of

ジェンダー研究第 21 号2018 年

Figure 6. Women’s Attitudes on Immigration and National Security by Party.
Republican Women60

Independent Women

Democratic Women

56
50

50
41
40

30

20

35
27

25

24
19
15
12

11
10
3
0

Favor Banning Muslims from Very or Somewhat Worried that Strongly Favor Building Wall
Support Identifying andalong Mexican Border
Deporting All Ilegal Immigrants
Entering the US
Family will be Victim ofTerrorism

Sources: PRRI, Brookings Immigration Survey (2016); PRRI, Atlantic Survey (2016).

Muslims from entering the United States,building a wall with Mexico, and deporting
illegal immigrants. Moreover, more than half
the Republican women—56 percent—worried that they, or their family members,
may become victims of terrorism. On theother hand, only 41 percent of Democratic
women held such a belief.
By contrast, Hillary Clinton’s campaign
routinely touted progressive policy views onsocial issues, such as abortion, and economic
policies pertaining to the minimum wage andtaxes. She also endorsed the need to spend
more on infrastructure and education; she
proposed a policy to introduce free college
tuition for American students. She fiercely
opposed the idea of building a wall along the
Mexican border, and decried Trump’s

proposed Muslim ban as reckless and an
attempt to “demonize and declare war on an
entire religion” (Clinton 2016). Clinton alsostrongly
endorsedcomprehensive
immigration reform that would allow someundocumented immigrants to stay in the
country legally. In short, her vision of a more
inclusive country that embraced immigrants
and people of different colors and ethnicities
was in stark contrast to Donald Trump’s“America First” brand of politics. Overall,while more women in the electorate may
have found Clinton’s message receptive, astrong contingent of Republican women,
particularly white, non-college educatedwomen, chose to back Donald Trump instead.

19

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Masculinity in the Presidential Election
Predictably, Hillary Clinton secured more
women voters as the Democratic nominee
than Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
Therefore, in some respects, the gender gap
remains alive and well in American politics.
Yet, the analysis presented in the previous
section serves as a stark reminder that
American women are not a uniform or
homogenous group. Simply put, Republican
women and Democratic women hold very
different political views and priorities. This
may explain why Donald Trump, despite hisovertly misogynistic behavior, was able tokeep Republican women firmly in his party’s
camp, much to the surprise of many politicalobservers.
Yet, often overlooked in this assumption is
the question of whether or not Trump actually
gained votes because of his “alpha male”
candidacy (Deckman 2016a). In other words,
did voters’ attitudes about masculinity in
American society also influence voters’
choices in the 2016 presidential election? Did
Trump’s campaign, which reinforced genderstereotypes, actually strengthen Trump’s
support base? Some commentators argued
that Trump’s strident stance on national
security during the campaign, and his
penchant for praising authoritarian rulers,such as Russian President Vladmir Putin, hada gendered component. For instance, one of
Trump’s campaign ads featured a video of
Hillary Clinton coughing and stumbling—
she had experienced a bout of pneumonia

during the campaign trail—with Trump’s
voice claiming that she “doesn’t have thefortitude, strength or stamina to lead in ourworld” (Deckman 2016a). Political scientists
have shown that attacks on stamina andtoughness can be particularly effective
against female Democrats (Cassese andHolman 2016). It is, therefore, reasonable towonder, as columnist Jill Filipovic (2017) has
remarked, whether Donald Trump’s
campaign pledge to “make American great
again” also included “an implicit pledge toreturn white men to their place of historicsupremacy.” However, there is a relative
dearth of research on the impact of attitudes
about masculinity in the context of voting
behavior.
In 2016, PRRI asked American voters torate the extent to which society has become
soft and feminine to measure attitudes aboutmasculinity in American culture.5 Less thanhalf of all American voters—43 percent—agreed that American society had become too
soft and feminine. Figure 7 shows that men
are more likely to hold this view (54 percent)than women (34 percent). Additionally, morethan two-thirds of Republican voters agreed
that society had become too soft andfeminine, but only 24 percent of Democratic
voters held this view (data not reported).
Independents were found to tread a middle
path: 46 percent agreed that society had
become too soft and feminine. However,male Republicans were the most likely toagree with the idea that America had ceased
to be masculine enough: 78 percent of male

