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."
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