Message to Dems: Ditch the Lipstick-and-Panties Pitch



AlterNet.org

By Bella M. DePaulo



If
Democrats want to inspire single women to vote in November, they need
to lose the cutesy marketing slogans and talk about the issues.



It's
election season, and single women are all the rage these days. Pick up
your local newspaper or turn on the TV, some reporter will be carrying
on about the “Sex in the City” vote. What a difference four years and
one close presidential election can make.



. . .
Yet as a progressive single woman, I am troubled by this kind of hype.
The lipstick and panty pitch trivializes and caricatures the very
people liberal-leaning activists are out to recruit. To begin with,
single women are not all nightclub-hopping twenty-somethings;
two-thirds of them are 30 or older. And even those who are young have
more pressing concerns than their panties. These women skew toward the
lower end of the economic spectrum and are often single moms. They are
more worried about making a decent living, having affordable health
care and providing for their retirement than missing their manicure.



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