Beyond Abortion: When Even Progressive Men Don’t Understand the Stakes
This week was particularly disheartening for me and some of my friends and colleagues as we came across men who are voting for Harris yet have the attitude that, regardless of the election outcome, things will be just fine—at least for privileged white women in blue states. One such man claimed a Trump presidency wouldn’t really affect his family, leaving his despairing wife in disbelief — they have a 15-year-old daughter. Many men don’t understand why women are so “worked up” or “emotional” about this. We women just get our panties in a bunch and worry our pretty little heads about nothing, it seems.
These Harris-voting men (not all, of course) say they get that abortion bans are bad but they may not understand the far-reaching and horrifying effects they’re having on basic healthcare (see Michelle Obama’s iconic speech or watch this clip). Moreover, many seem to overlook how these bans, or even the threat of these bans, are symbolic of so much more to come.
Should Trump win, things might be fine for them, but they won’t be for women. Women might not wake up on November 6th to frozen bank accounts and travel bans ala The Handmaid’s Tale, but it’s infuriating that men (who don’t have to worry about their basic rights) are missing the subtler signs of where this might be heading. It’s a direct path to fewer rights and choices—even beyond those stemming from forced parenthood—and to even less respect and financial equity than women have today. Their very ability to construct and manage their lives is at risk.
A Trump/Vance White House is an endorsement of hypermasculinity on a national scale. Think of Trump at this year’s Republican national convention brazenly strolling on stage to the James Brown song It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World. And being introduced by Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship who was caught slapping his wife on camera. Or going after the “bro vote” by courting the manoverse—20-something YouTubers and podcasters who are that generation’s Hannity, Carlson, and Limbaugh. If you have teenage boys at home, you’ve likely heard of Jake and Logan Paul and Adin Ross. Just some fun guys wooing our sons with sports-talk, gambling, and misogyny.
Project 2025 and J.D. Vance (who may very well need to take over at some point if Trump is elected) have made it clear there are only two genders and that there are specific ways those genders should live. Child-free women have nothing to offer and are choosing “a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children. The “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female,” Vance advises, is to help raise grandchildren. In his eyes, we are little more than baby machines.
Vance couches his baby machine beliefs in benevolent sexism. Hostile sexism would be, “women are useless at anything else.” But the public message is “Women will be happier if they stay at home, making babies and taking care of men.” It’s not that they hate women, it’s that these poor, emotional, female souls don’t know what’s good for them and it’s their job as men to protect them.
As I argue in Sexism & Sensibility: Raising Empowered Resilient Girls in the Modern World, acts of benevolent sexism like picking up the tab at a restaurant or giving up your seat on the bus can seem perfectly courteous on the surface, but it perpetuates a sexual narrative where a man’s in control and a woman adopts a passive role. As Trump recently said at a campaign rally: "whether the women like it or not, I'm going to protect them." That “protection” could be turned into policy.
So when I hear men’s apathy about the election or accusations that women are overblowing it, I feel hopeless and alone. It’s like being a kid again, being told girls are too sensitive and dramatic, and that the inequality they see in front of them doesn’t exist. The blaring klaxon announcing our demise, or at least the wish for our demise, falls on deaf ears. A more generous interpretation would be that maybe these men are defending against feeling vulnerable and helpless to the brutal ideas of Trump. Maybe they struggle to imagine the women they know in such dire situations or are simply trying to soothe their loved one’s despair.
Harris is by no means perfect, or even as leftie a candidate on certain policies as I might wish for, but we are voting for more than policies alone. We’re deciding whether to uphold a version of masculinity built on a foundation of disdain for women; whose fuel is either the belief women are largely incompetent beyond baby-making, or they’re threateningly competent. It’s a statement on the appropriate roles for women and the standards we hold for how our political leaders should treat them. We know from research that where traditional masculinity is promoted, so too are anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia. A Trump/Vance White House means ever more hateful and cruel polarization—an environment that I, and many women I know, don’t want to subject our children to.
So guys, if you’re reading this, remember that being able to feel less scared has always been your privilege. Also, read about why MAGA is an anti-men agenda too. If you’re really a feminist or there’s a woman in your life that you care about, please take the election seriously, and lend support to your wives, partners, sisters, daughters and mothers who yes, are emotional about it and damn well should be.
The repercussions of this election are enormous for senior women. Trrump's agenda is to attack Medicare and Social Security, two main sources of financial security for older women. The thought of those two pillars being dismantled are devastating.
I wonder how JD Vance's wife feels about his views, on both women and racism???
Kamala HAS to win.