The men's vote

In the aftermath of Judge Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court, anticipate listening to angry feminists and other leftist talking heads in the Beltway warning of a backlash of female voters against Republican candidates next month. This voting bloc has been raised as a hobgoblin intended to intimidate conservatives and Republicans for the last forty years. Why, I wonder, does no one talk of the men's vote? Contrary to what politicos seem to believe, female voters constitute a paper-thin majority of the voters in America. Women are 50.8% of the population, while men are 49.2% of the population. That is a statistically insignificant percentage of the American voting population.

Moreover, the women's vote is shrinking relative to the men's: as the demographic growth rate of the male population is 9.9% compared to the demographic growth rate of the female population at 9.5%. That paper-thin female majority will over time become a minority. This is in keeping with the historical pattern of the American population. Males outnumbered females in America in every decennial census from the beginning of the republic until the 1950 Census. The demographic advantage women in America had beginning in the middle of the last century widened in the next three decennial censuses, with the widest gap in the 1980 Census, when the demographic gap between women and men hit its high-water mark. Since 1980, every census has shown the demographic gap closing. Why were their more women than men in America during the years from 1950 to 1980? A significant factor was the fact that from 1941 to 1975, America was involved in three bloody foreign wars in which over half a million men died in combat and many more had shortened lives from combat wounds and disabilities. The numbers by war were 400,000 (World War II), 50,000 (Korean War), and 60,000 (Vietnam War.) America is not currently involved in any wars with comparable casualty rates, and the change in the nature of waging war makes it highly unlikely that a large number of men are going to die in some future combat. The higher mortality rate among adult males caused by war is consequently not going to exist in the future. Males continue to have a resilient advantage at the beginning of life: more boy babies are born each year than girl babies, and that has been true for a long time. Even more importantly, America also has more male teenagers and young adults than female. What all this means is that feminism, which rests upon a majority of voters being women, may be turned around in the next few decades, when men regain what they have historically had in American political history: a majority of the voters. An appeal only to those female voters who manifest a nauseating anti-male bigotry has this other danger for leftist radical feminism: America is full of mothers who love their sons. The more these sons are demonized by leftist feminists, the more female voters who love their sons will resist the caterwauling of these crones. Conservatives reject the idea of voting by blocs to gain from government what helps one's particular group. The purpose of government is to preserve liberty, and that preservation of liberty has no special constituency. Rather, it is best preserved when everyone sees the same vested interest in liberty as his fellow citizens. Conservatives and other normal people should call to the attention of radical leftist feminists that their strategy – to dominate politics by such a shallow and lame factor as a transitory, modest female majority – is doomed to fail. It also makes feminists' issues more ignored than taken seriously. The men's vote is real, and it is growing relative to the women's vote. The best thing for the republic is for all bloc voting to melt away into a general interest in good and limited government. Radical leftist feminists would do well to heed that advice now.