Deep Dive with Shawn C. Fettig

The XX Factor: How Women Are Reshaping American Politics (w/ Dr. Sara Chatfield)

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Dr. Sara Chatfield, a leading voice in gender politics from the University of Denver, and author of the book In Her Own Name: The Politics of Women's Rights Before Suffrage, joins Deep Dive to unpack the persistent gender gap in American politics—a divide that traces its roots back to the 1980s. We explore how shifts in male conservatism and Trumpism's focus on traditional masculinity have potentially steered more women toward the Democratic Party. As we look ahead to the 2024 election, this discussion reveals the intricate weave of political rhetoric, societal change, and how these elements continue to shape voter alignment in a rapidly evolving landscape.

In an election where reproductive rights are at the forefront of political discourse, we examine the Dobbs decision's fallout and its ripple effects on public opinion. The debate around abortion and reproductive health transcends identity politics, challenging preconceived notions and highlighting the fundamental nature of these issues. We also discuss JD Vance's stance on gender relations and the historical role of white women in reactionary politics, offering a nuanced perspective on how these dynamics play out in today's political arena.

From the resurgence of trans-exclusionary bathroom bills to the strategic maneuvers in Congress and the courts, we consider the effects of backlash and progress. While some areas of social policy are regressing, others are pushing forward, and these shifts have profound implications for the future. 

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Dr. Chatfield:

Historically, the gender gap emerged in the 1980s and when we look, if you look at the trend lines I'm just going to graph, which we can't show on a podcast, of course but when you look at the trend lines the gender gap emerges largely because men became more Republican or conservative, as opposed to women exhibiting some major change in behavior and changing to become way more progressive or democratic. So I think that's important to note too, that a lot of this came historically from behavior change among men, rather than something special or unique about women, about women.

Shawn:

Welcome to Deep Dive with me, sea C Feddick. In this 2024 election, much has been made about the potential gender gap, with conventional wisdom being that women tend to support Democrats and Democratic policies and men do the same for Republicans. But as to whether this historical gap is widening, the data is not really bearing it out. The gender gap in 2022 was pretty similar to the gaps in 2020 and 2018. And even as men continued to be more likely than women to favor GOP candidates in that year, republicans improved their performance among both groups compared with 2018. There is a divide, sure, and in many ways it does speak to deep-seated political, cultural and societal differences, as Republican leaders like Trump have doubled down on rhetoric that appeals to a certain brand of performative masculinity, on rhetoric that appeals to a certain brand of performative masculinity, one that emphasizes strength, dominance and traditional male roles. We tend to believe that women, particularly suburban women and younger women, have increasingly turned to the Democratic Party, that the focus on issues like reproductive rights, health care and equality resonates more deeply with women, as the right has adopted stances that seem to roll back the clock on these rights. Reporting this election cycle suggests that Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party as a whole see this as a part of a winning strategy to draw women into the Democratic fold in record numbers, and that Republicans have some heartburn about it. But is it true that Trump and Trumpism, republican policies, the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe is benefiting Democrats by drawing women into the party? And, if so, how and why does this matter?

Shawn:

The reality is that a widening gender gap, if it exists, could have profound implications for the future of American partisanship and democracy. If more women align with the Democratic Party, while men, especially white men without college degrees, rally behind Trumpism and the politics of grievance, we should expect to see an even sharper polarization between the parties, one that's increasingly gendered. What we're left with, then, is a political landscape where the right has cultivated a kind of gendered us-versus-them mentality, often framed as a defense of masculinity under threat. Meanwhile, women, who are also some of the most engaged voters and activists, could grow more organized in their opposition to this brand of politics and find an enduring political home with the left, and that has implications for polarization, division policy and truly American democracy itself.

Shawn:

My guest today is Dr Sara Chatfield, associate professor at the University of Denver, leading expert in gender politics and author of the book in her own name the Politics of Women's Rights Before Suffrage. In our conversation, we discuss how we got here, if the gender gap exists and, if it does, where this trend might lead us and what it means for the future of American democracy. All right, if you like this episode, or any episode, please give it a like, share and follow on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please feel free to email me at deepdivewithshawn at gmailcom. Let's do a deep dive, dr Chatfield. Thanks for being here. How are you?

Dr. Chatfield:

I'm doing well. How are you?

