Remember that cringe-worthy feminist slogan, “the future is female”? According to The New York Times, the slogan originated in 1975 out of a ’70s lesbian separatist moment. It started to make a comeback in 2015 and has become a mantra of Hillary Clinton. “Despite all the challenges we face, I remain convinced that, yes, the future is female,” she said at some liberal women’s convention in 2017. Whether Clinton understood the origins of the slogan, who knows? Regardless, it’s been co-opted plenty in recent years (despite the ambiguity of its meaning) by the pro-abortion radical left and mixed in with garden variety rhetoric about glass ceilings and girl power that is designed to conflate leftism with women’s rights and empowerment.
Occasionally, the women’s movement gets sidetracked over the whole trans thing. As the radical LGBTQ lobby increases its influence over the Democratic Party, more and more Democrats have insisted on absurdities such as “trans women are women,” “men can get pregnant too,” and other nonsensical garbage. Things changed, however, within seconds of the leak of the draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson that occurred earlier this month. In a flash came the statements attacking the conservative assault on a “woman’s right to choose.” Just last week, Los Angeles Times columnist Mary McNamara wrote that “If men could get pregnant, abortion and baby formula would be free.” The left’s sacred cow is abortion, not transgender ideology. As such, they’ll always present abortion as a women’s rights issue, and Rachel Levine will just have to sit this one out.
But even as we appear to be on the verge of Roe v. Wade being overturned, it’s the generally pro-life Republican Party that has been making gains with women voters, not Democrats. According to a CNN analysis of six recent national polls, the Republican Party has shrunk the gender gap by making gains with women voters. And boy, did that take them by surprise.
“The polling ahead of the 2022 midterms has been marked by a shrinking of electoral divisions,” wrote CNN’s Harry Enten. “Young and older voters are now more likely to agree on their views of President Joe Biden. The Democratic advantage among Black and Hispanic voters, while still clear, is smaller.”
“Perhaps more surprisingly as we head into the heart of the primary season, the same is true when it comes to gender,” he continued. “Even after the leak of a draft US Supreme Court opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, there are signs of a smaller gender gap among voters.”
According to Enten, Republicans are “on pace to do much better with women than the last midterm elections in 2018.”
But, but, but — how could that be? What about abortion? Roe v. Wade? Women’s rights? Glass ceilings?
Could it be that women are a lot smarter than the left gives them credit for, and that women aren’t single-issue voters who all support abortion? Liberals look at black voters the same way. Remember how Sunny Hostin of The View claimed, “I don’t understand black Republicans,” and said a black Republican is “an oxymoron?” Or when Joe Biden said that if black voters weren’t sure who they would vote for in 2020 then they “ain’t black?”
Related: No, Dobbs v. Jackson Isn’t Going to Hand the Midterms to Democrats
The Republican Party may have a way to go before it erases the Democrats’ advantage with women voters, but the gains it’s seeing prove how women can’t be reduced to a single issue. This is why CNN was caught by surprise that Republicans are actually (gasp!) gaining with women.
Many thought that the Dobbs opinion would be the Hail Mary that would save the Democrats in November. It clearly won’t be. Women aren’t single-issue voters who have to think and vote a certain way. The GOP can win back women voters by proving itself to be the party that lifts everyone.