“These Women are not looking for Mr. Big”: The CJP Interview with Page Gardner

By CJP | December 10, 2007

Janes, what does the number 20 million mean to you? It’s not only the opening bid for private equity firms looking to acquire CJP (not nearly enough!), it’s also the number of single Janes who did not vote in the last election.

CJP would start an incredibly effective outreach and research organization to target you under-performing singles, if Page Gardner hadn’t already started Women’s Voices. Women Vote, the non-partisan group that will register 1 million unmarried women voters this election cycle.

She’s spent the last several years of her life figuring out who you single Janes are, what you want, and how to help you have your voting voices heard by the politicians who are just starting to figure out that you’re out there (I know, some people are slow, Janes). She also sat down with CJP to tell us all about it.

CJP: What was the impetus for starting WV.WV?

PG: In 2000, one of the things I did after the election was look at the exit polling data and I noticed that there was a stunning difference in terms of the participation rates between married and unmarried women, as well as a stunning difference in how they voted. Everyone talks about women voters, and as it turns out, as we have seen, there is no such thing as “women voters.” One of the major determinants of whether or not you vote is marital status.

CJP: Just to back up, normal people don’t go through exit polls, why were you doing that?

PG: My life has been between electoral politics and advocacy politics, and after the 2000 election, I wanted to understand voters in this country, as I have always done. I have also always had a particular interest in women voters.

CJP: Did you then create WV.WV?

PG: We did more research, and then I, with Christine Desser, co-directed WV.WV in 2004 as a project at the Tide Center. After our first cycle together, I took it out of the Tide Center and now it is its own 501(c)(3).

CJP: What did WV.WV do in 2004?

PG: We really began to understand how to reach women on their own; we began to understand what messages worked to motivate them to register to vote, and how to reach them culturally and politically to motivate them to increase their voting participation. There is a 9 percentage point difference in terms of registration rates of married and unmarried women, and there is a 13 percent

between their voting rates. So we began to understand how to go to them and bring registration materials to them, and fit into their lives, so they can begin to participate in the process in a way that makes sense to them and their lives.

CJP: When you talk about the 13 point difference, is that across all age groups?

PG: Yes. It’s consistent across all ages.

CJP: So the fundamental question is who are the single women? What do they look like?

PG: Single women mirror the overall population. They skew slightly older and slightly younger. They are a little more African American. But the major difference between married and unmarried women is in economic status. The average income of a single woman is $40,000 or less; 44 percent of households headed by single women make $30,000 or less. If you flip that to married women, 44 percent of married women live in households with an income of $75,000 or more. So there is an enormous economic differential.

And there’s an enormous lifestyle differential. These women know they’re on their own. They’re very proud of it, they’re proud of what they’re achieving, but they know at the end of the day there’s no safety net for them.

CJP: How many have children, are single moms?

PG: 20 percent, although the proportion of women under 45 is much higher.

CJP: So knowing who they are, what are their top issues?

PG: Health care. One out of five women on their own do not have any health insurance. Also, for women on their own with children 6-years-old or younger, half of those children live in poverty, and health care is a high cost for them. So health care is a consistent number one or two.

Also, minimum wage, anything dealing with their economic status drives them. Since September of ’05, they have wanted to bring the troops home from the war in Iraq. Like a lot of people, Iraq is their number one issue, but they are the most vehemently opposed group, not only because of what it’s doing, but because of the domestic opportunity costs.

CJP: What has kept single women away from the polls more so than married women?

PG: A large part of it has to do with the fact that they’re economically stretched. Think through the life of a single woman who wants to participate- she has slightly less money, she’s less likely to have her own car. So let’s say she needs to take off work, and maybe miss income and go vote. She needs to take public transportation, and then walk three or four blocks to look at a line that’s an hour or more before she’s up to vote. In the meantime, she’s looking at her watch, she’s missed work, maybe she has a child, the child’s in day care. So now it’s costing her money and she still needs to pick her child up after she’s waited in line to vote.

So in some respects, we make it a little hard to vote in this country. So, what do we do about it? We bring the ballots to you.

CJP: What do you mean by that?

PG: Twenty-eight states now offer no-excuse vote-by-mail. That’s an enormously important program for people in this country whose lives are stretched. If you have one job, if you have two jobs, even if you’re a two income family, it’s harder and harder. So we try and make it easy for women to vote. We bring registration applications to them. We bring vote-by-mail applications where the programs exist.

CJP: Do you physically bring them or send them?

PG: We send them. In states that don’t have that, we do traditional GOTV. We’ve been enormously successful. We’re going to register more than a million women on their own this cycle. We have an aggressive vote-by-mail program to bring the ballot box to them.

CJP: What is GOTV, for people who aren’t involved in politics?

PG: We reach people through mail and phone, encouraging them to vote. We also partner with other organizations with on-the-ground organizations in 25 states.

CJP: Where is the money coming from for that? It seems expensive.

PG: We get our money from foundations and individuals.

CJP: I’ve worked in politics and in campaigns, and never heard any talk of thinking about single women as a group of voters. Are you finding that’s changing, and is it greater awareness that’s bringing these women onto campaigns’ radars?

PG: Women on their own- single, widowed, divorced- are now 26 percent of the eligible electorate. They are now equal in number to married women.

There is not a campaign in this country worth its salt if they don’t understand the importance of the marriage gap in determining whether you vote and how you vote. If you do not understand that, you are not running a 21^st century campaign.

CJP: Are you seeing candidates, and I won’t ask you to name any, who are running 21^st century campaigns?

PG: I don’t think it’s serendipitous that you’re seeing campaigns either featuring single women in their commercials or talking about their experiences being raised by a single mom.

CJP: And when you talk about the single women who are struggling and who you are reaching out to, that’s a long way from the stereotype of a single women of “Sex and the City,” and shoes and boys. Is it important to change that perception?

PG: Absolutely. These women are not looking for Mr. Big.

CJP: For single women who have never voted before, what’s your biggest piece of advice about voting, if they feel overwhelmed at this point and don’t even know where to start?

PG: Come to our website, go to your website. At the end of the day, their voices will decide this election and they have an enormous opportunity to choose the course of this country.

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