Shawn:

I'm doing well as well. I hear you have some wildfire smoke there.

Dr. Chatfield:

We do. Yeah, Denver is pretty gross air at the moment.

Shawn:

Is that typical to go this late into the year?

Dr. Chatfield:

I feel like it's happened quite a few years in the fall, but it varies every year as to where the fires are and how the wind is blowing.

Shawn:

Yeah, I do remember that from when I lived there. I live in Seattle now and we've had a couple years of it's been okay, but when it's not okay, I sympathize with you.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, not very fun if you're anybody, but especially someone with asthma like me.

Shawn:

Well, yeah, anybody who breathes air it's not good, but if you have exacerbating conditions, I sympathize. Okay, let's do this. There have always been cleavages in politics. That's really part of the game, right? Like identifying where people or groups disagree or don't necessarily, you know, see something the same way and then trying to maximize your vote share on one side of that equation.

Shawn:

You know, I think that we like to think that politics is about the good of the whole or about some kind of true conviction on the part of politicians, and sometimes that might be true, but I think in reality it really does come down to identifying and sometimes exploiting divisions, at least in our contemporary politics.

Shawn:

Race has been exploited, sexuality has been exploited, war is exploited, and today gender is being exploited, and this isn't new. But the intensity with which the Republican Party is leaning into some performative aspect of masculinity, I think, is really widening a gender gap in our politics that's probably always been there to some degree, and I think that has a lot of implications, and so this is your expertise, so I'm glad to have you here to talk about it, Thank you. So I can't really escape this idea, that masculinity and the idea of a man and a woman and the roles that we assign to them. That's always been part of our politics, no-transcript. But they're stealing work and resources from hardworking or responsible people and that typically means like white men.

Shawn:

Sexuality politics obviously has a gendered component, but then, like war politics, that's you know about might and muscle control power, and then things like compromise and negotiation are seen as less masculine. So I guess the only reason I'm mentioning this is I just want to acknowledge upfront that when we talk about gender politics, we're not just talking about issues that are important to men and issues that are important to women. We're really kind of talking about the whole ballgame, right?

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think I'll talk more about this as we get into some of the questions that you have for me. But I think that's particularly true when we look at some of these issues that we, common sense wise, might think are very gendered, but actually there may be other issues that are driving the gender gap that aren't so obvious.

Shawn:

That's an interesting way to think about this, because I think one way to think about this and both of these are true that all of our politics could be funneled through a category of gender politics right, but that also the flip is true, that all of our gender politics could also be funneling through a whole bunch of other lenses as well.

Shawn:

Right, absolutely. But before we get there, I guess I want to lay a little bit of groundwork, because when we think about gender politics, I think if you don't put a lot of structure around that, what people think about is the role of a man, the role of a woman, especially in a family. And so when we hear figures like JD Vance talking about what a family should look like, it seems very tangibly frightening that the policy outcome of that is something like, literally, this sounds crazy, but that, you know, maybe women aren't allowed to work anymore, right, and their jobs are in the home. But to get there to even have that conversation, I guess it would make sense to understand the evolution of gender politics in the United States. So what has shaped how we talk about this and how do you think that it's still influencing our politics today? And if there's a better way to say this than gender politics, please?

Dr. Chatfield:

No, I mean, I think that's totally fine, but I do think when we talk about gender politics and the women's vote, it's making me think back to a TV interview that I did the last presidential election cycle, in which the anchor asked me you know, how can candidates be appealing to women? And my answer was they can't. There's not a way to appeal to women voters because women are extremely diverse as a category of voter and their votes are just not extremely predictable based solely on their gender. And because they're such a diverse group, other factors, as you were talking about earlier, such as their race, their religion, their partisanship sometimes, and even often, play a larger role in their vote choice than their gender, and that's been historically true too.

Dr. Chatfield:

Women have never really been a solid voting bloc for just one party, and you've seen women on both sides of important quote unquote gender politics or women's rights issues, like suffrage, like reproductive rights. Women don't all line up on one side that we might think of as. Oh well, this is in their interest, women are going to support this, but in fact, there are women out there who probably really appreciate JD Vance's view of the family and want that, and you can take a look on social media. This really interesting phenomenon of these influencers called trad wives it's just one example of this. These tend to be white and generally are very conservative women who are influencing around the idea of bringing back housewives as the ideal and making a lot of money from doing it, because this content actually appeals to a lot of women, and so I think it is important to recognize that it's not just one type of woman voter that you can do some magical thing to appeal to.

