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Passion guided by reason's avatar

What evidence do you have to back up your opinion.

I am dismayed at people who can look at lists of 40 reasons the Harris campaign lost, and boil it all down to "she's a woman". There have been a great number of polls over the years on a number of issues, as well as focus groups to explore issues in greater depth than a poll can, asking what factors motivate voters. The sex of the candidate is never, a major factor. Two women have run for President of the US on a major party platform - one won the popular vote, the other was fairly close. Women, both conservative and liberal, are routinely elected at many levels of government.

Yet some people think that the sex of the presidential candidate is actually the determining factor. As best I can tell, that belief is free from objective evidence, based entirely on their "intuitive" beliefs about the psyche of voters.

The idea that even if a majority of both parties chose a female candidate, the country as a whole might vote instead for some write-in (male) candidate instead, does not seem to me to be grounded in rational assessment.

Once upon a time I would have celebrated a female President. Today, the sex of the President doesn't matter seriously to me, because it's just empty symbolism to pander to irrational biases.

I'm 100% open to a female president, and I have voted twice now for them BECAUSE I thought them the better candidate rather than because they were famle. But I would not vote for the worse candidate (in my estimation, obviously) just because she was female. Is that what you are advocating for?

(OK, searching myself, I would feel a small thrill if a female president whom I considered the best candidate were to win, but it's small side dish compared to the thrill of having what I considered the best candidate win). I didn't get either in this election, of course.

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