Hey Pollster, Here's an Opinion for You

[queerbychoice]

[telephone rings]
Me: Hello?
Male Voice: Hi, I'm calling on behalf of the Blah Blah Blah Research Company to conduct a survey about current political issues. We are not selling anything. This call may be monitored by my supervisor to ensure adherence to specified research standards. Is there a man in your household I can talk to?
Me: No.
Him: There isn't any man in your household I can talk to?
Me: No.
Him: Does that mean he just isn't available right now or I can't talk to him, or there are none?
Me: There are no men in this household!
Him: Hmm, okay . . . maybe you can help me. Are you registered to vote in California?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do you or does anyone in your household work in media, advertising, politics, or social research?
Me: Yes.
Him: Do you or does anyone in your . . . oh, that's all the questions I have then.
[click]

Is this why American politics are so ridiculously right-wing? Because the politicians all base their ideas of what the public wants upon public opinion polls and the public opinion pollsters skew their polls by trying desperately to speak only to the male voters of any households that contain men?

Comments

[socialismnow.livejournal.com]

In 1931, a coalition of Republicans, Socialists, and Radicals won the Spanish election. (In Spain, the Republicans were a party of the centre-left.) They gave the vote to women. At the following election, in 1933, there was a rightwing landslide, one of the factors for which is cited by historians as: "The introduction of votes for women for the first time in Spain, as usual, profited the Right." (Hugh Thomas, Spanish Civil War)

In Britain, too, it was the left that gave the women the vote, legalized abortion, passed the Equal Pay Act and Sexual Discrimination Act, and yet women continued to back the Conservatives.

Political scientists have three main ideas about this. They say the left is associated with notions of "workers" and with trade unions, which have male-dominated cultures; that the right appeals to notions of family; and that women are more religious than men, and the rightwing parties (in some countries called Christian Democrats) have been the religious ones.

Given that nowadays, women are more and more part of the world of work, feminism has undermined traditional notions of the family, and religious belief is on the decline throughout Europe, perhaps the left/male correlation will decline (or has already done so) or even reverse itself.