Why Women Vote Against Themselves and How To Prevent It

Parenting For Democracy

In the days before the election, when I thought about Trump winning, I felt genuine nausea. The obvious reasons were his stated policies and Project 2025 designed to discriminate and control women and gender marginalized people, and tear apart immigrant families. But a big part of feeling ill was the betrayal I knew I’d feel by other women (and white women, in particular, since Black women have proven themselves to be the backbone of the Democratic party.) Even as a small child, I was sensitive to girls and women being unsupportive of each other and the bewilderment only grew as I got older. The “unsisterliness” of it all didn’t compute. Now I have little tolerance for it, unless you’re in therapy and trying to understand it.

I’m not alone. I have heard from dozens of incredulous women asking, “How could any woman vote for Trump?” They want to know why his rape conviction, gutting Roe, and calls for violence against Liz Cheney and others didn’t automatically disqualify him in voters’ minds. Couldn’t they see Harris, despite any flaws, was an intelligent, principled, well-meaning leader who would uphold the constitution and avoid erratic or reckless behavior as president? It seems so obvious to many of us.

It’s tempting to simply say this country hates women, and there’s certainly truth in that, but I want to take a more nuanced view it. After all, in many states, these same Trump voters upheld women’s rights. In Missouri, for example, voters approved measures supporting abortion rights, raising the minimum wage, and mandating paid leave—all Democratic positions. And yet, Trump beat Harris there by 18 points, and Hawley, a self-described Christian Nationalist, beat Kunce by 14.

It’s important to understand the psychological mechanisms that allow women to vote for a man that so clearly has no respect for women and for policies that will ultimately erode their ability for independence. If we really understand the forces at play, we can change things by teaching our children about those forces more directly and ensure they never unwittingly become the foot soldiers of the patriarchy.

To be clear, many people voted for Trump despite the hate he spews, not because of it. I found relief in hearing the journalist

Jessica Yellin

explain in her post election debrief with

Shannon Watts

that many conservatives simply “voted their pocketbook.” She explains:

So many people cannot afford to live right now. And they voted out of survival. They wanted a change. And when you want change, you throw out the incumbents…For so many people, they cast a ballot for somebody they disapprove of and disagree with in so many ways. And we saw that in focus groups. They didn't like his language. They hate his incivility. Don't like the way he talks about immigrants or women, but their own family survival came first.

Yes, it’s maddening that they were fed and believed claims—despite many experts deeming them improbable—that the economy would improve under Trump. But, as Anna Rollins, a Harris voter living in a red state writes in this Slate article about conservative women: “The memes they shared on social media before the election said things like, ‘Next week, we find out if we are eating steak or ramen for dinner.’ The subtext—however misguided—was that Trump was steak and Harris was ramen. Most of these women seem to have voted for Trump in spite of who he is as a person. They held their noses as they cast their ballots.”

And yet.

There is a long history in the US of qualified female politicians being defeated by male opponents despite their obvious show of narcissistic or sociopathic behaviors. In recent years, you’ll remember the string of women Trump defeated in primaries and elections, despite his bluster, aggression, and hate. You might also recall Stacey Abrams, a prominent voting rights advocate and former Minority Leader of the Georgia House of Representatives who lost the 2018 and 2020 gubernatorial bids to Brian Kemp. Kemp’s role in overseeing the election process raised ethical concerns and allegations of voter suppression. Or Martha Coakley, a former Massachusetts Attorney General, who lost a U.S. Senate seat in 2010 to Scott Brown who ran a divisive, populist campaign focused on opposing the Affordable Care Act. There are many more examples.

Similarly, there is a long history of women voting for GOP candidates rather than male candidates with progressive policies for women. Remember when Ted Cruz who opposed abortion access and the Affordable Care Act beat Beto O’Rourke, a champion of reproductive rights and equal pay in the 2018 Texas Senate race? Or when Jaime Harrison, a progressive advocating for gender equity, lost to anti-abortion incumbent Lindsey Graham in 2020?

We cannot ignore the pattern.

It’s not the economy. Or immigration. Or whatever the hot topic of the day is. Deep down, it’s misogyny¹.

It’s misogyny that we’re exposed to throughout girlhood. It is so normalized as to be invisible that girls can’t help but absorb degrading messages about their sex and gender. In Nobody Wants to Be That Girl, I explain, “In a culture that sees human attributes as divisible into “masculine” and “feminine” and assigns those it doesn’t value to the latter pile, any kind of girl may be viewed as ‘less than.’” This prompts girls to dis-identify with other girls and grow into women who believe females are less valuable, capable, and trustworthy than men.

I want to briefly explore a couple of concepts that make the psychology clearer behind how our sisters can and do vote against their (and our) best interests.

Internalized misogyny

The acceptance of sexist attitudes by women is called Internalized Misogyny. Often it’s unconscious. For some women, this manifests as a belief that traditional, patriarchal structures offer stability and legitimacy. Voting for someone like Trump whose rhetoric and policies reinforce traditional gender roles can seem protective and stabilizing rather than restrictive. It’s why women who’ve internalized misogyny and the need for traditional gender roles weren’t outraged—and, in fact, cheered—when Trump said he would protect women “whether the women like it or not.” Unconsciously, even some independently-minded women believe that men know best; that women don’t truly know what’s good for them and need men’s protection.