5 Data come from the 2016 post-election, White Working class survey conducted jointly by PRRI
and The Atlantic.

20

ジェンダー研究第 21 号2018 年

Figure 7. Society Has Become Too Soft and Feminine.
Agree

Disagree

90
82
78

80

68

70
60
50

67

64
57

55

53
47

45

43

40
32

37

34

30
22
18

20
10
0
All MenRepublican
Men

Independent
Men

Democratic
Men

All Women

Republican
Women

Independent
Women

Democratic
Women

Source: PRRI, Atlantic White Working Class Survey (2016).

Republicans agreed that society had become
too soft and feminine (see Figure 7). In
contrast, Democratic women were more
likely to disagree with this sentiment: nearly
82 percent disagreed with this assessment.
On the other hand, only 57 percent of
Republican women agreed that society had
become too soft and feminine, a majority
nonetheless. Therefore, it can be stated that
Republican women are much moreconservativethan
DemocraticandIndependent women; however, it also showsthat Republican women are not as
conservative as male Republicans when it
comes to views about masculinity andAmerican society.
Did people’s views about masculinity in
American society shape Donald Trump’s

victory, and, if so, how? Voters of Clinton andTrump hold vastly different views on thismatter: a mere 18 percent of Clinton’s votersagree that American society has become too
soft and feminine, whereas 70 percent of
Trump’s voters agree with this assessment(data not reported).
However, do such feelings drive voting
behavior when additional controls are added?
In other words, do attitudes aboutmasculinity work as an independent factor in
explaining why voters voted the way they didin the 2016 presidential elections whileaccounting for partisanship and otherfactors? To answer this question, it isnecessary to perform a logistic regression
analysis, a form of regression analysis used
when the dependent variable is dichotomous;

21

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Electionin this case, the dependent variable pertains
to whether respondents in the survey voted
for Donald Trump (1 = yes; 0 = no).
In addition to regressing attitudes aboutmasculinity onto votes for Trump (coded 1 =agree that society is too soft and feminine; 0= disagree that society is too soft andfeminine), the statistical model controls for avariety of variables, which in previous
studies have been linked to vote choice.
These variables include partisanship (here,measured as a series of dummy variables,with Independents left out of the model as areference category), ideology (1 = very
liberal; 5 = very conservative), marital status(1 = married; 0 = not married), race (1 =white; 0 = non-white [including Latinos6 ]),age, and education (1 = less than high school
education; 8 = post-graduation education).
The model also includes controls for several
measures that pertain to religion, as studies
have demonstrated that attitudes about
patriarchy and masculinity are driven byreligion (Gallagher 2004). Evangelicals, inparticular, have a religious subculture that
promotes men as head of the Church, as wellas head of the home (Smith 1999). Thus, themodel controls for church attendance (1 =never attends church; 6 = attends church
more than once a week) as a measure of
religious commitment, while also controllingfor whether someone identifies as an

Evangelical Protestant (1 = yes; 0 = no).
Studies have also found that greater
religiosity and Evangelical status are alsosignificantly related to the likelihood ofvoters being Republican and voting for
Republican candidates—another importantreason to include these controls in the model(Putnam and Campbell 2011). Given that thisarticle focuses mainly on the gender gap, themodel also includes a control for gender (1 =male; 2 = female) in the full model. Table 1
presents the results of this analysis; thevariables that are statistically andsignificantly related to predicting a vote for
Trump are highlighted by asterisks.
Table 1 shows that, even controlling forother factors, voters who believe that
America has become too soft and feminine
are significantly more likely to vote for
Donald Trump. Considering the odds-ratio,
respondents who adopt this masculine
attitude are more than 2.8 times likely to votefor Trump than respondents who reject theidea that America has become too soft andfeminine. Alternatively, holding all othervariables at their mean values, voters whobelieve that American society is too soft andfeminine increased the probability of votingfor Donald Trump by 51 percentage points,
indicating a strong relationship between

