Posted on 12/03/2013 6:29:48 AM PST by SeekAndFind
In newly published findings that challenge earlier research, Dalton Conley of New York University and Emily Rauscher of the University of Kansas found that having more daughters than sons and having a daughter first “significantly reduces the likelihood of Democratic identification and significantly increases the strength of Republican Party identification.”
Not only is the daughter effect statistically significant, it’s substantively large. They found that overall, “compared to those with no daughters, parents with all daughters are 14% less likely to identify as a Democrat….[and] 11% more likely to identify as a Republican than parents with no daughters,” they write in the journal Sociological Forum.
As a woman with a daughter, I’m perhaps qualified to theorize about this. But as a woman who’s been sure about her ideological and policy leanings from about the age of 8, I’m perhaps not a good analog for the average parent of daughters. This study challenges the findings of other studies, which have found at different times that politicians with more daughters vote more liberally or that having more daughters increases indentification with the Liberal and Labor Parties in Britain.
I imagine liberals looking to scorn their conservative counterparts would credit parents’ literally paternalistic view of their daughters with a tendency toward what they view as the allegedly paternalistic, patriarchal treatment of women by the GOP. These rubes, their thinking goes, just want to “control” women because they’re super-scared of vaginas. But this bit seems to cut against that theory:
The daughters effect is considerably stronger among better educated and wealthier parents, they find. But among those farther down the socioeconomic ladder, it weakens to statistical insignificance.
Are the highly educated generally among those basing their public policy on debilitating vagina fear? As a woman who believes the Democratic Party is the platonic form of paternalism when it comes to speaking to women, I have different thoughts. The researchers’ theory:
But why would having a daughter cause parents to become more Republican? The authors speculate that men and women might want more socially conservative policies when they have daughters and thus be more attracted to the GOP.
That may be true, but isn’t it possible it has something to do with the Democratic Party’s incessant appeal to women voters as if they are only sexual organs? Every discussion is about vaginas. Every bit of rhetoric is uterus-related. The party assumes that every single decision a woman makes is based on access to abortion and a mythical threat to birth control. Perhaps living with actual women allows one to see the possibility that they think about tax policy and education and, gasp!, foreign affairs. I can imagine this approach to politics and women might be off-putting to some who love their wives, daughters, and sisters. Just a thought.
Another recent study seems to back up the researchers’ guess, when it comes to brothers who grow up with sisters:
“Having sisters makes males more politically conservative in terms of their gender role attitudes and their partisanship,” they wrote. “Particularly for gender role attitudes, we find that these political socialization effects persist until respondents are well into adulthood.”
The analysis is based on surveys of more than 3,000 individuals each that were conducted in 2006 and 2008 as part of the ongoing National Longitudinal Survey of Youth’s Children and Young Adults. The survey series, which began in 1987, follows the progress of children 10 years of age and older who were born to women who participated in an earlier large-sample survey fielded by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Respondents were in their 20s and 30s at the time of the 2008 survey, though most of the respondents “were on the young side of this range,” the authors wrote…
At the extreme, they found that young men who grew up with sisters but no brothers in their household are 8.3 percentage points more likely to identify with the Republican Party than boys who grow up with only brothers.
It seems the daughters are growing up to be more Democrat.
Seeing the title made me think of this joke....
A young woman was about to finish her first year of college. Like so many others her age she considered herself to be a very liberal Democrat and was for distribution of all wealth.
She felt deeply ashamed that her father was a rather staunch Republican, which she expressed openly. One day she was challenging her father on his beliefs and his opposition to higher taxes on the rich and the addition of more government welfare programs.
Based on the lectures that she had participated in and the occasional chat with a professor she felt that for years her father had obviously harbored an evil, even selfish desire to keep what he thought should be his. The self-professed objectivity proclaimed by her professors had to be the truth and she indicated so to her father.
He stopped her and asked her point blank, how she was doing in school. She answered rather haughtily that she had a 4.0 GPA, and let him know that it was tough to maintain. That she studied all the time and never had time to go out and party like other people she knew. She didn’t even have time for a boyfriend and didn’t really have many college friends because of spending all her time studying.
Her father listened and then asked, “How is your good friend Mary doing?”
She replied, “Mary is barely getting by.” She continued, “She barely has a 2.0 GPA,” adding, “and all she takes are easy classes and she never studies.” “But Mary is so very popular on campus, college for her is a blast, she goes to all the parties all the time and very often doesn’t even show up for classes because she is too hung over.”
Her father then asked his daughter, “Why don’t you go to the Dean’s Office and ask him to deduct a 1.0 off your 4.0 GPA and give it to your friend who only has a 2.0.” He continued, “That way you will both have a 3.0 GPA and certainly that would be a fair and equal distribution of GPA.”
The daughter visibly shocked by her father’s suggestion angrily fired back, “That wouldn’t be fair! I worked really hard for mine, I did without And Mary has done little or nothing, she played while I worked real hard!”
The father slowly smiled, winked and said, “Welcome to the Republican Party.”
Read between the lines: The GOP should be the pro-choice party.
Young & single or divorced women vote for the democrats on the promise of being taken care of while they act “independent”.
Daughters probably endorse “democracy” to get back at their “mean” parents.
Must explain the bizarre behavior of Patti "Davis" then, though Nancy is not that conservative.
I guess parents of a girl are horrified of the type of a future democrats envision for women.
I pulled that stunt with my kids while they were in elementary school. VERY effective.
One more example of a statistical study looking for a connection to the real world. Statistical “correlation” doesn’t prove cause/effect. Particularly in societal studies.
And I still don’t get how these people get money to waste time and energy on things like this...
A deep mystery. But it could be related to the mystery of why having daughters makes households more likely to own a shotgun.
You can have fun with a son but you gotta be a father to a girl.
For the wedding?
This is not surprising since the modern woman, hate men that have any morals when it comes to children, hence a life is more important than reproductive policy differences..
The popular culture, abhors men having any option when it comes to their own offspring, given that as far as I can tell, it still takes two to tango.. If my child’s life were in danger, conception through birth and beyond, it would take more than a mere conversation to even consider termination of my offspring..
However, I may be a bit extreme when it comes to my preferences in choosing my companions, considering I lost a date recently with an absolute beautiful woman that I discovered had become a Teachers Union Representative and had attended a Planned Parenthood protest..
When asked where I want to pick her up for our planned date, I suggested that we meet at my Veterinarian’s office, suggesting that she allow him to DIP her, before she climbed into my car..
Pity, I had a wonderful restaurant in mind.. Oh well.. :)
I think he did end up in Heaven. So not too shabby.
Republicans are genetically predisposed to have daughters?
Who pays for stupid studies like this—and why?
I never understood Patti Davis. Can you imagine having a father in the White House and not enjoying it? I’d be at every state dinner and wandering through the halls of that old house thinking about Lincoln et al. I’d be befriending the folks in that amazing kitchen and wandering the grounds. But how did she choose to use those years? To go on Phil Donahue and complain about her family.
I can see it.
Having an attractive daughter brings every naer-do-well male slacker to the front door from 16-20something. The more the rest of the family has to deal with that, the more Reaganesque they become.
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