Misogyny Is As Republican As Donald Trump, Elon Musk & JD Vance
Before the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, conservatives opposed women’s suffrage like rabid dogs, relentlessly leaning on ugly right-wing tropes about “natural roles”— women as homemakers, men as public actors. They insisted that politics was the domain of men, that women were too delicate, too emotional, or too easily manipulated to exercise the franchise responsibly. Two of the worst were New York Republican Senators Elihu Root and James Wadsworth, who warned suffrage would disrupt family stability. I imagine there are no DWT readers who would be in the slightest bit surprised that the Southern states, conservative Democratic racists like Benjamin Tillman (D-SC) fought hard against it, partly because enfranchising women— as in Black women— threatened the racial power balance post-Civil War.
These forces of reaction didn’t just argue against women’s suffrage; they fought dirty to prevent it. They ridiculed suffragists as spinsters, radicals, even anarchists. They orchestrated smear campaigns, portraying pro-suffrage activists as traitors to femininity or, worse, as tools of socialism. They used voter suppression tactics in states where women had won limited voting rights, showing that their fear wasn’t just about gender— it was about maintaining control over the entire social order. Their opposition to suffrage was rooted in the same authoritarian impulse that drove them to defend child labor, resist racial integration, and crush labor unions: the belief that power should remain in the hands of a privileged few.
Ultimately, of course, conservatives lost that battle, but their tactics never changed. A century later, the same forces are engaged in voter suppression schemes aimed at marginalized communities, defending gerrymandering and restrictive voting laws under the guise of “election integrity.” The reactionary spirit that opposed women’s suffrage never died— it simply found new targets.
Yesterday, Amanda Marcotte reminded her readers that “there have always been women who are eager to police the bodies and behavior of other women. Enough people are credulous or at least disingenuous enough to think that ‘I’m a woman, which means I can't hate other women’ is an actual argument. For ambitious women who wanted to climb the ranks of Republican politics, anti-feminism has long been the steadiest of ladders. The propaganda value of their gender outweighed their party's larger hostility to women in leadership.” Look no further than deranged congressional sociopaths like Marjorie Traitor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO), Nancy Mace (R-SC), Kat Cammack (R-FL), Mary Miller (R-IL), Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), Diana Harshbarger (R-TN), Claudia Tenney (R-NY), Harriet Hageman (R-WY),
“Male leaders of the Christian right,” wrote Marcotte, “have been swarming Kristan Hawkins, the 39-year-old head of a ‘student’ anti-abortion group, demanding her ejection from the movement. It started after she objected to Republican legislators introducing bills to charge women who get abortions with murder, an extreme move she fears will backfire on the movement. But mostly it was about growing male anger on the Christian right that women are allowed leadership positions at all. ‘Removed [sic] this woman from public service,’ declared influential Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon, part of ‘TheoBros’ movement that includes the leadership of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s church. Soon other TheoBros jumped in, declaring ‘We need Christian men leading the fight against abortion,’ arguing that women's suffrage was a mistake, and accusing Hawkins of emasculating her husband by being ‘busy jet-setting.’”
Forty-five percent of female voters backed Trump in 2024, despite his overt misogyny. Most, no doubt, believed that complicity would protect them and that the attacks would be centered on other women. But while the GOP certainly wants to strip liberal and feminist women of their rights, male MAGA leaders are showing increasing interest in bringing Republican women to heel, both culturally and through the force of law. After all, they are more likely to live and work with Republican women. If they want to feel the full flowering of male domination, it's Republican women they need to see submitting.
Webbon and the TheoBros have been clamoring more loudly in recent months about their wish to strip women, especially their own wives, of the right to vote. "You won't let women vote? Well, our society doesn't let five-year-olds vote," Webbon explained in a May podcast. He added that "a woman is like a child" and that "God has appointed men to protect them." As Sarah Stakirb at the New Republic documented, there has been growing support in Christian nationalist circles "for the repeal of the 19th Amendment and support a 'household vote' system in which men vote on behalf of their families." Hegseth’s former sister-in-law reports she heard him echo similar sentiments. [NOTE: Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Katie Britt (R-AL), Shelley Moore-Capito (R-WV), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Deb Fischer (R-NE), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) and Ashley Moody (R-FL), all reportedly biological females, voted to confirm Hegseth into a position where he will do tremendous and irreparable damage to the careers of women in the military.]
… [T]here's been a slowly rising volume on the right of talk about banning no-fault divorce, fueled by Republicans like Vice President JD Vance saying it’s too easy for women— even those in abusive marriages— to leave their marriages. Legislators is red states are filing more bills to do so, and while it's unlikely any will pass soon, the goal is to create more momentum for an eventual ban. This would affect Republican women more because, as with abortion bans, only red states would even consider such laws. It's also true that red states have higher divorce rates than blue states, because sexist cultural mores lead to more unhappy marriages. But rather than treating their wives better, MAGA men are looking at making it illegal for their wives to leave them.
There have been recent visceral examples of how the increasingly bold sexism on the right is impacting women, especially in Republican circles. Last week, D.C. police opened an investigation into Rep. Cory Mills (R-FL), over allegations he beat a 27-year-old woman, not his wife, he is allegedly dating. The police report indicates the woman said Mills "grabbed her, shoved her, and pushed her out of the door," and the officers saw "bruises on her arm, which appeared fresh." Police also report that the victim let them hear Mills on the phone "instruct her to lie about the origin of her bruises."
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