Happy birthday, dear women’s vote! It was on April 21, 1944, exactly eighty years ago, that the right to vote was finally granted to the other 50 percent of the French population. Finally, we never really know which birthday to celebrate… Because women were only able to exercise this right for the first time a year later, on April 29, 1945, during the first round of municipal elections.
But precisely, what have women done with this right to vote over the last eighty years? 20 minutes took a look at some preconceived ideas on the subject to see if they ring true.
Women who vote “like the priest”?
You may know this, but one of the great pretexts used for not giving women the right to vote earlier was the fear – especially on the left – that they would vote “like the priest”. ‘that is to say on the right. It must be recognized that in the early years of women’s suffrage, until the 1960s, this was “partly true”. “In the 1950s, women voted more to the right, and in particular more for Christian Democratic-inspired parties, such as the MRP,” explains Mathieu Gallard, director of studies at the Ipsos polling institute.
The MRP? The Popular Republican Movement, one of the three major parties in the country at the time of Liberation. Centrist, Christian Democrat, but social and non-conservative. Moreover, at the Liberation, the MRP governed France in a coalition with the socialists and the communists, then the leading force in the country. So, “to say that women ‘voted like the priest’ is an exaggeration…” Mathieu Gallard breathes mockingly.
Women who vote more to the left?
It’s true, but less and less. “It’s becoming very marginal,” observes Mathieu Gallard. He just noticed the persistence of a female environmentalist overvote. In fact, in the 2022 presidential election, according to Ipsos, 34% of women voted for left-wing candidates, while men supported them at 30%. In 2017, there wasn’t even a difference.
In the 1970s, the freer entry of women into the labor market, but also their greater empowerment, the arrival of new social movements, notably feminist, “quite logically” changed women’s votes towards the left, comments the director of studies. It is also this change which was part of François Mitterrand’s victory in 1981.
“Today, beyond the elections, opinion is rarely played out on the question of gender,” explains Mathieu Gallard. The conditions of women and men have partly become closer, as have their opinions and electoral behavior. This is generally the case in Europe. Less so in the United States, notes the Ipsos pollster, where the Democrats still have a structural lead among women over the Republicans.
Women less on the far right?
That’s true, but it’s changed a little. “Historically, women vote less for the extreme right, and this is true in most countries,” says Mathieu Gallard. This was the case for the FN but since the arrival of Marine Le Pen at the head of the party, this has gradually changed. » So much so that in 2022, we no longer really see a difference. In the first round, men voted for Le Pen at 23% and women at… 23%, according to Ipsos. There remains a small difference in the second round, but limited: men voted for Le Pen at 43% and women at 41%.
Nevertheless, there is a newcomer on the scene: Éric Zemmour. And he has a real “gender gap” in his electorate, says our pollster. Men voted 9% for Zemmour on April 10, 2022, while women only voted 5% for him. It’s almost a single to double. Despite a “Marine effect”, women still vote less for the extreme right than the rest of the country.
Women voting for women?
Well no, not at all. Certainly, we have seen that Marine Le Pen changed the attitude of women towards the National Front, which became the National Rally. But because she is a woman or because Marine Le Pen’s political strategy is better suited to the female electorate? “His opposition to Islam, for example, is less direct than that of his father,” notes Mathieu Gallard. When she explains her opposition by a threat to the rights of women or sexual minorities, it helps to blunt the pushback effect for women. » This has been the case elsewhere in Europe. Particularly in the Netherlands with Pim Fortuyn in the early 2000s, or Geert Wilders today. Who, as we will have noted, are not women.
Beyond that, we see no effects. Nothing, for example, in 2007 on the vote for Ségolène Royal, the first candidate from a major party in the presidential election and the first woman in the second round. The Ipsos pollster also notes this in the 2016 American presidential election: facing Donald Trump, although questioned by several women, Hillary Clinton certainly won the women’s vote, but not more strongly than the Democrats did. ‘habit.