The Personal as Political: Conservative Women and their Deep Stories

Abstract

Many conservative women feel largely unheard and unrepresented by the current political system. Out of the ten women who answered the question “do you feel adequately represented by your chosen political party?” only three said yes, and of those three, only one said that they felt fully represented by their chosen party. Of the majority who answered no, each gave thoughtful responses, ranging from suggestions for improvement to outpourings of anguish. One woman said, “I really try to stay out of politics because it's too painful.” Another young woman, a Mexican–American and a Jehovah's witness, confided in me that not only did she felt she lacked political representation, she felt she lacked any positive representation at all, saying “I don't feel that there is a lot of representation of minorities, and even more so religious minority women. The only representation that we have as Mexican women is that we get up in the morning and make tortillas and then getting slapped around by our abusive Mexican husband.” Perhaps most memorable was the young woman from central Virginia who became audibly upset as she said, “In the two-party system I feel completely ignored and I get really frustrated all the time. I feel failed by the political system. Both the Democrats and the Republicans are hypocrites and I think they're mainly just power hungry. They don't care about actually helping people.” [From Conclusion]