6 While it is true that most Latinos consider themselves white (Darity 2016), I chose to label them as
non-white in data analysis because (1) research shows that Latinos often consider their Hispanic
background to be part of their racial background (Gonzalez-Barrera and Lopez 2015); (2) as a groupin society, they have often face marginalization and discrimination distinct from Anglo Americans;and (3) Latinos tend to be underrepresented in survey samples because they do not make up enoughof the US population—so combining them with other racial minorities makes sense. Moreover,Latinos demonstrate voting behavior historically that is distinct from non-Latino white Americans.

22ジェンダー研究第 21 号2018 年

Table 1. Logistic Regression Models
Vote for Trump and All Voters Dependent Variable: Vote for Trump.
Variables
Soft and Feminine
Sex
Republican
Democratic
Ideology
MarriedWhite
AgeEducation
Church Attendance
Evangelical Protestant

B (S.E.)
1.059(.237)***0.392(.241)
1.390(.272)***−1.915(.128)***0.953(.128)***0.158(.237)
0.775(.298)***0.016(.006)*−0.212(.065)***0.004(.075)
0.385(.308)−4.497(.736)***Exp(B)
2.882
1.479
4.014
0.147
2.594
1.171
2.171
1.016
0.807
0.965
1.470

Constant
N=816* = p < .05; ** = p < .01; *** = p < .001
Source: PRRI, The Atlantic White Working Class Survey (2016).

these two concepts.7 The only other factorsthat appear to matter more to vote choiceaccording to the regression model arepartisanship, ideology, and race. Republicans
are four times more likely to vote for Donald
Trump than Independents. Moreover, white
voters were more than twice as likely as nonwhite voters to cast their ballot for Donald
Trump. In contrast, and consistent with muchof the literature on gender gap, gender is nota statistically significant predictor of votechoice.
Moreover, as Table 2 demonstrates, when
this analysis considers women and men
voters in separate regression models,
attitudes about masculinity in American
society continue to exert an independent

effect. Women who believe that society has
become too soft and feminine are more than
three times as likely as women who do nothold such views to vote for Donald Trump.
When calculating predicted probabilities,
women voters who share this view are 31
percent more likely to vote for Trump whenholding other variables at their mean values.
However, predicted probabilities show that
attitudes about masculinity appear to exert aneven stronger impact on male voters—men
who believe American society is too soft andfeminine are 67 percent more likely to votefor Trump while controlling other variablesat their mean values.
When considering other variables thatshape the voting calculus of men and women,

7 STATA’s Margins command was used to calculate the predicted probability of voting for Trump
while keeping the other variables at their mean values.

23

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

Table 2. Logistic Regression Models
Vote for Trump, Men Voters, and Women Voters Dependent Variable: Vote for Trump.
Variables
Soft and Feminine
Republican
Democratic
Ideology
MarriedWhite
AgeEducation
Church Attendance
Evangelical Protestant

Women Voters
B (S.E.)
Exp(B)
1.121(.383)**
3.360
1.65(.418)***5.228−2.40(.554)***0.091
1.223(.236)***3.414
0.539(.379)
1.715
1.167(.512)*
3.213
0.0152(.011)
1.015−0.350(.112)***0.705−0.196(.138)
0.822
0.838(.492)
2.311

Constant−4.725
0.008
N = 414* = p < .05; ** = p < .01; *** = p < .001
Source: PRRI, The Atlantic White Working Class Survey (2016).