Internalized misogyny is also why Trump’s confrontational approach and name-calling is often perceived as strong or assertive by his base, while much less offensive behavior among female leaders is perceived as aggressive. Every single female politician struggles to find just the right balance between strength and relatability as she tries to avoid being labeled soft or cold.

Identification with the aggressor

The term identification with the aggressor was coined by psychoanalyst Sándor Ferenczi and popularized by Anna Freud. In simple terms, it’s a defense mechanism in which someone facing oppression or victimization begins to empathize or identify with the source of their distress. Over time they may adopt characteristics or behaviors of that person. The increasingly overt racism and sexism we’ve seen among people in the past few years and since the election (think: “Your body my choice”) is an example of that. Identifying with an aggressor is a strategy for feeling less powerless and helps explain why people show tolerance of or collusion with their abusers. People of all genders can experience it.

While Donald Trump did not cause the forces in many Americans’ lives that feel overwhelming and beyond their control—the ever-shrinking middle class, skyrocketing education costs, and the outsourcing of formerly abundant blue collar jobs, for example—he is the man who claims he can fix all of it and “make America great again.” He not only offers hope, but he has shown time and again, that he is a bully, ruthlessly attacking and demeaning those who disagree with him; those who question his moral conduct and refuse to identify with him. So it can feel safer to align with him. And for women in particular, aligning with powerful figures and adopting biases against their own sex, might allow them to feel they’re part of the dominant group where they believe they won’t be targeted or judged. So even if women are put off by his offensive language and certain policies, it feels safe and empowering to join him.

It can also feel exciting:

Displaced Trangressiveness

Many people can relate to the wish to break rules and defy authority, perhaps especially women who have been conditioned for so long to be agreeable and who have heard repeatedly that their anger is “crazy”. So when Trump brazenly flouts social norms, he may be appealing to those transgressive wishes in us, and especially in conservative women who may have more deeply internalized the restrictions imposed on them from a young age. They can live vicariously through his vitriol, expressing aggression they don’t actually have to voice themselves—I’ll call it displaced transgressiveness. The sexist, racist, ugly urges we possess, can be displaced onto him through sentiments like, “I wouldn't put it that way, but he does have a point.” His proclamations to dismantle current systems and tear down the people in charge is exhilarating and full of possibility.

Still, justifying voting for a man who has admitted to sexual assault and is an adjudicated rapist, not to mention much of the other concerning rhetoric pulled from the playbook of 1930s Germany, requires some serious mental gymnastics. That’s where cognitive dissonance comes in.

Cognitive Dissonance

When we hold attitudes or act in ways that don’t align with our perceptions of ourself, we create an internal conflict called cognitive dissonance. This creates mental discomfort that’s difficult to tolerate and so we bend evidence to minimize the conflict. For example, someone who considers themselves honest but cheats on their taxes, tells themselves, “everyone does it so it’s okay,” or “I deserve it because I should have gotten that promotion.” In the case of women supporting Trump, it may sound something like: “He’s done some awfully sexist things, but like he said, the only thing standing between us and our country’s obliteration is him, so we must look forward.” “He may be assaulting Christian values, but he’s doing it for a good cause.” “He may be crude and unorthodox, but he’s a real American championing an uprising against the establishment—’the swamp’ of elites who don’t care about the real people.” Breaking the rules or being an asshole then becomes morally righteous and patriotic, like a leader leading its people out of totalitarianism—instead of into it. Voila, they have found a way to justify their support and maintain consistency in their self-perception as rational or principled voters.

Understanding who falls prey to these psychological mechanisms is complicated. It depends on the messages you got growing up, if and where you went to college, who you married, what media you’re exposed to, how disappointed or burned out you got trying to “have it all” (think Tradwives), how able you are to feed your family, and so many other factors. So yes, I feel betrayed by women who voted for Trump, but I also recognize patriarchy at work when I see it. As I say in Sexism & Sensibility, “A patriarchal society does its most effective work when it turns women against each other, making them afraid to be feminists and encouraging competition and distrust between them.” Standing in judgement will get us no where. Patriarchy infects all of our psyches so we must make sure we don’t become its foot soldiers, too.

***

Breaking the cycle

This is where parents come in. Talking to kids about gender bias and sexism is imperative if we don’t want patriarchy wreaking havoc on their psyches. But it’s tricky. With my own daughter, I worried that talking about it would rob her of the notion she lived in a fair world and create feelings of inferiority that weren’t yet there. Mostly, I stuck to pointing out counter-stereotypical role models, like a dad who stays home with his kids, rather than overt sexism. Like many of you, I made sure she had books with strong female characters, brought her to Women’s Marches, and bought her RBG paraphernalia. But over time I heard in her questions and disappointment a need to understand why “the girl never wins” on MasterChef Junior, or how Hillary could lose to a man who bragged about violating women, or why there are only female cheerleaders.

