CNN on Wednesday (October 24th) pulled a story from its website that suggested
women's hormones might drive their voting behavior after it drew a Twitter
backlash. The story, which was only up for a few hours, cited a new study by
University of Texas marketing professor Kristina Durante, whose online surveys
of several hundred women led her to conclude that when women are ovulating,
single women lean toward more liberal beliefs and married or committed women
toward more conservative ones. The CNN story said that Durante hypothesized that
single women, quote, "feel sexier" when ovulating, and lean towards more liberal
attitudes on abortion and marriage equality, while married women do the opposite
as they try to resist their sexy feelings. The story faced a barrage of mockery
on Twitter, with some of those tweeting also wondering why there wasn't a
similar story about how men's hormones affect their votes. When CNN took down
the story, it stated in a note, "Some elements of the story did not meet the
editorial standards of CNN."