***HOF thread*** Why do a large minority of women vote Republican?

[YoungDemCA]

This was something that I had posted a little while back in response to another post in HOF, but it didn't get a response. So I am making it an OP, because I think it's an interesting topic. While President Obama won 55 percent of women voters in 2012, Mitt Romney still won 44 percent of them - according to exit polls. This result and others demonstrate that women do not necessarily embrace liberalism or feminism, by any means.

In my experience, women who vote Republican tend to be older, married, highly religious (read: conservative Christian - especially "born-again" evangelical Protestants, conservative Catholics, and Mormons), and - and this is almost universal among both men and women who vote Republican - white.

They very often either grew up in an especially right-wing, patriarchal and culturally homogeneous environment, where in a household, the man was expected to be the breadwinner and the woman was expected to be the homemaker. Additionally, they typically aren't as well-educated or (for lack of a better word) "worldly" as liberal women. I have an aunt who never went to college (but went to beauty school! ), whose parents were right-wing Republican activists in Southern California and took her to Republican rallies when she was young. Fast-forward to adulthood, and my aunt married my uncle (who is also a Republican, albeit of the country-club/business variety); my uncle later became a top executive and partner in his company and when he helped sell his company...well, let's just say they are doing very well now. That's kind of an extreme example, but you get the idea.

So to sum up: A lot of it is internalized sexism and privilege in areas other than gender (race, class, etc.), IMHO. Add in religious fundamentalism to the mix, and you have yourself a lot of of very right-wing women.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1255&pid=58547

I would just add that some women are just as narcissistic, selfish, and short-sighted in their perceptions of their self-interest - or indeed, the interests of society - as many men are. Who knew that women weren't a monolithic group?

Anyone else have any other theories, stories, or observations?