the dream of female solidarity is, and always has been, a myth. hillary clinton<u+2019>s campaign tried to tap into that dream. she dressed in white, evoking the suffragists and the hope of shattering the highest glass ceiling. she played up issues like child care and equal pay that polling showed had cross-party, cross-gender support. her ads pounded away at donald j. trump<u+2019>s misogyny, hoping to lure women who would be reminded of all they had suffered in their own lives. fifty-three percent of white women voted for mr. trump. the dream that women would vote for a woman overlooked the seductive pulls and interactions among party, class and racial identity that have long divided women as much as their gender was assumed to unite them. <u+201c>from the 19th century on, women saw themselves as different, cleaning up and perfecting the public sphere,<u+201d> said theda skocpol, a professor of sociology and government at harvard. <u+201c>the early suffragists believed as soon as the vote came in, women would show the same sense of solidarity. but that didn<u+2019>t prove to be true at all.<u+201d> the first rule of political scientists who study gender is that party identification is the surest predictor of how someone will vote. and at the end of the day, republican women voted republican. <u+201c>whether there<u+2019>s a d or an r in front of your name is way more a cue to the voters than the presence or absence of the y chromosome,<u+201d> said jennifer l. lawless, a professor of government at american university. celinda lake, a veteran democratic pollster, said, <u+201c>democrats never win white women.<u+201d> while democrats have won some blue-collar white women in the past, in this election, class emerged as a powerful and divisive force that swung decisively republican. all the talk about angry white men glossed over the fact that they were married to angry white women. education was the great divide, for women as for men. mr. trump won 62 percent of white women without college degrees; mrs. clinton, 34 percent. <u+201c>class shapes gender identity,<u+201d> said nancy isenberg, the author of <u+201c>white trash,<u+201d> which examined how elites have derided rural, working-class americans from the colonial era to this day. <u+201c>i think a lot of people who support trump think of themselves as being disinherited. they resent the fact that everything they believe in is mocked by the media elite, hollywood, those boogeymen. that resentment is shared by men and women.<u+201d> in the aftermath of the vote, the internet was flooded with plaintive and angry accusations of betrayal from african-americans and latinas who noted that they had voted for mrs. clinton by large majorities. <u+201c>that sense of betrayal is sincere and comes from a place in which there was an optimism about solidarity from white-collar women,<u+201d> said salamishah tillet, an associate professor of english and africana studies at the university of pennsylvania. <u+201c>it<u+2019>s not like black people or latino people aren<u+2019>t sexist and patriarchal. but when we thought about our self and collective best interest, we voted for clinton.<u+201d> racial fears and competition played a role for women as they did for men. <u+201c>there is a racial element to this,<u+201d> ms. isenberg said of the white working-class women<u+2019>s votes for mr. trump. <u+201c>they do what<u+2019>s right. go to church. try to support their families. they turn around and the rug is being pulled out from them. groups who they see as economic competition, african-americans and immigrants, they<u+2019>re getting an advantage that is not extended to poor rural whites.<u+201d> women were upset by mr. trump<u+2019>s behavior <u+2014> his mockery of a former miss universe, the <u+201c>access hollywood<u+201d> tape, accusations piling up <u+2014> across party and class lines. yet many voted for him anyway. of women who voted for mr. trump, 78 percent said they were bothered to some extent, and 11 percent a lot, by his treatment of women. two key constituencies mrs. clinton hoped might break from him chose him in the end <u+2014> republican suburban women overwhelmingly, and independent suburban women, 55 percent to mrs. clinton<u+2019>s 38 percent. at a trump rally in western pennsylvania a few days after the tape came out in october, many women said they didn<u+2019>t like his comments but dismissed them as how men talk when they<u+2019>re alone <u+2014> and some women, too. <u+201c>at times, donald trump is crass,<u+201d> said robbie matuszko, who attended the rally with her grown son. but she argued that mrs. clinton<u+2019>s husband had <u+201c>disgraced<u+201d> the white house. <u+201c>i would gladly see a woman in the white house,<u+201d> she said. <u+201c>and not under a desk in the white house.<u+201d> what did female trump voters care about more than any mythical idea of gender solidarity? exit polls show that they were most worried about immigration, terrorism and the impact of trade on jobs. they thought obamacare went too far, and the government was too intrusive. these are the kinds of issues that have motivated women to vote republican in past elections, said ms. lake, who wrote <u+201c>what do women want?<u+201d> with kellyanne conway, mr. trump<u+2019>s campaign manager. and women can be just as prone to gender stereotypes as men. <u+201c>we knew going into this election how much hatred there was for hillary, and a lot of that hatred was from women,<u+201d> said lynn povich, the author of <u+201c>the good girls revolt.<u+201d> <u+201c>why? because she didn<u+2019>t leave bill? because she didn<u+2019>t want to bake cookies? because she<u+2019>s a crook?<u+201d> exit polls and interviews showed that many women labeled her dishonest and untrustworthy; gender research has found that women are punished more than men for such traits. so women did not link arms, and white women did not turn out in droves to send a person to the white house who looked like them. but the eruption of anger at white women, and the idea that women abandoned a woman, are misplaced. ms. lake and several other analysts note that mrs. clinton won majorities of many other women <u+2014> married women, who have historically voted republican; college-educated women; minority women; unmarried women. the gender gap in voting <u+2014> 11 percentage points <u+2014> was the largest in recent history, tied only in 1996 in the race between bill clinton and bob dole, according to an analysis by the eagleton institute of politics at rutgers. in 12 battleground states, the analysis found, a majority of women voted for mrs. clinton. yet many remain wistful. the lure of the dream endures, as well as pain that sexism was somehow acceptable. <u+201c>people voted for obama out of hope and inspiration and proof that one is not racist,<u+201d> professor tillet said. <u+201c>i don<u+2019>t think people voted for hillary as proof they were not sexist. no one wants to be called a racist. but sexist? whatever.<u+201d> susan chira ( @susanchira ) is a senior correspondent and editor on gender issues for the new york times. join her on facebook . a version of this news analysis appears in print on november 13, 2016, on page sr7 of the new york edition with the headline: the myth of female solidarity. today's paper | subscribe
the myth of female solidarity
susan chira