"War on women" is a slogan in United States politics used to describe certain Republican Party policies and legislation as a wide-scale effort to restrict women's rights, especially reproductive rights, aka abortion; but history shows that it’s been the democrats who have reliably voted AGAINST women’s rights, or civil rights of any kind.
On May 21, 1919, the women's suffrage amendment passed the House 304 to 89, with 42 votes more than was necessary. On June 4, 1919, it was brought before the Senate and, after Southern Democrats abandoned a filibuster, 36 Republican senators were joined by 20 Democrats to pass the amendment with 56 yeas, 25 nays, and 14 not voting. The final vote tally was:
On August 18, 1920 the 19th amendment was ratified. Much of the opposition to the amendment came from Southern Democrats; only two former Confederate states and three border states voted for ratification.
Woodrow Wilson adamantly opposed women’s rights until near the end of his Presidency when the fate of the party rested on getting more votes, then he was suddenly for the right of women to vote.
Since the 19th Amendment’s ratification, women’s slight preference for the Republican Party waned as more non-white Americans joined voter rolls and as more women entered the workforce, attained higher levels of education and delayed marriage. In the decades after 1920, all the way through the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, racist laws kept many women from voting. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-have-women-voted-suffrage-180975979/
When and why did women start casting their support for Democrats?In the 1950s and the 1960s, policy differences between women and men—such as women’s greater opposition to the Korean War—did not translate into differences in vote choice, because the parties did not distinguish themselves on these issues. But soon after, women’s lives began to change profoundly. The Supreme Court legalized birth control and abortion. Congress acted on equal rights, passing Title IX of the Higher Education Act in 1972 and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act in 1978. Though some reforms proved controversial for traditionally minded (and usually white) women, equal rights measures related to employment and education enjoyed bipartisan support. Both parties appealed to women on equality issues.
The women’s vote diverged from the men’s vote beginning in 1980, when the two parties began staking different positions on women’s issues and social issues. Ronald Reagan is credited with pushing the Republican Party to stand against abortion and for the traditional family, compelling Democrats to adopt the pro-equality stances favored by the women’s and civil rights movements.
The diverging party platforms on women’s issues coincided with other important changes, like women of color’s increased access to the ballot box and broader social and cultural shifts in American society.
Today’s gender differences in party support stem from these shifts. The Republican and Democratic parties take opposing stances on many issues, not just women’s rights. Overall, women express more support than men for many policy priorities associated with the Democratic Party, from preserving the Affordable Care Act and implementing gun control to fighting climate change and addressing discrimination against black and LGBTQ Americans. Differences in gender role socialization and men’s and women’s lived experiences still bring women into closer contact with hearth and home, making many women attune to issues of vulnerability and care. It’s interesting that women tend to vote for issues that the Constitution never intended for government to be involved in, not that anybody else is not doing the same.
As of 2016, men have migrated toward the Republican Party, women have become a dependable force for Democrats. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/how-women-became-democratic-partisans/606274/
Read about how the democrats have treated blacks at https://tomward39.wixsite.com/freedom/post/the-heart-of-the-democrats
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