Poll: Voters increasingly think women handle policy issues better than men

Woman voting.
(Image credit: iStock/razihusin)

When asked to compare the performance of male and female politicians on various aspects of holding elected office, most Americans rank them equally. But for those who say one gender performs better than the other, a new survey reported Monday at The Washington Post notes, women increasingly and consistently win the day.

The study polled voters' views on how each gender handles 12 specific policy issues, leadership, representation of their constituents, civility, and ethics. In each case, a majority or plurality ranked men and women equally. But even on traditionally "male" issues, like foreign affairs and gun regulations, more preferred women's approach than men's. Perhaps the most striking disparity was on civility, where 46 percent held the genders are equal, but 45 percent preferred women and only 9 percent preferred men.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.