Shawn:

Can we talk a little bit about this trad wife thing, magical thing to appeal to. Can we talk a little bit about this trad wife thing? Because the folks that are you mentioned social media influencers and I want to hone in on that because I feel like those are exactly the types of folks that, in a trad wife world, would not be allowed to be doing what they're doing.

Dr. Chatfield:

Oh, absolutely, so it feels oxymoronic to me.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, no, it's very funny because, of course, these are people that are working for money to promote this view, and I always think it's very interesting when you see women in politics or just society, in commercial society, which I would more categorize that as working in ways that to me could feel like, okay, you're like working against your interest in some way, but obviously they don't see it that way. So I think there's something deeper and more complex to it that we do need to take seriously and not just say, oh, they're hypocritical, because I think there is something deeper to it in at least some cases. I'm not saying for every person out there, but yeah.

Shawn:

One of the things that strikes me when you say that there's something deeper to it, and I think that's probably true, but it does strike me that there's a divergent point on these groups that do, seem to you know, share some common space right now, and so I'm talking about JD Vance, particularly in his view of, I suppose, what gender politics or gender relations should look like in the United States moving forward, and then in his camp right now are people that subscribe to that. It feels to me like at some point there's a divergent moment where those two no longer align. I guess I'm trying to figure out if JD Vance and his ilk are just skillfully or are very adept at selling something while also hiding the inherent kind of heinousness of it, or if there is truly, as you said, like something deeper that we're just missing, that gets lost to us.

Dr. Chatfield:

Well, I'll say a couple of things, I think.

Dr. Chatfield:

First, at a basic level, in the US, because we have a two-party system, every party is made up of viewpoints and attitudes that are going to diverge in pretty significant ways, and that's because US politics is coalition politics and so whichever side you more so align with, you're going to kind of end up in that camp, even if you might disagree quite strongly and diverge quite deeply on certain issues.

Dr. Chatfield:

So I don't think that in and of itself is unique to alignments on the right. But I'll also add you know there's a very deep history, particularly of white women being involved in reactionary politics. You can go back to white women in the South becoming very vocal and violent around not having their children go to integrated schools, right, and huge efforts and organization among white women against racial equality. So I think that's not the exact same issue as what we're looking at today, obviously, although I do think race certainly has something to do with some of these cleavages. But I guess I would just say I think this is not a new thing to see women aligning with conservative causes that we might not immediately think they quote unquote should identify with.

Shawn:

Is it fair to characterize gender politics as a form of identity politics?

Dr. Chatfield:

I hate the word identity politics in general, so I guess I would say no, because I don't. I don't really think anything is like. Obviously, all voters and all politicians bring their own identities to bear, regardless of what that identity is, and so I think it tends to be applied to whatever is seen as not the white male thing, and in a way that I think is often pretty unfair. So I wouldn't. But I also generally don't love that term or the way that we tend to use it in politics.

Dr. Chatfield:

I think there can be a tendency to make this distinction, and I heard someone make this distinction recently of you know, voters don't care about all this identity politics. They care about bread and butter issues like the prices of the grocery store. So why are we talking about stuff like abortion? I'm like, well, if you're dead because of an abortion ban, that was a bread and butter issue to you, because you're not alive anymore, right? And if that was your sister or your mother or your spouse, that matters to you too, even if you are not someone who could become pregnant. And so I just don't love the term.

Shawn:

Yeah, so I'm actually glad that this is where you're going with it, because the reason I'm asking is one I do think that our politics, when people talk about identity politics, I think what they're doing is often very reductive, and they're essentially saying that the equilibrium of politics comes from, you know, a white, straight man yeah, what they're concerned about and that anybody that doesn't identify within that the things that they're concerned about are ancillary to running the country or good politics. I feel like that's what's happening in this election, especially as it relates to reproductive health and abortion, which you touched a little bit on. But I do wonder how you think that dynamic is playing out in the United States and if you think this is a new not new, but if it's an enduring schism in our politics or if this is unique to the moment.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah. So specifically looking at the issue of abortion, I think this is a really interesting question as to how it relates to the gender gap, especially because, of course, that has become more hugely salient since Dobbs that overturned Roe v Wade. Ask survey questions and analyze the data, and I think something that's surprising to a lot of people is that pre-DOBS, historically, when we look at polling before DOBS, there simply has not been much of a gender gap on the issue of abortion, and since DOBS, support for legal abortion has increased, but that's true among both men and women and I would say there are some signs of gender divergence since DObs. But it really depends on which survey you look at. So, for example, in a Pew survey released in May of this year, 61% of men and 64% of women support legal abortion in all or most cases, so those numbers are really similar, not a big gender difference there.

