Women and Politics

Report Outline
Reagan's ‘Woman Problem’
Women as Politicians
Political Women's Problems
Special Focus

Reagan's ‘Woman Problem’

Evidence of Gender Gap in Opinion Polls

As election day 1982 approaches, one of the hottest political topics is a phenomenon known as the “gender gap.” The results of the 1980 presidential election and numerous public opinion polls taken during President Reagan's first 20 months in office indicate a political parting-of-the-ways between men and women. Provoked by the president's opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and his agenda of social program cuts and increased military spending, women have reported higher negative evaluations of Reagan and the Republican Party than have men.

In a Harris Survey released Aug. 17, 65 percent of the women questioned and 58 percent of the men had a negative opinion of Reagan's job performance; 42 percent of the men and 34 percent of the women gave the president a positive rating. The numbers were consistent with those recorded in a March Harris poll, when women were also more negative (62 to 54 percent) and less positive (37 to 44 percent) than men about Reagan's job performance.

Sometimes pollsters will come up with different results to similar questions, but the gender gap appears to be no statistical fluke. The differences between the sexes in their attitudes toward Reagan recorded in an Aug. 17 Washington Post-ABC News poll were identical to those in the Harris Survey released the same day. In an Associated Press-NBC News poll released Aug. 9, 7 percent fewer women than men rated Reagan's job performance “excellent” or “good,” and 6 percent more saw him as “only fair” or “poor.” These results mesh with surveys conducted by the Gallup organization, CBS News-New York Times, and other pollsters.