Same Sex Marriage Voluntary Vote: Women’s Participation

The results of the same sex marriage survey announced today show a remarkable pattern of women’s voting throughout the country. In every electorate, even the 17 majority NO electorates, women voluntarily voted at a significantly higher percentage than men, generally four to six percent higher. This shows a high level of engagement by women in civil society that helped to carry the YES vote to majority. Even more significantly, it shows a very high female participation rate on a social issue, often over 80 percent, compared with women’s support for a Republic generally running about 10 percent lower than that of men at around 35 to 40 percent. Women are not in favour of a Republic because they are disengaged from politics or don’t understand the question or its implications but, much more likely, because they don’t agree with the proposition. Republicans will need to get to the bottom of this in order to boost women’s acceptance of changing our system of government.