Dr. Chatfield:

Gallup did a survey in a similar timeframe and broke out the numbers a little bit differently and they found that, while similar percentages of women and men support legal abortion in some cases, women are more likely than men to say that they support legal abortion in all cases, versus some limitations, and there's actually a very significant difference in their data 42% of women and only 28% of men, saying all cases. So I think this is a really evolving area of research that I'm going to be very interested to see as we get sort of the evolution of politics since Dobbs and see how that develops and then as survey firms keep asking these questions and asking them in different ways and we can kind of come to some understanding of what public opinion in this area looks like, because right now I think it's very dependent on which survey you're looking at as to whether there even is a significant gender gap here.

Shawn:

And I think there's also this question of salience of an issue. You know, I don't think surveys do a really good job of that. Absolutely, salience is a really tricky thing, and what I'm talking about here is like just how important something is to someone, how top of mind that is in their you know, in the context of our conversation, when casting a vote, right, and I don't think surveys have done a really good job, and I think the 2022 election was a prime example of how much surveys were missing the vote on salience and how much that would influence a vote, because it was expected to be a red wave, right, and it ended up being I guess a red ripple is what they called it and they attributed a lot of that to abortion. I do wonder if what we're seeing here is that women are placing higher salience on abortion that might be getting lost in some of these surveys than men are.

Dr. Chatfield:

So I think that's possible. Again, as I say, I think this is sort of an area where I really want to see more research. So when we think about higher salience, I don't think that it necessarily just means higher salience of abortion for women. It could be higher salience of abortion for women, could be higher salience of abortion for women and men, because obviously this is an issue that can affect anyone. Obviously, if someone's trans or non-binary, they could be pregnant even if they don't identify as a woman.

Dr. Chatfield:

People also care about their partners. They care about access to fertility treatments if they want to have kids and can't do that without something like IVF. And when we look at 2022, I think one of the key pieces of evidence I've looked at as far as the salience of abortion is all of these abortion measures that were on statewide ballots and that all won, even in places that otherwise we might think of as red places, right. However, if we look overall, the gender gap in voting in 2022 was about the same as 2020 and 2018. So it's not necessarily that the gender gap got bigger, but that doesn't mean that the issue of abortion didn't play some role in Republicans' underperformance in that election. It just may have been something that was salient to everyone.

Shawn:

Did you read the judge's decision out of Georgia overturning the abortion ban, or did you read anything?

Dr. Chatfield:

about that A little bit. Yeah, yeah, so I didn't read the whole thing, but yeah.

Shawn:

He made a lot of pointed remarks and comments and a handful of them were directly aimed at this bill. This piece of legislation was written by a man, it was co-sponsored by men, it was passed by men and now all men are standing in front of me arguing for it, and that that seemed particularly troubling to him. The reason I mention this is because you know there is this argument I grew up with this argument right that you know, visibility matters, having people like you in positions of power matters, and so for me, you know I would think about queer people. For women, it might be having more women in positions of power. Have you given any thought to the role of women in politics, the number of women in politics and their influence on, potentially, the way that we talk about some of these issues?

Dr. Chatfield:

influence on, potentially, the way that we talk about some of these issues. Personally, I do think it's really encouraging. One thing I'll say about it is the Democratic Party has more women in elective office compared to the Republican Party, but the Republican Party has also seen some serious gains in recent years and I think it is really interesting to look at some of those conservative women years. And I think it is really interesting to look at some of those conservative women. As I mentioned earlier in our conversation, it's not a new thing to have conservative women involved in the political sphere in various capacities, and they do bring really different viewpoints. I'm from Colorado, right, so Lauren Boebert comes from my state and she's presenting a very different perspective on issues and what it means to be a woman in politics than someone like Diana DeGette, who is our representative from Denver. So I think that's an interesting factor to think about is, as more women are coming into politics, that doesn't just mean more liberal women. There's women with a variety of viewpoints and putting out different visions of what it means to be a woman in political spaces.

