Do women vote poorly?

There is a growing movement in Brazilian politics for the end of women’s suffrage. Statements by political influencers, and even the defense of “family voting” in the Yellow Book of the Missão Party, from MBL, stem from this phenomenon – and even motivated a formal complaint from the Women’s Caucus to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR). This schizophrenic wave emerged as a response to trends observed in women’s voting patterns, even as it embraces an absolutely senseless and backward solution.

Less than a century after the achievement of women’s suffrage in Brazil – a fundamental extension of every individual’s political freedom – the internet is being flooded with opinions against it. The questioning arose mainly from a bold statement by influencer Paulo Figueiredo – known for his support of the Bolsonaro family: he said that “women statistically vote badly.”

Figueiredo’s use of the term “statistically” is imprecise. “Voting badly” is not a category measurable by statistics – it is a value judgment about what constitutes a good political decision, and that judgment varies according to the ideology of whoever makes it. What he actually did was something else: he took real data on voting patterns and interpreted it through the lens of his own political convictions, as anyone on the right, center, or left would do with the same numbers.

What the data says about women’s voting is that women tend to support more spending on social welfare, health, and aid to the poor than men do. In practice, this means that women consistently vote for a bigger-state model. Although it is almost a crime in current political debate to claim that women and men are biologically different – and therefore act and react differently – it is precisely these differences that explain this data.

Researchers Schlesinger and Heldman published a study in the Journal of Politics pointing out that women’s and men’s emotional responses differ when facing social problems, as well as their perception of the fairness of existing institutions. Beyond the political field, scientists have been studying the possibility that women’s brains process compassion differently than men’s. What’s more: a study from the University of Haifa observed that oxytocin affects men and women differently in social contexts.

The uncomfortable truth is that interpreting data and saying that a group of people votes badly is part of individual freedom of expression. A person can say that young people, men, or the elderly vote badly – and that is different from advocating that they no longer be allowed to vote. I, personally, go further: most Brazilians vote badly. If that weren’t the reality, we wouldn’t have nearly 100 million people without access to sewage collection or dependent on the Bolsa Família program, with no prospect of a radical change in that scenario.

All of this inevitably influences the political ideology adopted by women and the public policies they will support. As a minarchist liberal who abhors the State, the data interpreted by Paulo Figueiredo bothers me in the same way – which is exactly why watching people advocate for the use of state apparatus to suppress women’s political participation outrages me even more than any social program I might disagree with.

The mistake is turning indignation into a proposal to strip away a political right, instead of contesting it in public debate. The very same vote that bothers them is used as a tool by politicians who want to grow the State. They use the exact same data to renew their mandates, expand the State, and push for ever more state intervention in private life. Both attempts make the same mistake: treating women as a vote to be manipulated, not as agents to be persuaded.

The answer will never be to suppress freedom. It is to educate, inform, and persuade. Organizations like LOLA Brasil, dedicated to training female leaders in the cause of liberty, are betting on exactly that: giving women the tools to reach their own political conclusions. It is good old-fashioned trust in individual judgment. In the end, the question was never whether women vote well or badly. It was whether anyone has the right to decide that for them. And the answer is direct and singular: no. They do not.

Originally published in Portuguese by Crusoé.