the models show that partisanship andideology remain the strongest predictors ofvote choice. However, age is only significant
for men. As male voters age, they are more
likely to vote for Trump; age is not related to
women’s voting behavior. Instead, education
and race are important factors that drive
women’s vote. White women and lesseducated women are significantly more
likely to vote for Trump than women of colorand highly educated women. This supports
the findings presented by other similar
studies that focus on sex in the context of the2016 presidential election (Cassese andBarnes 2017). Surprisingly, however,religion as measured by church attendanceand evangelical status are not importantfactors in the decision to vote for Trump. Thisis quite contrary to the narrative popularized
by the news media. The media claimed that24

Men Voters
B (S.E.)
Exp(B)
1.094(.314)***2.986
1.157(.369)**
3.180−1.56(.412)***0.210
0.841(.158)***2.319−0.236(.323)
0.789
0.654(.381)
1.924
0.0195(.008)*
1.019−0.141(087)0.868
0.043(.100)
1.044
0.093(.409)
1.098−4.169N = 402the “religious right” was, in part, responsible
for Trump’s election.
What findings can we draw from thisanalysis? The statistical models show anumber of things: first, partisanship, race,and ideology are the factors that mostsignificantly determined voters’ choice in the2016 presidential election; these independent
variables are so important to shaping votechoice that gender ceases to be important.
Gender is not an independent explanatory
factor in determining voters’ choice. This is
not to say that the 2016 presidential elections
did not have a gendered component. It is justto say that attitudes about masculinity—
measured by asking respondents if they
believe American society has become “toosoft and feminine”—are also significantly
related to Donald Trump’s election. Trump’s
overtly masculine and chauvinistic campaign

ジェンダー研究appears to have had an impact on somevoters—particularly
men,
but
also
conservative women. The impact ofmasculinity in the 2016 elections, as definedby whether Americans perceive society as
too “soft and feminine,” certainly warrants
more research.

Discussion
The gender gap in American elections israther discernible: Hillary Clinton won more
votes from American women than Donald
Trump, whereas Trump secured a majority ofthe male votes. Predictably, traditional
patterns of voting behavior explain muchabout the outcome of the 2016 presidential
election. Partisanship, ideology, and race
influenced voters’ choice to a significant
extent. These factors continue to exert more
independent influence on voting behavior
among Americans than gender. Simply put,women voters who are Democrats will
mostly vote for Democrats, whereas womenvoters who are Republican will mostly votefor Republicans. The same partisan patternholds true for male voters as well. The gendergap exists because women—particularly
women of color—are more likely to be
Democrats than Republicans.
At the same time, this analysis shows that
attitudes about masculinity were alsosignificant in the 2016 presidential election.
Voters who felt that America has become“too soft and feminine” were more likely tohave voted for Donald Trump—independentof party, ideology, race, and other factors.
Trump’s overtly masculine campaign,
steeped with themes of law and order and第 21 号2018 年

gendered hostility toward his female
opponent, appears to have made masculinity
an important component of vote choice.
Another way to interpret these findings
about masculinity is to throw light on the factthat Americans who rejected this notion (thatsociety has become too soft and feminine)
supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.
Recall that merely 18 percent of Clinton’svoters agreed with this sentiment. The “toxic”
masculinity of Trump’s campaign inspired a
protest march in Washington and other major
American cities on January 21, 2017, the day
after the inauguration. The “Women’s March”
brought together millions of supporters,
many decked in pink, “pussy” hats. They
rejected sexism and called for thesafeguarding of women’s rights, civil rights,
and other progressive causes in the wake of
Trump’s victory and continued Republican
control of both houses of the United States
Congress (Przybyla and Schouten, 2017).
Hillary Clinton’s loss has been attributed
to many factors, including a lack ofenthusiasm among Democratic supporters(Dovere 2016; Siepel 2016) and a general
unease with the economy and continued
Democratic control in the White House. Yet,the fervor generated by the Women’s March,
women activists, and their progressive allies,
appears to show no signs of abating. Several
political developments in 2017 indicate that2018 may be a historic year for women inpolitics. First, the number of women runningfor political office has reached an all-timehigh. According to the Center for American
Women in Politics, there are four times as
many women challenging U.S. House25

