Southern Indiana Business July-August 2020 | Page 29

IUS associate professor Rhonda
Wrzenski
But those perceptions and assumptions
were largely proven wrong, especially at
the onset.
“After women earned the right to vote,
what we see in history is that there really
wasn’t a mass upheaval. As a bloc, women
either did not vote or they didn’t vote substantially
different from men, and when
political parties realized this they made
less of an effort to recruit them by creating
appealing proposals,” Wrzenski said.
It was during the 1980s when a gender
gap began appearing in voting behavior, she
continued.
According to the Pew Research Center,
women voted at a slightly higher rate (3.2%
than men during the 2018 midterm elections.
It marked the fifth consecutive midterm
where women voted at a higher rate
than men.
Age-wise, the largest gap was among voters
ages 18-24. Women voters in that group
had a turnout of 35.3% in 2018, compared
to 29.5% for men.
As women voters have turned out at
higher rates, changes have occurred in how
candidates shape their campaigns.
“If you go back to the history of the women’s
movement and the right to vote, I think
that it has transformed politics and in a very
dramatic way, because issues and concerns
that maybe otherwise might not have been
heard, or not have been heard to the extent
that they deserved, have come to the forefront
because of that movement,” said Adam
Dickey, chair of the Floyd County Democratic
Party.
Securing the right to vote has led to a
major impact on other issues and movements,
he continued. For example, education
has been affected by women’s perspectives,
Dickey said.
Women’s involvement in the process
has ensured that those seeking office must
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