{"id":944,"date":"2009-06-25T14:51:19","date_gmt":"2009-06-25T14:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html"},"modified":"2009-06-25T14:51:19","modified_gmt":"2009-06-25T14:51:19","slug":"why-dont-women-politicians-hav","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html","title":{"rendered":"Why Don’t Women Politicians Have Affairs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Popular water-cooler theories:
\n1) For men, sex and power are very connected. On a caveman, evolutionary level, a key perk of being powerful is having sexual bounty. For women, sex isn’t about power. It’s about (I’ll let my women readers fill in the blank) _________.
\n2) Women actually care more about their kids. No mother would risk the disruption to the family and kids.
\n3) Women have been in power for less time and are more conscious of squandering the opportunity.
\n4) They do have affairs but are better at covering them up.
\n5) This is a statistical phenomenon. There are more male politicians. When half the Senate is women, half the affairs will involve women senators.
\nWhat’s your vote? Other theories?
\nUPDATE: James Taranto at the Wall Street Journal:<\/a><\/p>\n

“The real answer is that successful politicians, who usually are middle-aged or older, tend to have the qualities that make men superficially attractive to women (status and power) but to lack those that make women superficially attractive to men (youth and beauty).”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Popular water-cooler theories: 1) For men, sex and power are very connected. On a caveman, evolutionary level, a key perk of being powerful is having sexual bounty. For women, sex isn’t about power. It’s about (I’ll let my women readers fill in the blank) _________. 2) Women actually care more about their kids. No mother…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy Don't Women Politicians Have Affairs? - Steven Waldman<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why Don't Women Politicians Have Affairs? - Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Popular water-cooler theories: 1) For men, sex and power are very connected. On a caveman, evolutionary level, a key perk of being powerful is having sexual bounty. For women, sex isn’t about power. It’s about (I’ll let my women readers fill in the blank) _________. 2) Women actually care more about their kids. No mother…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Steven Waldman\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-06-25T14:51:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"swaldman\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why Don't Women Politicians Have Affairs? - Steven Waldman","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why Don't Women Politicians Have Affairs? - Steven Waldman","og_description":"Popular water-cooler theories: 1) For men, sex and power are very connected. On a caveman, evolutionary level, a key perk of being powerful is having sexual bounty. For women, sex isn’t about power. It’s about (I’ll let my women readers fill in the blank) _________. 2) Women actually care more about their kids. No mother…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html","og_site_name":"Steven Waldman","article_published_time":"2009-06-25T14:51:19+00:00","author":"swaldman","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html","name":"Why Don't Women Politicians Have Affairs? - Steven Waldman","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website"},"datePublished":"2009-06-25T14:51:19+00:00","dateModified":"2009-06-25T14:51:19+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2009\/06\/why-dont-women-politicians-hav.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why Don’t Women Politicians Have Affairs?"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/","name":"Steven Waldman","description":"Author of 'Founding Faith'","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/f14bd19925fcfcd0bd7c74a678fddded","name":"swaldman","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e7f\/e7f50c10d0832a00d2b7690a72d45b5ex96.jpg","caption":"swaldman"},"description":"Steven Waldman is the Editor-in-Chief and Co-Founder of Beliefnet. He's also the author of the Founding Faith: Politics, Providence, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America, which has been published by Random House. Before co-founding Beliefnet in 1999, Waldman was a political journalist, serving as National Editor of U.S. News & World Report and National Correspondent for Newsweek. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, National Review, The Atlantic, Slate, and many others.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/author\/swaldman"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}