Los Angeles Times: More Women Rank Defense As Priority

[url]http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-women-defending-america0126jan25.story?coll=sns%2Dap%2Dnation%2Dheadlines[/url]

More Women Rank Defense As Priority
By EUN-KYUNG KIM
Associated Press Writer

January 25 2002, 11:33 PM PST

WASHINGTON -- In a stark reversal since the Sept. 11 attacks, women are now more
likely than men to consider national defense a top priority, according to a new
poll.

"Too many things are happening. We have let our guard down; we need to beef
things up," said Carol Drummonds, a 52-year-old paralegal in Birmingham, Ala. "I
always felt like we were prepared. I'm second-guessing now that maybe we're
not."

More women than men -- 57 percent to 46 percent -- named bolstering national
security as a top priority, according to a poll released this week by the Pew
Research Center for the People & the Press.

Last year, a poll showed only 42 percent of women were as worried about national
defense, compared with 53 percent of men.

"It's due entirely to the events of September 11," said Paul Herrnson, director
of the University of Maryland's Center for American Politics and Citizenship.

Men traditionally tend to be more hawkish on national defense and more likely
than women to give it higher priority, Herrnson said.

Since the terror attacks, however, women are less likely to see defense as a
question of armaments or going to war.

"It's now become an issue that deals with the safety of their home places. It's
a response to homeland security issues at a personal, my-family-security level,"
he said. "It has brought the issue down to a very basic personal level."

The attacks appear to have heightened protective instincts in women, who
traditionally have given a higher rating to education, health care and poverty
than men when listing domestic priorities.

"We have our kids to protect -- not just for my son, other children, other
people and their children," said Rachel Buy, a 26-year-old mother in Garden
Grove, Calif.

"We don't need to be scared going outside our house," she said. "If we go to any
type of city like Washington ..., if I want to take my son to the White House, I
don't want to be scared, don't want to be afraid."

-- continued --

Recent polls have reflected rising worries among women about national defense. A
poll released in November found that women, who traditionally are more skeptical
about increased military spending, were nearly as likely as men to favor more
money for U.S. forces.

Drummonds, the Alabama paralegal, said "it's just natural" for women to be
bothered more about the state of national defense.

"We're looking at our sons and husbands and fathers getting more involved in the
military," she said.

The Pew poll of 1,201 adults was taken Jan. 9-13 and has an error margin of plus
or minus 3.5 percentage points.
___

On the Net: Pew center: [url]http://www.people-press.org/[/url]
Copyright 2002 Associated Press

This is not necessarily a good thing. One has to wonder how many rights women are willing to give away for that "measure of safety". I get the feeling they are more interested in doing whatever it takes to give the powers that be more power to "protect" them. It's unlikely women will all of a sudden take a pro-gun stance.

I'd agree with mattja.  This is not necessairly good at all.  Women, who generally are uninformed on this subject, will make decisions (voting) on an emotional basis - not good for us.  Basically a politician can sell them drivel and they're likely to believe it.  This is nto to say that [i]all[/i] women are uninformed, but...

Remember, hysteria sells votes with the majority of the sheeple.

CMOS

mattja,
agree.