January 29, 2013
by Andrea Castillo
My elusive demographic, the young libertarian female, has been the subject of considerable attention within the libertarian blogosphere this month. What, everyone wants to know, are the causes of the relative lack of females within the libertarian movement? I have a theory.
A YouTube video created by Julie Borowski, who is more commonly known by the handle of her popular channel, TokenLibertarianGirl, reignited discussion over this persistent and presently unanswered question. In the first 30 seconds of the video, Borowski proposes a short explanation for the phenomenon. In her view, “women tend to be more concerned with being socially accepted and fitting in with their peers. They don’t want to be associated with anything outside of the mainstream.” For the remainder of the video, Borowski goes on to describe what she views as the false allures of the default political position of the average modern young educated woman: our cohort, she believes, is pressured to care more about access to free abortions-on-demand than about whether such an option would even be economically feasible to begin with.
Unfortunately, most of the resulting discussion surrounding this video honed in on what could be charitably described as a hastily-reasoned description of the ruling feminist paradigm with which Borowski believes young women are stuck for now. More interesting is her initial hypothesis: that young women, on average, tend to avoid adopting marginal ideologies.
The rest of the article can be found in The Umlaut .
Women make up 50% of the population. It may even be that women have a slight edge and are at 51% of the population.
So going by this statistic, 50% of Libertarian Party members should be women. However, REALITY is that no where near 50% of LP membership is women.
I don’t think that I’ve ever been to a Libertarian/libertarian meeting/event anywhere in the country where even close to 50% of those in attendance were women.
Sure, you’ll see a few women here and there, but that’s about it.
We’ve also discussed how there is a lack of non-white people in the Libertarian Party and movement. Well out of the non-white people in the party or movement of whom I am aware, and out of ones that I’ve met in person or seen at meetings or events, most of the non-white Libertarians/libertarians are men. It is an extreme rarity to find a non-white female who identifies themselves as a libertarian.
“Green_Liberal // Feb 10, 2013 at 11:27 am
My uneducated view is that if Libertarians are represented by basically tolerant, decent people like Gary Johnson, then eventually their movement will become more multi-cultural.”
Most Libertarians/libertarians are NOT people who would be be described as racist or sexist.
“NewFederalist // Feb 10, 2013 at 1:03 pm
With Tonie Nathan in ’72, Nancy Lord in ’92 and Jo Jorgensen in ’96 as vice presidential nominees I am not so sure I buy the ‘fact’ that women are NOT attracted to libertarianism. Could the party do better? Probably but only by explaining liberty and its benefits to everyone better.”
This doesn’t mean a whole lot. Sure, there are some women who are Libertarians, but the fact remains that the Libertarian Party and greater libertarian movement is predominantly comprised of men, and more specifically, white men.
I’d love to see more women get involved in the Libertarian Party and movement, and I’d love to see more non-white people get involved as well, but I’m just pointing out that ever since I joined the LP back in 1996, it has been a mostly white males club, and I think that it’s been that way for a long time.
I think that for the future growth of this party and movement it would be for the better if the party and movement were to attract a more diverse group of activists/supporters.
With Tonie Nathan in ’72, Nancy Lord in ’92 and Jo Jorgensen in ’96 as vice presidential nominees I am not so sure I buy the “fact” that women are NOT attracted to libertarianism. Could the party do better? Probably but only by explaining liberty and its benefits to everyone better.
My uneducated view is that if Libertarians are represented by basically tolerant, decent people like Gary Johnson, then eventually their movement will become more multi-cultural. The ideas will appeal to everyone as long as its certain that no individual deserves to be pre-judged or disadvantaged on account of race, sex, ethnicity, religion, or whatever.
Going off on a bit of a tangent, I think Ron Paul missed an opportunity to reach out to potential black allies in South Carolina and other Southern primaries on the drug and war issues. Unfortunately he never seems to attracted any significant black leaders into his camp, which was a pretty significant flaw in his strategy.
If Libertarians revert to the paleo strategy then it will remain a white male fringe patriarchal movement.
The Libertarians should try to find more women to run for office and model their views publicly.
I would pin down most women as progressive/liberal and most men as conservative…I would, but it wouldn’t be right to put an entire gender into a box just to label it.
@Fillmore Frugal – lol, you misogynist you. So, you are a white man who thinks if the sparse remnants of social services were eliminated that would cause a force an influx of women into the Libertarian Party? Rubbish.
But, I encourage you to continue to propagate this balderdash. It’s good for the Left, thanks!
Re # 8: Not that anyone asked. 🙂
RTAA @ 6: I guess I’m an exception to your comments in # 6 (but not to worry, like most libertarians, I’m quite used to being an exception). I met some Libertarians through a Libertarian friend (and I fess up, yes, it was Aaron Starr). I became very good friends with this couple and their friends, and had a few years to observe them “walk the walk”. By 2002 and
Dubya’s horrific presidency, I fled the Republican Party (surprise, surprise, I have never been a Democrat) because I now understood what libertarianism meant. I married a man I met at the party.
Entitlement hogs are the problem. Cut welfare and starve the pig; make it die or be self reliant.
The appeal of libertarianism for women may be even lower than the scant number of LP women indicates.
If we discount women who come to LP meetings because their boyfriends or husbands attend, how small a percentage would we be left with?
The Left has “women’s groups” which attract women of their own accord. The Right (and libertarianism) seem to attract women mostly through their men.
How many libertarian women were introduced to the LP by their husbands or boyfriends, vs. how many came to libertarianism by their own intellectual discovery?
AD @ #3: (Could be that women are just smarter than men.)
LOL, Arthur. As far as women having a more coherent grasp, I’ll have to ponder that for a while. Most of the women I know in the party are radicals, which, since I’m radical, I think is a more coherent view of libertarianism. I think there are a variety of reasons there are fewer women than men, and it’s a detriment to the party/philosophy.
Carla Howell ran as a strong Libertarian candidate several election cycles ago. She was, as Mr. DiBianca says above, a women which had a clear and coherent grasp on libertarian issues. Too bad MA was not interested in her less taxes, less government vision.
Polls certainly indicate that men are more likely to vote Libertarian than women.
But my own observation has been that, on average, female Libertarians seem to have a more clear and coherent grasp of libertarianism than males. I don’t know if others have noticed the same thing, and I don’t know why it would be. (Could be that women are just smarter than men.)
I make the above observation as somebody who has been in the Libertarian Party since 1996 and who has attended numerous libertarian meetings / events in multiple states.
“My elusive demographic, the young libertarian female, has been the subject of considerable attention within the libertarian blogosphere this month. What, everyone wants to know, are the causes of the relative lack of females within the libertarian movement?”
It is not just that there are a lack of women. Most libertarians are white men. It is pretty rare to see anyone who is not a white male at any kind of libertarian meeting. Even rarer than non-white males, are non-white females. It is an extreme rarity to see a non-white female at any kind of libertarian meeting or event.