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

incumbents, and ten times as many womenchallenging incumbent U.S. Senators as thetwo previous election cycles (Dickerson2017). Emily’s List—the largest Democraticorganization geared toward electing womencandidates to office—reported that the
number of women who contacted them about
running increased twenty-fold, from 1,000 in
2016 to more than 22,000 in 2017 (Tackett2017). Many of these candidates directly
acknowledge that their decision to run islinked to Donald Trump and his sexist
behavior.
In 2017, Democratic candidates also fared
well in several notable, off-year stateelections, driven in part by women voters andcandidates. In Virginia, a Southern state that
voted for Democratic candidates in a numberof previous presidential election cycles but
had maintained a solid Republican majority
in its state legislature, Democrats flipped atleast 15 Republican-controlled Virginia
house seats in the fall 2017 state legislativeelection, 12 of which were won by womencandidates (Walsh 2017), bringing thatchamber to near partisan parity. Nationalanger at Trump and the Republicans also
paved the way for the election of Democrat
Ralph Northam to the governorship in
Virginia by a surprisingly wide margin. The
election was marked by high turnout,
especially on the part of women voters (61percent of women voted for Northam,
whereas only 39 percent voted for theRepublican, Ed Gillespie) (Exit Poll Results2017).
Moreover, Democrats stunned the politicalworld by winning a special election in

26

Alabama in December, 2017. By doing so,they filled the Senate seat vacated by Jeff
Sessions when he was appointed as theUnited States Attorney General by Trump.
Alabama is one of the most reliably
Republican states in the union, and Trump
beat Hillary Clinton by close to 30 percentage
points in this state in the 2016 presidential
race. However, Republicans in their primaryelection chose the extremely controversial
candidate, Roy Moore, as their nominee.
Moore had twice been elected as the Chief
Justice of the State Supreme Court inAlabama. However, he was removed on two
separate occasions for defying federal law
when he disobeyed a federal court order toremove a monument of the biblical Ten
Commandments from the floor of theSupreme Court building that he had installed
in 2003. He was also removed when hedisobeyed a court order to issue marriage
licenses to same-sex couples in 2016 after theSupreme Court ruled that such marriages
were legal (Robertson 2016). These actions,however, endeared him to many conservative
Christians in Alabama and across the nation.
However, in November 2017, a few months
after Moore had won the Republican primary
to face the Democratic challenger for the
open Senate seat, The Washington Post
reported the following. It claimed that in his
thirties and during his spell as district
attorney, Moore had initiated sexual
encounters with girls as young as 14 years
old; several other women also stepped
forward to share similar encounters,
prompting unprecedented media attention on
an election that under other circumstancesジェンダー研究

would have likely resulted in the election ofa Republican (McCrummer, Reinhard, andCrites 2017). While Republican leaders inCongress asked Moore to step aside, notwanting their party to be linked to apedophile, Donald Trump fully endorsed
Moore. This special election garnered nonstop coverage on news media channels as therace came to be viewed in part as areferendum on Trump’s presidency. Doug
Jones, a political moderate and former UnitedStates Attorney in Alabama, became the first
Democrat in a generation to be elected to theUnited States Senate from Alabama. Moore
lost by almost two percentage points. Exit
polls showed that Roy Moore lost partly due
to the very high turnout of African-American
voters (Moore had also indicated during the
campaign that America was at its greatest
during the 19th century, despite the existenceof slavery). But Jones’ victory was also
possible because of a 16 percent advantage
with women voters, which represented
tremendous gains among suburban andcollege-educated women (Exit Polls 2017b).
While no statistical analysis has been
conducted to examine the voting behavior of
Alabamians in that particular run-off, it is fairto say that women voters contributed to Roy
Moore’s defeat.
Finally, 2018 may be an unprecedented
year for women in American politics becauseof a larger societal emphasis on sexual
harassment. This impetus may have gathered
force during Trump’s campaign, but it took
on new life in the fall of 2017, as allegations
about Harvey Weinstein, a Hollywood mogul
and movie producer, made front-page news,

