Rebecca Traister: In the U.S. ‘White Manhood Is Humanity,’ Anything Else ‘Separate Category’

COSTELLO: "They could end up being the most powerful voter in this year’s presidential election. I’m talking about single women. And Hillary Clinton knows that. It’s why she turned up on Comedy Central’s Broad City — a show about two single women. That’s pretty funny, you have to admit. All right, that’s right, this year’s presidential election could come down to the single American woman. ... according to writer Rebecca Traister, the author of this powerful New York magazine article. That’s because, quote, “Single women are taking up space in a world that was not designed for them. They make up a new republic, a new category of citizen. If the country is to flourish, we must make room for free women, and let go of the economic and social systems built around the presumption that no woman really counts unless she is married.”With me now, author of All the Single Ladies, Rebecca Traister. Welcome."
TRAISTER: "Thank you."
COSTELLO: "You know, we usually hear — we usually hear labels put on women, you know, like “soccer moms” and “welfare queens” and “Beyonce voters” and “security moms.” You never hear labels being applied to male voters. Why is that?"
TRAISTER: "Well, because male voters are just voters, you know. In the United States, white manhood is humanity, and everything else is kind of a separate category."
COSTELLO: "You’re not putting a label on single women voters, right? You’re just-"
TRAISTER: "No, part of what I’m saying is that they are also human, they are also a new category of, inhabitants and citizens of the United States and that they’re taking up space, and the country, it really was, its systems, its economic and social policies have been built around the assumption that we’re organized into these hetero marrying units. And that’s simply not the way that most Americans live anymore. And so one of the things you’re seeing reflected in the issues in the presidential election is that we need to rethink our policies in terms of how we support more women living — women and men living independently of marriage."
COSTELLO: "Yeah, and I think we have to change our perception of who the single woman is because in elections past I think it was assumed that a single woman was, you know, she lived with a child and she was on welfare."
COSTELLO: "So you really think that single women could decide this election?"
TRAISTER: "They absolutely, well,  they could play a huge part in it. In 2012, they were 23 percent of the electorate, and they voted for Barack Obama 67 percent to 31 percent over Mitt Romney. And this year there are projections that suggest there could be more unmarried women voters than married women voters. Getting them to the polls is a challenge. There are all kinds of reasons why single women have trouble voting with the consistency that married women do."
COSTELLO: "Now, are you talking about single women across all age groups because, you know, there’s that sentiment out there that young women are gravitating toward Bernie Sanders and they’re not appealing to Hillary Clinton? But is that really true?"
TRAISTER: "Well, what’s going to be true in the general election is that they are going to gravitate probably in enormous numbers to whichever-"
COSTELLO: "Democrat."
TRAISTER: "-Democratic candidate is the nominee. And it really depends on the early states. Single women gravitated hugely to Bernie Sanders over Hillary Clinton. Those are of course the predominantly white states where he has found so much of his intense support. Unmarried women in South Carolina in some of the Super Tuesday states, especially non-white, single women have gravitated toward Hillary Clinton. So it’s evened out a little bit. But, yes, you know, initially Bernie had the real advantage, I think, because he was offering a more aspirationally left vision. And that is, in part, something closer to a Nordic model of a social democracy that is actually something that would be good for the new way in which Americans are organized. And I think, whether or not they are politically that this is something that unmarried women understand that some of the social programs and economic benefits that he’s imagining."