USA: Frauen fühlen sich freier

Der Vorwahlkampf in den Vereinigten Staaten ist inzwischen in voller Fahrt. Insbesondere die Vertreter der Demokratischen Partei profilieren sich derzeit über die feministische Achse, wie das neokonservative American Enterprise Institute berichtet:

The angle Democratic candidates are taking is that women lack freedom. According to John Edwards, "Today, too many women are separated from the opportunities of our country because of their gender." Hillary Clinton declares that the Bush "administration has acted to deny freedom to women around the world." The Democratic Party's Web site asserts that, "George W. Bush has said many times that he stands for 'freedom for all Americans' yet his policies and the policies of the Republican Party deny equal rights to women."

The examples we hear usually involve the workplace (women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men) or reproductive rights (Democrats will protect the freedom to have an abortion on demand at any point in a pregnancy, while the Republicans will not). These are mild versions of the more radical arguments, which claim that most of our social institutions - from families to churches - are designed to keep women shackled, and only a radical reordering of American society will set women free.

Soviel zur politischen Rhetorik. Die Umfragen allerdings sprechen eine ganz andere Sprache. Dort zeigt sich, dass Frauen sich in der amerikanischen Gesellschaft deutlich freier fühlen als Männer:

Debates between reasonable people rage on this topic, but we seldom stop to ask women how free they actually feel. When we do so, we get a surprise: It is women, not men, who feel the most freedom in America today.

Imagine a man and a woman who are identical in income, education, race, religion, politics, marital status and number of children. According to the General Social Survey, the man will be about 10 percentage points less likely to say he feels personally free than the woman. He will also be 13 points less likely to say that Americans in general are very free.

Nun bin ich bekanntlich kein Fan der Neokonservativen um George W. Bush, aber die Quelle, aus der sie in diesem Fall ihre Zahlen beziehen (der General Social Survey), ist politisch neutral; insofern sind diese Ergebnisse durchaus aufschlussreich. Es wäre interessant zu erfahren, wie eine solche Umfrage in Deutschland ausfiele.