Republican vice-presidential nominee U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) gives remarks at a campaign rally at Arizona Christian University on July 31, in Glendale, Ariz.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Misogyny is bad, we can all agree. When combined with power, it becomes dangerous. And it feels like it’s having a moment, politically.
It felt, only a decade ago, that we were on a better path. Remember the hopefulness of 2015? When Justin Trudeau, love him or hate him, announced his first cabinet, it contained as many women as men. His reason for this gender parity was meme-worthy: “Because it’s 2015.”
Then came 2016 and the election of Donald Trump, Mr. Grab ‘em by the you-know-what. If things seemed on the decline for women then, we now find ourselves being pushed down into the mire.
Welcome to 2024, where in the U.S., abortion rights are in peril. The conservative Project 2025 openly threatened to make things worse, and Mr. Trump’s pick for vice-president is a proud anti-feminist.
Meanwhile, the chief social-media platform for political discourse is owned and controlled by a man who, suspicions were very publicly confirmed this weekend on that very site, is also a piece of work when it comes to women.
Boy oh boy.
J.D. Vance was added to the Republican ticket despite comments the Ohio senator made in 2021 that the U.S. was being run by “childless cat ladies … miserable at their own lives” who want to make the rest of country miserable too. The comment was aimed at, among others, Kamala Harris, now the presumed Democrat nominee for President.
He also accused the “childless left” of rejecting the American family, saying they did not possess a physical commitment to the future of the country.
To suggest that someone who does not have biological children does not have a stake in the future is so ludicrous that there’s almost no point in explaining why. But it is also a terrible argument in light of U.S. history. Was George Washington, for instance, not concerned about the country’s future? After all, the country’s first president didn’t have any kids (that we know of).
And by the way, Ms. Harris is by all accounts (including her husband’s former wife’s) a loving, involved stepmother. For that, she should be lauded, not scorned.
In a sycophantic interview with Megyn Kelly, Mr. Vance made jokes (“I’ve got nothing against cats”) and ridiculous statements, calling the Democrats “anti-family and anti-child.”
I’m old enough to remember when it was considered politically dangerous – or at least uncouth – to be openly misogynistic. No more. Hillary Clinton was nasty, and now Ms. Harris is childless. What’s next: Accusations of witchcraft?
There is also Project 2025, the policy document drawn up by the conservative Heritage Foundation, which includes some former Trump administration officials. The Foundation’s director has now stepped down following outrage over its “Mandate for Leadership” – a 900-plus page blueprint that mentions abortion nearly 200 times. One example: it calls on the Trump administration to rename the USAID Office of Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment (GEWE) as the USAID Office of Women, Children, and Families. Ditch the empowerment! And to remove from its Gender Policy all references to abortion, reproductive health and sexual and reproductive rights. The document is a road map to turn the United States into Gilead.
You may have seen discussion of Project 2025 on X, formerly Twitter. You might have also, in the last few days, seen a thread on X directly addressing its owner, Elon Musk.
Mr. Musk’s former partner is the pop star Grimes, real name Claire Boucher, who is Canadian. Her mother, Sandy Garossino, is a Vancouver-based journalist who is generally private about this connection. But this weekend, she tweeted publicly at Mr. Musk, urging him to allow his children with Ms. Boucher to visit Ms. Garossino’s 93-year-old mother, who is in end-of-life palliative care.
“I am alarmed to learn that the children cannot come as you are withholding them and their needed passport documents from Claire,” she posted in a stunning thread.
Ms. Garossino, grandmother to three of Mr. Musk’s children, wrote that she was contacting him in this way because it was the only way she can reach him to ask him to honour his agreement.
“Please Elon, I beg you. This is so painful for my mother, and concerning for the kids.”
When the world’s most famous tech bro, a vocal Trump supporter, behaves like this, what kind of role model does that set for all the guys who eat up his often juvenile – dare I say nasty – posts on the platform he controls?
Misogyny is nothing new, of course. But this political revival is getting old really fast.
It’s enough to make you want to hunker down under the covers with a cat or two. Or emerge, roaring, as Ms. Harris has. I believe she has what it takes to put these men in their place. Perhaps send them back to the Stone Age, where they belong.