Dr. Chatfield:

I also, along that line, want to mention some interesting research from Heather Anderson that's looking at partisanship as a social identity and in her attempts to understand the gender gap and why and we can talk about some other research on why there is a gender gap, but what she really looks at is the idea that greater representation of women among Democratic Party elected officials could help explain why women are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party, because they see themselves represented in that party in greater numbers and so they feel like they belong there, even completely separate from preferences over specific policies.

Dr. Chatfield:

And I do think this research suggests that, as the Republican Party is increasingly recruiting and electing women, that could potentially change, although, as I said, it's important to note that, while Republicans have made gains here, elected women are still more represented in the Democratic Party compared to the Republican Party. But I do think it's interesting to think about that dynamic going forward and if the Republican brand can change on this and elect more prominent women, does that change the feeling that the place women belong is in the Democratic Party? I don't know the answer to that, but I think it's something interesting to look for.

Shawn:

So I'm glad you bring this up, because I think there is. I want to say to a lot of people this is common knowledge, right, but it's false, which is that women tend, or that women are Democrats, men are Republicans. Right, obviously oversimplifying. I grew up with the same thing, right, that, like, queer people are Democrats and straight people are Republicans. But it makes me wonder if, when we talk about the gender gap, what we really gain from trying to understand gender politics, if anything.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, that's a really interesting question and I'll say I mean the gender gap does exist in the sense that women are consistently more likely to support Democratic candidates than men in their same demographic group and consistently more likely to identify, realize that that could be, you know, an 8 to 12 to 15 point difference, not 90-10, right? Historically, the gender gap emerged in the 1980s and when we look, if you look at the trend lines I'm just going to graph, which we can't show on a podcast, of course, but when you look at the trend lines, the gender gap emerges largely because men became more Republican or conservative, as opposed to women exhibiting some major change in behavior and changing to become way more progressive or democratic. So I think that's important to note too, that a lot of this came historically from behavior change among men, rather than something special or unique about women.

Shawn:

So this idea of the gender gap in our politics now and this year feels so acute and I want to circle back to that because I do wonder if this is a unique moment or not but I think about how, you know, politicians have exploited divisions within society.

Shawn:

They've identified others, they've othered people and how that is a dangerous game to play.

Shawn:

In addition to this conversation about the gender gap and gender politics this year, where, you know, the conversation around immigrants is really heated and has potential serious ramifications, not just for immigration policy but for literal immigrants living in the country.

Shawn:

Right, the conversation around, like trans folks right now is very dangerous, has potential implications for individuals, right, but there's something about this ramping up of, you know, and leaning into the gender divide and like driving a wedge in there. That feels like one because gender transcends everything else, or at least intersects with everything else. It feels like, if this is enduring, that it is really dangerous, not just for rhetoric and our politics and how we do our politics, but for the stability of our democracy. And I don't want to overstate this because I also do wonder to circle back. There are moments in history that were equally heated along the same issues right as they are today. This wedge that's being, you know, that's driven primarily by some type of a gender gap. If we actually do see a schism where the Republican Party becomes largely men and the Democratic Party becomes largely women and by that I mean overwhelming majorities on each side that just feels much more different than when we're talking about traditionally underrepresented groups.

Dr. Chatfield:

I guess I would challenge the premise of that, because I just don't really see any evidence to expect that the gender gap will be bigger in 2024 than in previous years.

Dr. Chatfield:

Obviously it's possible, and we have to wait to see what the exit poll is telling us but I don't necessarily think that's the case and in part that's because of what we've been talking about. Whether you're talking about women or men, they're both incredibly diverse groups and there are plenty of men who are very progressive on issues around abortion. I have actually just been seeing a social media campaign that's focusing on NFL players coming out in support of reproductive rights, and on the other side there are many very strong advocates of the pro-life position who are women Right. And so, even though I think abortion will likely play a major role in this election, I don't necessarily think that's because of the gender gap changing. Of course the gender gap changing, of course it's possible After 2016,. I will never try to predict an election outcome, but I currently don't see a lot of evidence that that gender gap is necessarily going to change in 2024.

