Today's Washington Post has some interesting poll numbers. Perhaps most striking, there is no gender gap in either Bush's job approval numbers or in whether or not people think the war in Iraq was worth fighting. To see if this was a one-poll fluke, I went back and looked at these questions for 2003. These are the results:

"All in all, considering the costs to the United States versus the benefits to the United States, do you think the war with Iraq was worth fighting, or not?"

Date Men Women Difference
10/26-29 55 54 +1
10/9-13 58 50 +8
9/10-13 63 59 +4
8/7-11 61 62 -1
7/9-10 60 55 +5
4/27-30 71 68 +3

The margin of error (MOE) in each poll was +/- 3 percentage points. The only time the difference between men and women fell outside the MOE was in the 10/9-13 survey. In all other polls, the difference between men and women was statistically insignificant.

Where did the gender gap go? I don't know, but so much for the idea of women being more pacifistic than men or more sensitive to losses of life.

Here's the breakdown of Bush's approval rating:

Date Men Women Difference MOE
10/26-29 57 55 2 3
10/9-13 56 49 7 3*
9/30 57 51 6 5
9/10-13 60 56 4 3
8/7-11 61 55 6 3
7/9-10 60 58 2 3
4/27-30 72 70 2 3
4/16 75 72 3 5
4/9 78 76 2 5
4/3 74 68 6 4.5
3/23 74 64 10 4*Approve/Disapprove Only
3/20 72 63 9 5 Approve/Disapprove Only
2/19-23 64 56 8 3*Approve/Disapprove Only
2/6-9 59 59 0 3

Differences outside the margin of error (MOE) are marked with an asterisk. The 3/23, 3/20, and 2/19-23 polls asked only approve or disapprove of the president's job performance. All other surveys asked whether respondents strongly approve/disapprove or just approve/disapprove.

Again, there's no gender difference to speak of.