It feels very bleak at the moment in the immediate aftermath of the US election. A dark day for America and the world, but particularly for women.
The gender divide in the run up to the US election was stark. An angry white male, well known for his misogynistic views and numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as proven sexual abuse, versus a younger, inspiring black woman who foregrounded women’s health and reproductive rights.
“…whether the women like it or not…”
“I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not,” Trump said chillingly at a rally last week. “I’m going to protect them.” As Arwa Mahdawi says, ‘protect’ really means ‘control’. And taking back control could mean anything with Trump. Visions of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale spring to mind, as the author herself reminded women recently.
Abortion rights were prominent in Kamala Harris’s campaign, after Roe v Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in 2022, and she warned women that Trump could go even further in restricting women’s reproductive freedoms, as set out in Project 2025.
Negative attitudes to a woman president
Yet Harris played down being a woman in her campaign, as negative attitudes to a woman president were clearly a factor in Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful run for the White House in 2016.
Meanwhile, Trump was lauding aspects of masculinity, with crude locker room talk about golfer Arnold Palmer’s genitalia, and overtly courting young men. Before the election, 53% of young men said they would vote for Trump, while 67% of women under 30 said they would vote for Harris. Despite his incoherent rambling, young men seem to see Trump as representing traditional manhood, with all its negative connotations.
An unbelievable 44% of women voted for Trump
I had really hoped that the groundswell of support for Harris among women would carry the day, but the actual voting pattern was not as positive as predicted: 54% women voted for Harris, with an unbelievable 44% for Trump. This was countered by an almost identical pattern among men: 54% for Trump against 44% for Harris, according to first exit polls.
I’m fearful for what this election result means for women’s rights and for an increasing gender divide in the US. The worst would be a total abortion ban, though probably couched in terms of national ‘consensus’. This could happen, despite the continuing vote to protect access to abortion in several states, such as New York and Colorado.
But it’s the wider prospect of seeing an ageing, white misogynist in the White House, purporting to “protect” women, that chills me to the core.
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