What 'cancelling' your dad's vote says about the U.S. election's gender divide

Can you actually cancelsomeone else's vote? Not really, but in a tight presidential race in a deeply divided country, U.S. votersare still trying or at least making light of it.

With the U.S. election just days away,social media is rife with people claiming to be "cancelling out" the votes of family membersand friends with differing political views. It began with a GenZ TikTok trend that later spread to X where voters have beenpostingtongue-in-cheek videos saying they're cancelling the votes cast by their parents.

Specifically, most of the TikTok posts are about "voting to cancel your dad," the implication often being that the voter's father is more conservative. It's also inspired asub-trendof people posting about being grateful that they don't have to cancel out a vote. (And, because it'sthe internet, a sub-sub-trendof people sarcastically saying "how nice for you.")

On X, formerly known as Twitter, the trend has broadened further,where there are also a number of posts about cancelling your partner's vote.

"What do you mean you're on your way to 'cancel out your husband's vote?'You should be on your way to the courthouse. Divorce babe. Divorce," wrote Lexi LaFleur Brownon a post with more than 1.6 million views.

The posts are generally light in tone, butexperts have notedthatthey reflectthe vast gender divide in U.S. politics and the role that could play in what polling experts have called one of the mostgendered electionsin history.

• This Sunday, Cross CountryCheckupis asking:What would a Donald Trump victory mean to you? What would it mean for Canada?Fill outthis formandyoucould appear on the show or have your comment read on air.

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TheTikTok videos point to a serious concern the challenge of maintaining relationships across political lines but do so in a really lighthearted manner, says Zorianna Zurba, a pop culture expert andassistant professor inthe Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University.

"The choice here isdrastic," said Zurba. "They're using the language of TikTok to make light of a very uncomfortable and very serious situation."

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Walz's daughter jumps ontrend

In early voting so far, 1.2 million more women than men have voted across seven battleground states, according to data from analytics firm TargetSmart.That doesn't necessarily translate into Democratic gains.

But in the 2020 presidential election, 55 per centof women supported the Democratic ticket of Joe Biden and Harris, according toAP VoteCast, a survey of more than 110,000 voters. This year, men appear to be leaning toward Trump and women toward Harris, though the size of the gap varies across polls.

OnTuesday, Hope Walz jumped on the trend. The daughter of Democratic vice-presidential nominee Tim Walzposted a video on the Kamala HQTikTokaccount on why she doesn't have to cancel out her dad's vote.

"My dad is literally running for vice-president to protect the rights of women and girls, tackle climate change, lower costs for familiesand make Kamala Harris the next president of the United States," she wrote in the video, alongside a photo of her sitting on her dad's shoulders as a baby.

By Friday it already had more than six million views.

Cancelling your husband's vote

The gender divide is also the topic of a few recent ads encouraging female voters to make their own decisions. Pro-democracy organization the Lincoln Project recently releasedan ad called"The Secret,"in which two men think their wives are voting for Trump, but instead they vote for Harris.

In another ad narrated by JuliaRoberts,for the Evangelical voting advocacy group Vote Common Good,a woman whose husband appears to be a Trump supporter secretly votes for Harris.

George Clooney narrates asecond adfor the organization, in which male voters walk into a polling stationsaying "Let'smakeAmerica great again,"and one secretly votes for Harris after looking at his daughter.

"Before you castyour vote in this election, think about how it will impact the people you care about the most," Clooney says as a young girl waves and says, "Daddy!" to the man voting.

There's a very specific talking point coming out of Conservative and right-wing media, supported by the manosphere culture,that it "goes againstGod" tovote against your husband, says pop culture and digital media expert Shana MacDonald, the O'DonovanChair in Communication at the University of Waterloo.

So it's interesting, she says, how the Democratic campaign is responding with ads like these saying this is an issue of women's rights.

"This is an issue of a dominant strain of sexism that is circulating and influencing and reforming women's sense that theyhave a right to choose who they vote for, and it's kind of dispelling that myth," MacDonald said.

The ads have angered some Trump supporters, like political activist Charlie Kirk, who said on Megyn Kelly'spodcastthis week that the "maritalsubversion tactic" represents"the embodiment of the downfall of the American family."

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What's at stake?

Harris"quite smartly" hasn't madeher own genderand the fact she could be the first female U.S. president a wedge issue, MacDonald says, explaining it would make her a target for what she sees as an increasing misogynistic backlash.

Butwomen's rights and reproductive justice have become a wedge issue amid the rise of ananti-woman sentiment in some large influencer cultures, such as the manosphere and Trad Wives, she added.

"This is very clearly an election where bodily autonomy and reproductive justice rights are absolutely at stake, there's no doubt," MacDonald said.

"I think it's really interesting how much this election has brought out really clear wedge issues and divisions that run along gender lines."

Of course, you can't actuallycancel out someone's vote, Zorba pointed out, explainingthat votes are cumulative. However, she pointed out,if the trend "encourages people to get out and vote, that's a good thing."