Similarly, I see how my teenage patients blame themselves when they’re slut-shamed (despite expressing a strong feminist identity), buy into their own fragility (even as they tout women are badasses), spend hours on their appearance (even as they express envy that boys can sleep an hour longer because they don’t have to “get ready”) and feel selfish when they protect their time, or mean when they feel anger. When we don’t address the double standards and the demeaning and objectifying experiences most girls face, we rob them of context and the permission to name what they’re experiencing, and so contribute to their confusion.

When we don’t acknowledge what they’re witnessing—that men have more power and prestige—we leave them to draw the conclusion that boys must be smarter and more important. By the time kids are six, they believe boys but not girls are “really, really smart.” As parents, we unwittingly reinforce these ideas with our own unconscious biases. Parents are two and a half times more likely to ask Google “Is my son gifted?” than “Is my daughter gifted?” and twice as likely to search “Is my daughter overweight?” Though it may not be conscious, the belief that boys should be smart and girls should be pretty runs deep.

A sunshiny “girls can do anything!” mindset is far from enough to protect them. We must talk about sexism so they understand that the imbalanced power dynamics they witness are systemic, not a natural outcome of biology.

How to talk to kids about sexism

Here are a few tips to make sure you’re raising girls who will be less likely to internalize misogyny, identify with an aggressor, and feel the need to be passively transgressive. For more insight and ideas, pick up a copy of my book, Sexism & Sensibility: Raising Empowered Resilient Girls in the Modern World.

USE TEACHABLE MOMENTS: To minimize the risk of kids absorbing and believing the misogny they experience, we can rely on the everyday sexism out there to raise awareness and challenge bias.

The media is a great place to start. When you’re co-watching a show with your kids, you can point out, for example, that female characters often use magic to solve problems, while male characters use STEM or their physicality. You might say, "They make it seem like girls in real life might not be able to solve problems because real girls don't have magic. But that's silly because we know girls are clever/good at science/fast on their feet too." You can point out how much focus is put on girls' appearance and weight at the expense of all the other amazing qualities about them and comment on how most people don't look the way they appear on television and social media without a team of helpers, lots of makeup, or filters. And yes, politics provides excellent examples to spark discussions about the double standards women face.

It's very powerful when you can point out bias in real life, which might sound like, "Hmm, did you notice how the doctor kept interrupting me but he didn't daddy? That could be because girls and women are interrupted a lot in this culture. It's not fair but when that happens, it's not because what you're saying doesn't matter. It's sexism that lots of women are fighting back against now." Or similarly, you might explain this dynamic to your son if you notice he dominates conversations or often interrupts his sister. This would need to be done gently without shaming him, as a way to ask him to pay attention and make room for those who have less of a voice in our culture. Calling in goes much further than calling out!

DE-EMPHASIZE ROMANCE: From an early age, we make romance disproportionately important to a girls’ well-being and sense of identity in a way we don’t for boys. We tease them about boys before they even know what a crush is and make marriage the grand prize—proof they’re valuable and legitimate. Meanwhile boys learn marriage is something to endure, or maybe enjoy second to their career ambitions. Too often girls date and marry boys who haven’t spent years preoccupied with marriage, launching the imbalance and inequality found in future relationships. We need to believe that girls are whole and capable in and of themselves. We need to hammer home what a good relationship looks like, and be truthful that marriage doesn’t make people happy—happy marriages make people happy. Otherwise they will believe any man is better than no man and that they require the protection and legitimizing of men.

ENCOURAGE SOLIDARITY: Girls learn early to compete for male attention (allowing boys to do little to earn admiration) and for a limited number of token spots at the top. It’s important to teach our children that a patriarchal culture is invested in girls and women not getting along. We’d be a powerful force if we all decided we wouldn’t put up with unfair treatment. But because we are called uptight, lame, prudish, whiny, abrasive etc., when we stick up for ourselves, we tend to normalize sexism and minimize our feelings. And being the girl who adapts most readily to sexist structures comes with rewards—they get to feel stronger and better than other girls and like “one of the boys.” They get to align with the dominant culture. We need them to know, though, that they and all women deserve equality and joining the oppressor never works.

LET GIRLS BE WHOLE: Good is the gold standard for girls, but not boys. We have trouble tolerating their anger and strong opinions because it doesn’t fit with the image of femininity we’ve been fed. We expect girls to privilege others’ feelings, perceptions, and comfort over their own. They should be nice, and never hurt anyone’s feelings. They should be modest, which means downplaying what they are good at. And above all, they should be likable and agreeable, even if it means suppressing their own needs and desires. By allowing them to embrace their whole humanity, they won’t need to take their feelings underground, displace them onto others, or express them passive aggressively.

Have you talked to your kids about gender bias and sexism? Let me know how it went in the comments.

1. (and racism, too, but that’s for another piece—not that the two can truly be separated). It’s important to acknowledge that sexism intersects with other forms of oppression, such as racism, ableism, and classism. These issues deserve attention and should be included in discussions with children and are included in Sexism & Sensibility.