Deeply-rooted misogyny has a strong influence on the thinking of female voters, writes Marcie Bianco.
Why do white women support Roy Moore?
Of course, not all white women. But on the eve of the divisive Alabama Senate special election, a recent Washington Post-Schar School poll reveals a shocking, significant disparity between white women’s support of Moore versus their support of the Democratic candidate, Doug Jones. While the race remains virtually deadlocked, white women support the Republican candidate by a nearly 20 point margin. And Moore holds an incredible 35-point lead among white women without a college degree.
Moore, a 70-year-old former Alabama chief justice, stands accused of molesting and assaulting numerous teenage girls — one as young as 14 — in the 1970s. Moore defends these allegations as acts of seduction, and, in conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity, abdicated responsibility for his actions by implicitly blaming their mothers: “I don’t remember dating any girl without the permission of her mother,” he told Hannity.
So why would women — and specifically white women — support a political candidate who allegedly perpetrates such egregious violence against women and girls?
In fact, the phenomenon is nothing new. This acute cognitive dissonance has historical roots relating to how women have been conditioned to treat their own kind. It is what feminists identify as the consequences of patriarchy: the pervasiveness of the belief that men and women are born with two different sets of values and worth. When taken to the extreme, this belief holds that women are less than, and should be considered possessions of men to be used and abused as men please.
This historical pervasiveness spans time and place. But the Alabama election proves it also spans bodies: The belief that women are less than men, and that are property of men, is not only a belief harboured by men but by women as well.
For more read the full of article at The Euronews
