But, as Donna Zaccaro, Ms. Ferraro’s daughter, succinctly put it in a recent phone interview: “Women don’t vote as a bloc.”
Cases in point: Despite the immense excitement around the Mondale-Ferraro ticket (when Mr. Mondale made the announcement, some polls showed he caught up to President Ronald Reagan’s lead in the polls, albeit briefly), it wasn’t enough to turn the tide and women still voted in large numbers for the incumbent. Likewise, in 2008, women didn’t flock to the McCain-Palin ticket just because there was a woman on it; many stuck instead to the all-male Obama-Biden ticket. And, more recently, Hillary Clinton’s candidacy didn’t benefit much from solidarity among women in 2016, when a majority of white women backed Mr. Trump instead.
And the assumption that Ms. Harris will somehow represent all of women’s issues is a notion that she herself dismissed on the podcast “Pod Save America,” explaining that so-called women’s issues aren’t something that can be separated from other issues and neatly placed on her desk to deal with.
“People will say, ‘Talk to us about women’s issues,’ to which I will respond: ‘You know, I am so glad you want to talk about the economy,’” she told Jon Favreau, the podcast host and former President Barack Obama’s onetime speechwriter. “Women’s issues should be everyone’s issues.”
Ms. Harris said that long before the coronavirus outbreak, not knowing then how relevant her words would be now — in the midst of a pandemic that has brought into focus how much of the economy hinges on things often dismissed as women’s issues, including child care and parental leave.
To properly address those concerns, Mr. Biden should be looking beyond the bottom of his ticket, suggested Ms. Dittmar, by committing to a gender-equal cabinet, perhaps, or giving women from different backgrounds and industries a chance to shape policies.
“He should be thinking about bringing the full diversity of women — and I mean that not only in terms of race but also generationally — to decision-making tables in his administration,” Ms. Dittmar said.