Thread by @AlexandraErin

Hey, here's a quick reminder.

"I'm excited to vote for a woman!" isn't "I'm voting for this person because she's a woman."

"I'm voting for the woman!" isn't "I'm voting for this person because she's a woman."

"It's time for a woman to be president." isn't that, either.

The myth of "vagina voters" that circulated in response to HONEST GRASSROOTS ENTHUSIASM for Hillary Clinton in 2016 was demeaning, sexist, and based on... nothing. Literally nothing.

But people were so quick to believe it...

...that if you pointed out no one was saying they were voting for her because she was a woman, you'd be mobbed by people insisting "lots of people say it all the time" and they'd link you to quotes... saying different things.

Exactly.

And I swear John McCain honestly thought it worked that way. He was so smug the day before he introduced her.

I mean.

You're asking "why not vote for a woman just for being a woman, as long as there's not other reasons not to vote for her and she's good on issues that you care about" and

Honestly, "just" is rapidly becoming my least favorite four letter word.

And I know Mooseplainer didn't say "just" but

I'm not telling people not to care about the gender of politicians, that it doesn't affect lived experience or that lived experience doesn't affect policy decisions.

My whole point here is: statistically no one votes for a female candidate just because she's female.

It's a myth, it's a destructive myth that is used to dismiss support for female candidates (effectively demanding we DON'T vote for them), and it's a myth that should be easy to disprove, except that believing is seeing.

Even someone who has resolved to never vote for another male candidate again, or to never do so when there's another choice, isn't doing this. Unless they're picking at random among the remaining candidates, they've got other criteria than gender.

I'm not even getting into how "vagina voters" is both cissexist and dehumanizing, because statistically no one who believes anyone voted for Clinton "just because" she's a woman, or supports Warren or anybody else for the same reason, is ready to have those conversations.