Shawn:

But then it makes me wonder if the strategies that the Republicans or maybe we should just say Trump and Vance are employing and then you know Harris and Walz are employing Trump camp is trying to identify some type of male electorate for the Republican Party and Harris is reaching out directly to women If that's a strategy that ultimately makes sense, or is a winning strategy if, at the end of the day, they're not really dividing the electorate in any way that is any different than prior.

Dr. Chatfield:

Well, I think they are certainly appealing to different parts of the electorate, right and I'll say I'm not a campaign strategy expert by any means but certainly things like when JD Vance is in campaign messages making really clear distinctions between, for example, women who are mothers and caregivers versus the childless cat ladies who, he says, have no real investment in our future.

Dr. Chatfield:

Now, obviously that's going to be alienating to someone who identifies as a childless cat lady, but that may be something that really resonates with a conservative mother who is scared about discussion of race or trans rights in her child's school. I'm not saying that's the right position, but I don't think it's impossible that that message is appealing to some women. And on the other side, for sure, the Harris campaign has been making explicit appeals to women, but not only to women. My husband has a shirt that says white dudes for Harris right, and so that's something else the campaign is doing is to appeal to maybe a different version of masculinity from walls. So I guess I do think they need to be doing something dramatically new or different for it to be a campaign strategy that they think could be successful for them.

Shawn:

So we've talked about political affiliation, We've talked a little bit about policy as it relates to, I suppose, gender difference, but one other thing that really matters and this might be where there's strategy around this which is participation. Yes, and I wonder if we have any understanding of the difference between you know, of the gender gap when it comes to participation. That's irrespective of affiliation.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, so historically, like right after the 19th Amendment was ratified, women turned out to vote at lower rates than men, and that's probably not surprising because they had no socialization or sort of practice or habits around voting, since they previously hadn't had the right to vote. But what you see over time is women's turnout catching up to men and then actually around the time that the gender gap emerges, in the 1980s women actually surpassed men in turnout and now turnout at not hugely higher numbers, but slightly higher numbers than men.

Shawn:

Not hugely higher numbers, but slightly higher numbers than men. One of the other things that I'm hearing quite often is that the extreme kind of right turn of the Republican Party and, I suppose, changes within the when it comes to LGBTQ rights, women's rights, civil rights, etc. That it was just too much, too fast and the Republican Party is responding to that. There's a little part of me that feels like this has always been a bit of conservative politics, this has always been kind of the goal of conservative policy and that right now it just seems within grasp or it seems as if they're, like I mentioned earlier, a potential tipping point and it might all be lost to them forever and so they're just ratcheting it up because of that dynamic and it's not necessarily a backlash. But if we consider this in the context of the evolution of women's rights and women's politics and participation in the United States, how do you think about this?

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, so I think it's a little bit of both. I mean, when we look at US history broadly, there's throughout history patterns of progress and backlash and progress and backlash. So I don't think that's some new pattern that's suddenly emerging in 2024. And there's definitely also some pretty clear examples of backlash. For my own research, one of the areas I've looked at is trans-exclusionary bathroom bills and in sex, and there's actually a large progressive backlash to that, with big responses from businesses, the NCAA, saying we won't play playoff games in your state if you don't get rid of this. They ultimately repeal that.

Dr. Chatfield:

And then there's this period where states are reluctant to pass more bathroom bills I think in part because of that response, and you don't see them for a while, and you even had commentators writing things like the bathroom bill era is over, it's done. But then in the past two and a half three years, these have emerged in huge force, with many states now not just limited to the South passing bathroom bills that are increasingly punitive. And one of the things that seems to have been a response or a backlash to is to Biden liberalizing administrative rules around trans kids in particular and extending sex discrimination policies to extend to gender identity and requiring schools to make more accommodations for trans and gender nonconforming students to be able to have access to bathrooms, and so that seems to be a part of that story. Is that that is a direct backlash to him doing that? That being said, I don't think it means he shouldn't have done that. It's really important for trans kids in our school systems, but I do think there is a clear action backlash pattern there and, of course, at the same time, a lot of what we're seeing generally in our politics today that's so concerning has very deep roots in our history.

