Venus at the Ballot Box.

• Author: Young, Cathy
• Position: Women and social, economic, and foreign policy

Women may lean toward the "Mommy State," but their politics are more complex than pundits recognize.

The election deadlock of 2000 that provided such a surreal--and fitting--end to the Clinton era would not have happened if only one sex had gone to the polls. An all-male electorate would have handed George W. Bush a decisive victory, 53 percent to 42 percent. If only women voted, Al Gore would have won 54 percent to 43 percent. These numbers are unlikely to startle anyone who has followed American politics over the last two decades.

Women get the credit, or the blame, for sending Bill Clinton back to the White House in 1996, when exit polls showed Bob Dole with a 1 percent lead among men. Women are also more likely to vote for Democrats in congressional elections. There is a widespread perception that Republicans are the party of men and Democrats are the party of women. Paraphrasing John Gray's pop psychology bestsellers, you might call it Mars and Venus at the Ballot Box.

The gender gap as we know it first emerged in the early 1980s, and it was widely attributed to the Republicans' opposition to abortion and the Equal Rights Amendment. But the reality turned out to be much more complex. Poll after poll has shown little difference of opinion between women and men on such supposedly quintessential "women's issues" (though it is likely women attach more importance to them when deciding how to vote).

The real split has been on political issues that ostensibly have little to do with gender: Women are generally more dovish than men on foreign policy and more inclined to favor an active role for government in economic and social life. The stereotype, which like many stereotypes has some basis in reality, is that men want a government that will kick the crap out of the bad guys and otherwise leave people alone, while women want a government that will take care of people. As heterodox Democratic pundit Chris Matthews puts it, it's the Daddy Party vs. the Mommy Party.

Whether this stereotype is anti-male or anti-female depends, of course, on one's perspective. Feminists have often hailed "female values" as the key to a better world. In the mid-1990s, the male voters who delivered Congress to the Republicans were often caricatured by the liberal commentariat as "angry white males" panicked about losing their privilege, determined to keep the government away from their money and their guns, and clinging to their lone-cowboy fantasies.

In a 1996...