One doesn’t usually expect to see the New York Times present arguments against women’s suffrage:
On average, women make up about 20 percent of lawmakers in the United States
and abroad. We found that when women constituted 20 percent of a
decision-making body that operates by majority rule, the average woman
took up only about 60 percent of the floor time used by the average man.
Women were perceived — by themselves and their peers — as more
quiescent and less effective. They were more likely to be rudely
interrupted; they were less likely to strongly advocate their policy
preferences; and they seldom mentioned the vulnerable. These gender
dynamics held even when adjusting for political ideology (beliefs about
liberalism and egalitarianism) and income.In contrast, the men in our experiment did not speak up less or appear to lose influence when they were in the minority.
In
our experiment, groups with few women set a minimum income of about
$21,600 per year for a family of four — which is close to the federal
poverty level for a family of four. But once women made up 60 to 80
percent or more of a group, they spoke as much as men, raised the needs
of the vulnerable and argued for redistribution (and influenced the
rhetoric of their male counterparts). They also encountered fewer
hostile interruptions.Significantly, they elevated the safety net
to as much as $31,000. The most talkative participants in these
majority-female groups advocated for even more government generosity:
$36,000, enough to catapult many poor families into the ranks of the
lower middle class.
Translation: if you think the nation is in economic difficulty now, just wait until more women are elected to office!
Right
now, spending on social services was $2.10 trillion, if we limit that
definition to Social Security, Unemployment/Welfare, Medicare, Medicaid,
the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security
Administration. If we apply the researcher’s numbers, a female-majority
government would increase that by 43.5 percent, to $3.01 trillion. And
if the most activist, “most talkative” women were in charge, the bill
would come to $3.5 trillion.
Total revenue: $2.165 trillion. Deficit in the max-women scenario: $2.67 trillion, more than double the current $1.27 trillion.
Ironically,
to the numerate individual, this is not a logical argument for more
women in elected office. This is an argument against female suffrage.