Not Single-Issue Voters

Reacting to the “Beyoncé voters” meme spawned by that awful Fox segment, Tanya Basu warns against seeing single women as a monolithic voting bloc:

The only thing that unites all single women is their marital status. That’s it.

Simply looking at their marital status doesn’t begin to speak to the complexity of their lives. Some have been married before. Some are in relationships. Some are engaged. Some have children. But at this moment, just about the only thing linking the struggling single mother working a minimum-wage job and the middle-aged businesswoman with a swanky Upper East Side apartment is the lack of jewelry on their left ring finger.

Basu also reminds us that female voters’ concerns do not always center on gender-related issues:

While many women do care a great deal about contraception and equal pay, the biggest concern most women have right now is how the leaders we elect will create a job-friendly environment. Since single women earn less than single men and married women, their jobs are extremely important, especially if they’re trying to get health insurance for themselves and/or their children. They were hit especially hard by unemployment during the Great Recession. And job security isn’t just on the minds of 20-somethings: Senior single women are facing increasing economic insecurity too. In other words, birth control isn’t what will get single women (or for that matter, anyone) to the polls come November. It’s jobs and economic stability.