Dr. Chatfield:

Things like political violence and voter suppression are not some brand new development. In the past few years. We fought a civil war Right and then, during the Jim Crow period, had very extreme voter suppression of black voters. The Jim Crow period had very extreme voter suppression of Black voters. So I don't think it's an either or of. Is this part of our American identity or is this a backlash? I think it's kind of. These patterns of progress and backlash are part of our US political identity and history.

Shawn:

So it does feel like we're standing at a precarious moment. You know like sometimes this is cast as the future is potentially. You know the handmaid's tale, but another argument is that you know it's always darkest before the dawn right, and so you know there's quite potential that we have this battle and then that just breaks us free of some of the most oppressive and repressive policies that are either have been implemented or are being floated. But you know there is the potential that we could be looking at some of the worst of Project 2025 becoming our political and legal landscape you just mentioned. You know this kind of ebb and flow and some of the things that we've gone through before. So, given that and your understanding of how this stuff has evolved over time, what are the types of things that you're looking for to help us understand how this might play out or how it might influence our political and legal landscape moving forward?

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah. So one of the things I have found to be really interesting about the abortion rights issue, which at the moment is, in the realm of federalism, to large extent right, this has been left for now to states. Although I don't, I certainly do not think it's impossible that Republicans, if they win large enough majorities, will move to nationalized abortion bans. So I'm not saying that can't happen, but for right now, what I think is interesting is, in the judicial politics field, we often talk about this idea of the courts aren't really very powerful because they ultimately can't enforce their decisions. And you can look at a case like Brown v Board of Education school desegregation and say, well, in that case the court made this very important decision and that may have been symbolically important, but it was not actually able to be enforced until federal officials made the decision to use federal resources to enforce it. And so it's been an interesting question to me as to why the courts do seem to have been so powerful in the abortion rights arena, and I think part of it is just the structure of this particular issue where, because of the way that the court ruled on abortion, a state like Texas that wants to put in very draconian restrictions can do so and because there's a majority to put that into place and a court that's not willing to overturn it. They just said they won't even allow for a federal rule that allows for women's lives to be saved in a medical emergency in an ER room. They can just do that.

Dr. Chatfield:

And if you live in Texas, your choices are move leave if you have a medical emergency, which may or may not be possible either because of your health situation, your economic situation, your family situation, etc.

Dr. Chatfield:

Or you just have to suffer right and be in that situation. And then, if you're in a state like Colorado, which is more protective of abortion rights, the main outcome here is that our clinics have been overwhelmed with patients coming from out of state, increasing waiting times both for local and non-local patients, and so the federal structure in this case, I think, works in an interesting way on this issue, where courts have been able to be a lot more impactful than we might think so in other issue areas, and because Congress has not been able to respond and I think this is also a problem on the part of thinking about the structure of Congress, malapportionment in the Senate, gerrymandering in the House. This is an issue that nationwide, strong majorities support abortion rights, but Congress can't pass a federal law on it and isn't passing a federal law on it, even though that's what a majority would want. And so it's an interesting intersection of an issue where the structure of federalism kind of works against the issue and where the makeup of Congress is also working against the national solution.

Shawn:

So I think, for better or worse and I can't think of a more delicate way to say this right now but you know, like abortion is kind of sucking the oxygen out of the room, like there's a lot of other pretty insidious shit happening. Yeah, you mentioned bathroom bills and uh, by and large there's there's been just an avalanche of anti-lgbtq legislation that's been passing, and then there's things that are a little outside of the conversation today, things like book bans, climate change, denialism, all that stuff that just isn't getting the same amount of attention now. And since I don't follow this and I don't study this stuff, I don't know if it's because it's tempering or if it's just it can't, it can't get any breathing room because of some of the other larger issues and it's an election year. So, to that end, I am a fatalist. I am terrified, and that we could be staring down something like the Handmaid's Tale Considering what you study, what gives you some type of hope?

Dr. Chatfield:

I guess on a personal level, what gives me a lot of hope is like my kid and knowing young people who are really impressive to me. My daughter is six and I had a great conversation with her after Harris was nominated for the Democratic Party and I was telling her about that, showing her a picture, and she said you know, mommy, I learned last year in kindergarten that we've never had a girl president, but now are we going to have a girl president. And just the impact of having role models for young women and girls and hearing my students talk about politics and be very engaged and thoughtful and not just repeating misinformation and talking points, but being able to be critical and thoughtful about these issues, does give me hope. Of course, that's anecdotal and that's people I know and people in my life, so I don't know if it speaks to the broader concerns about our politics, but certainly on a personal level I guess I would say those are the things that give me hope.

