Security Mom

The term security mom emerged in 2003 to describe a group of swing voters primarily concerned with national security. Said to have evolved from soccer moms after the September 11, 2001, attacks, security moms were predicted to determine the outcome of the 2004 presidential elections. However, research since that time has questioned the cohesive existence of this group, its characteristics, and its impact on election outcomes.

Who was this supposed security mom? According to the stereotype described by the media and political pundits, she was white, middle class, a married mother, a much coveted swing voter, and more fearful than men about the threat of war. September 11 had changed her political priorities and 2004 voting decisions from domestic concerns. She both affirmed the social construction that mother's primary concern and purpose was the protection of her children, and that parenthood changed a woman's voting priorities. However, she also contradicted the popular notion of motherhood as inherently pacifistic, for which the media provided a useful spin on the familiar political story of the gender gap in American politics.

The term was coined by Democratic Senator Joe Biden in early 2003, but Republican strategists such as Carl Rove and David Winston used security moms and NASCAR dads to frame the 2004 elections around national security, the major theme of the Bush campaign. However, though more women voted for Bush in 2004 than in 2000, mothers did not vote differently from childless women, they remained concerned about education and health care, and their priorities did not shift them more toward national security than before. Rather than a demographic reality, the much-discussed security mom could have been a construction intended to create a voting demographic rather than describe one. Nonetheless, she focused the national elections on military and foreign policy while drawing upon the rhetoric of gender and family.