第 21 号2018 年

turning the issue of sexual harassment into a
touchstone(Farhi2017).
Women,
encouraged by social media, began to share
their own stories about sexual harassment in
the workplace, giving birth to the #MeToomovement. In the months after the Harvey
Weinstein story broke, similar allegations
were levied against more men of power. This
led to the firings and/or resignations of wellknown journalists, such as Matt Lauer andCharlie Rose, as well as several member ofCongress—both Democratic (John Conyers
and Al Franken) and Republican (Trent
Franks and Blake Farenthold). Donald
Trump’s history of sexual harassment is also
garnering more attention. A woman who
claims to be a victim of Trump’s sexual
harassment has filed a civil defamation
lawsuit against Trump for calling her a liar
(Twohey 2017). Notably, she first stepped
forward with this allegation during the 2016
presidential campaign.
Mid-term elections in American politics—
those held two years after presidential
elections—typically result in the President’s
party losing seats in Congress. Manyobservers predict that Democrats have alegitimate shot at regaining both the Senate
and the House in 2018, especially given the
results of the Alabama special election andthe Virginia state elections. A record numberof women candidates are poised to run for
Congress and in legislative seats at the statelevel—many inspired to directly counter
Donald Trump’s presidency and theconservative direction taken by Congress. It
is true that partisanship still “trumps” genderwhen it comes to voting decisions, but it is27

Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

also true that more women in the American
electorate identify as Democrats than as
Republicans (Deckman 2016b). With
momentum switching to the Democratic
Party and its activists—many of whom are

women—2018 may prove to be a year inwhich Republicans’ inability to persuade
women voters will have deep politicalconsequences.

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（掲載決定⽇：2018 年 4 ⽉ 4 ⽇）

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Too Soft and Feminine: Masculinity and the Gender Gap in the 2016 US Presidential Election

要旨

あまりに甘く、女性的すぎる―2016 年大統領選挙における男ら
しさと男女格差
Melissa Deckman
本稿は、2016 年⽶⼤統領選挙において、特に⼥性有権者に着眼しながら、「男らしさ」に関する価値観がいかに有権者の選択肢に関与したのか検討する。また、これ以外の要素がどのようにして投票⾏動を左右したかについても考察する。メディア陣は、あたかも⼥性有権者は投票で⾼い結束⼒を発揮するかのように報道している。しかし本稿の分析によると、⼥
性有権者の投票は、党派・⼈種・教育・「男らしさ」に対する⾒解によって左右される事が分かる。これらの影響は男性有権者の投票⾏動に特に顕著に現れるものである。ところが⼥性に関しても、「今の社会はあまりに⽢く、⼥性的すぎる」と考える⼥性は、そう思わない⼥性の 3 倍以上もトランプ⽒に投票した確率が⾼いことが、統計調査結果に⾒られる。実際、トランプ⽒の選挙期間中の性差別的な⾔動にも関わらず、保守派で主に⽩⼈の⼥性の強いサポート層は、彼に票を投じた。#Me Too の運動の働きかけで、保守派の⼥性が近い将来、⺠主党の候補者を⽀持するかどうかは、今のところまだ分からない。しかし、2016 年選挙の分析
結果では、そのような結果が得られる⾒込みは薄い。
キーワード
ジェンダーギャップ 2016 年⽶国⼤統領選挙 投票⾏動

保守派⼥性

男らしさ

《筆者紹介》

Melissa Deckman is the Louis L. Goldstein Professor of Public Affairs at Washington College
and chairs the board of PRRI, the Public Religion Research Institute. Her areas of specialty
include religion, gender and conservative political movements in American politics. The author
or co-author of more than a dozen scholarly articles and four books, her latest book, Tea Party
Women: Mama Grizzlies, Grassroots Leaders, and the Changing Face of the American Right,
was published by NYU Press in 2016. Her political commentary can be followed on Twitter@melissadeckman.

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