How did Nixon win a majority of woman voters in 1960!?

[RandomWonder]

According to Gallup, JFK won a majority of male voters, and Nixon won a majority of female voters!

Here is a link:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/9454/election-polls-vote-groups-19601964.aspx

How is this possible?

What do you guys think?

Another thing I noticed is that Johnson did better with females in 1964 than males. Is it because women voters liked moderates better at the time?

[LiberalJunkie]

Also amazing that Nixon won Independants by 14 points and still lost

[Mr.Phips]

Also amazing that Nixon won Independants by 14 points and still lost

When Democrats have a 49%-32% lead in party identification, it's not so surprising.  

[Beet]

It's spelled with an "e". "Independents."

Nixon was a supporter of the Equal Rights Amendment. Go figure.

[Oswald Acted Alone, You Kook]

They weren't shallow enough to only vote for a man for his looks back then.

[Thomas D]

It was a topsy turvey world back then. The north went GOP, the South went Democratic. Republicans did ok with blacks. It was just a crazy time.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

Nixon's low voice and rugged beard stubble beat out the metrosexual Kennedy.

[Napoleon]

Another thing I noticed is that Johnson did better with females in 1964 than males. Is it because women voters liked moderates better at the time?

Women don't care to blow sh**t up.

metrosexual Kennedy

[H. Ross Peron]

This might be because males were more likely to work in industrial jobs which were unionized.

[Ogre Mage]

Women's rights was not really in the national consciousness as a political issue in 1960.  IIRC, the first recorded appearance of the "gender gap" was in 1980, after the second-wave feminist battles of the 1970s had been boiling for a decade.  And those second-wavers operationalized their goals largely through the Democratic Party.

[bedstuy]

First off, polling from 1960 is not necessarily reliable, especially in subgroups.

My theory is the following: 

Women tend to like the more doveish candidate, which tends to create a gender gap normally.  In 1960, Kennedy was an exceptionally hawkish Democrat relative to the Republican compared to most modern Presidential elections.  So, there was less of pro-Dem gender gap on defense.

Female voter turnout was across the board lower than male voter turnout in the 1960s.  But, the women who did turnout were more affluent, married women who would trend Republican.

[King]

Women hating Southern white men were a Democratic pander group back then, you see.

But seriously, Mitt Romney would win a majority of women voters in 1960 demographics (90% white).

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

It is demographics as both the percentage of minority women having increased and the number of divorced and never married woman who lean Democratic more so then women overall having grown as well since that time.

Woman helped drive both Ike and Harding to their large victories.

[Middle-aged Europe]

No woman can resist the old Nixon charm.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think Mung Beans and bedstut got it.