Shawn:

Final question Do you have time for it?

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah.

Shawn:

Okay, what's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately? It can be related to this topic, but it doesn't have to be.

Dr. Chatfield:

Well related to political history at least. The book I've been reading recently that I am loving is Race Removal and the Right to Remain by Samantha Seeley, and it examines the history of forced migration, drawing explicit connections between Native and Black experiences, and there are so many interesting connections between the rhetoric that she is talking about and her research that's historical to the contemporary day and it's very depressing. So it's not on the hopeful side, but I would definitely recommend it to readers. And then, on the totally unrelated side, I just got to put a call out there for Golden Bachelorette.

Shawn:

No, really. Yes, I have never watched Bachelor, bachelorette or either of these, but I am. I have a handful of people that just swear by it.

Dr. Chatfield:

I mean it's pure trash, but it's very addictive.

Shawn:

I was going to ask is it like, is there like quality to it, or quality to it, or is this just a little bit of escapism?

Dr. Chatfield:

Mostly escapism. The current series that they're doing is an older woman and older men are her set of suitors. It's actually quite interesting in regard to what you opened up with of this idea of alternate visions of masculinity, because the kind of vulnerability about loss many of the men on the show of course they're all single because they're on a dating show so many of them are well, you never know.

Dr. Chatfield:

Well, we hope they're single. They're pretending to be single, um, but many of them are widowers and talking about grief and um, the friendships among them are just like very lovely and heartwarming to see and, I think, an interesting, just an interesting model of a different view of masculinity, probably because they were the sort of person who was nominated by their kid to go on the show.

Shawn:

Oh man, like this happens to me, where I'm like, oh, I've never done that, and then somebody you know explains it from their perspective and I'm like, well, I'm going to be watching the Golden Bachelorette tonight, you know, just give it one episode and see what you think. I have that type of personality. I don't want to say it's addictive, but I can get sucked into something and then afterwards I'm like what did I get out of that?

Dr. Chatfield:

I know the feeling.

Shawn:

Dr Chatfield, I know I kind of took you all over the place, but I appreciate you taking the time to have a conversation with me and I guess we'll see how this plays out.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yep, we're gonna have to be glued to our televisions on election night evening, do you do that? Oh, yes.

Shawn:

I can't. I can't watch Trump's debates either, so I don't watch the debates. I get too anxious. I remember that chilling, horrible feeling at like 9 pm on that night in 2016.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, we had. Several folks from the department were at this particular bar that none of us have ever returned to watching together, and as things went bad we just all sort of like drifted away and then we refused to watch any election night coverage with each other.

Shawn:

It's truly, truly traumatic.

Dr. Chatfield:

Yeah, it was. It was traumatic, but yeah, I'm unable to not to not look. This year I will at least have. I'm teaching intro to US politics this quarter and I have my students following like 24 different close races to get them to focus on a little bit more than the presidential race. So they're looking at some governors, some House seats, stuff like that. So I'll be following those races too, which it'll be good to get me also thinking about down ballot, I think.

Shawn:

Yeah, rays of hope. Yeah, rays of hope. Roles, gender expression and liberty and freedom associated with gender intersect with the messages and tactics of both major parties, republicans and Democrats. Trumpism, with its appeal to a certain brand of masculinity, seems to have reinforced this divide, and it could be pushing many women further toward the Democratic Party. As we head into the 2024 election, time will tell the impact that this has, but the gender gap could play a critical role in shaping the outcome, with implications that stretch beyond a single election cycle, beyond this year.

Shawn:

And I don't know what that looks like if our policy debates, our political disagreements, our policy preferences are informed primarily by our gender disagreements, our policy preferences are informed primarily by our gender. But it does feel ominous. But I don't know, maybe that's just par for the course these days. We won't know until the dust settles after November 5th, after the election, how these cleavages manifest at the ballot box, and we won't know unless you actually vote. So you know, do vote All right. Check back next week for another episode of Deep Dive Chat. Soon, folks, thank you, thank you.

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Shawn C. Fettig

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