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The libertarian magazine Reason holds a monthly happy hour here in Washington, which I stopped by once a few years ago. It was at a smoky bar (this was before the city banned smoking in bars), and the room was packed with a crowd that appeared to consist of approximately 92 men and, uh, me. I'm sure there were a few other women there, but between the massively skewed gender ratio, the look of those men, and the smoke, I lasted about three minutes at the event.I was reminded of this libertarian gender gap by this plaintive e-mail from the Ron Paul campaign desperately searching for Washington women supporters, as required D.C. election laws:
We need registered Republicans in DC to step forward NOW, especially women, if we want to put Dr. Paul on the ballot. I just got off the phone with the DC Board of Elections and Ethics who told me we cannot pick up the ballot petitions until we file our 16 men and 16 women delegate candidates and alternate delegate candidates for Dr. Paul. We still need four men and 15 women. She also told me that the McCain campaign has already done so (the only one so far). Are we going to let him have much of a head start? No!The libertarian gender gap has been a topic of some discussion among female libertarians, who wonder why their sisters are so repelled by their political philosophy. Writer Allison Brown concedes that she's come to "look forward to that 100,000 to 1 ratio at any libertarian get-togethers I may attend," but nonetheless concludes the problem will be hard to solve. "Becoming a libertarian requires women to put aside so much of what we were taught, how we were raised, what our basic instincts are."Indeed. My own sense of those drawn to Ron Paul from attending three of his Iowa events over the summer is that his supporters were very much in the Jesse Ventura-supporter mold, which is to say, a mix of iconoclastic, politically disconnected young men and older hard-core libertarians, with the women in attendence being mainly wives or girlfriends of the Paul supporters.We still need five men and 15 women to step forward as Ron Paul delegate candidates or alternate delegate candidates or Dr. Paul will not be on the ballot in DC. If you were a registered Republican in DC before September, please step up to the plate.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
