Ever since Mother Jones, Salon, or whatever communist rag published a screed trying again to discredit libertarians, there has been talk about whether libertarianism has enough women. It has been noted that there is a gender imbalance. There are a lot of important questions to ask in a specific order, and facts to present.

Its important to ask if there even is a lack of women in the movement and if there is an imbalance. There is a yes and no to this. If you look at exit polls from the 2012 primaries, most of the candidates did not really have any gender gaps, except Ron Paul. In Iowa, he did five points better among men. In fact, he won Iowa among men. The same is true in New Hampshire, however he did not win there. Interestingly, Rick Santorum did noticeably better among women than men. Mitt Romney also did slightly better. Women are known to be more sympathetic to “gay marriage” in polls, which makes this curious. In Nevada, there was a nine point gap for Ron Paul. More currently, in a recent CNN poll, Rand Paul earned 13% among men and only 2% among men. Notably, my own frontrunner, Scott Walker, has a gender gap as well.

2012 Iowa GOP Caucus

At the polls, it becomes clear that women are not too friendly to libertarian candidates, but maybe that is just a sample bias. What about online? That answer should be pretty clear. There is the old joke that there are no women on the internet, and that may be approaching the truth. The anonymity of the internet allows people to say whatever they want and many women are indeed uncomfortable about this. Women are very emotion-centric beings, so this is only natural to react with aversion.

2012 New Hampshire GOP Primary

There are also libertarian meetups and conferences that attract a certain crowd. And this is where the conjecture starts to break down. I cant say for certain, but at the International Students for Liberty Conference, which I posted about twice, it had to be at least one-third to two-fifths women. I would be interested in seeing an actual breakdown. Women were noticeably present there. PorcFest is a bit different. It definitely has a more male feel to it, but again women are very present and noticeable. The attendees are also sometimes more put together than a conference of students.

2012 Nevada GOP Caucus

It is pretty clear that the answer is not as certain as it is made out to be. Maybe in the slacktivist part of libertarianism, its more male, but among the doers, women are there. The next question is whether this is unique to libertarianism. This may come as a surprise to some, but it isnt. Leftist outlets like to hue and cry about the lack of women in the conservative movement, and they are right. This is a fact and there is no need to dwell on it, which takes us to the left. Democrats in office are predominantly men, regardless of the type of office. Of the 44 Democratic US Senators, only 14 are women. If you add in the two Independents, its 14 out of 46. Of the 18 Democratic governors, only 3 are women.

2016 GOP National Poll

The far left will say the Democratic Party is right wing and blather on about that, but lets look at their glass house. I once attended a spinoff meeting from an Occupy group. One of the guys there, and I wish I had been recording, lamented the lack of not just women, but nonwhites. They actually had to give preference to both in speaking roles, which he felt was very progressive and not at all ironic. You can probably see in videos that Occutards are predominantly white males.

Perhaps, the only political movement that is majority women is, surprise surprise, feminism. Even there, men play a larger role than might be expected or wanted. The fact that feminists cant really complete their agenda is probably due to the lack of men to actually enforce a gendercide. This analysis of various movements leads us to the next question: is this even a problem to be concerned about?

Does it really matter if women are libertarians? It does to the extent that they have a voice and voting rights. If we lived in a monarchy or dictatorship or a free society, it would matter less. The primary purpose of women is to produce more humans. This IS sexist, but it is also fundamentally undeniable. If women are not having children, we will die off as a species. So is it really important for women to be libertarians? Not terribly, is what I think.

But why might we want libertarian women around? A lot of us think, at least subconsciously, that liberty is somewhat genetic. I am not convinced of this, and it will be covered in a future blog post. But if it is or isnt, it makes sense to not want to have political fights in a relationship or marriage (never mind the Democrats and Republicans happily marry all the time), and to want to pass that on to your children. I have in the past wanted a libertarian girlfriend and eventually wife. This is no longer the case. I once met a girl who was so apolitical that she didnt even care Obama was reelected. Her mother and sister cared more than her. I thought “Wow, I would never have to have a political debate with her. She would just nod and accept it.” Since then, I have been more keen on apolitical women than politically active ones. I am potentially open to libertarian women, but more interested in conservative women. Additionally, I intend to marry Jewish and that already crosses off a lot of options.

I have been on what could have been dates with libertarian women a few times. I always intended it to be professional, and they may have walked away disappointed. I have met some celebritarian women who thousands of male fans would kill to just buy a cup of coffee for. I hate to brag about this as a status thing and put down other men, but its to make a point. I didnt want them. I didnt thirst for them as many libertarian men and men in general do. That makes me a little different and pressures libertarian women to potentially come after me. Once or twice, my friends would say “She is perfect for you! You agree on everything!” I still dont want them. The last thing I want to come home to after a long day fighting the state is “waaah waaah, baby, the statists trolled me on my page”.

I believe and advise libertarian men not to get too caught up on finding the perfect libertarian woman. Dont pedestalize. Most women wont care what your views are or what you do, as long as you are doing something and make their life exciting and fulfilled. Most will still not agree and will harp on about how they want the ideal and to raise children, etc etc. Love and family are separate from politics, and thats important to remember.