CONTENT WARNING: This opinion piece contains potentially triggering topics and language. Please use discretion when proceeding.
This week, millions of women across the United States were severely let down. 54% of men and 44% of women voted for Donald Trump despite his anti-choice viewpoints, derogatory language regularly directed toward women, 34 felony convictions, and multiple sexual assault allegations against him. With that being said, this begs the question; Why does America hate women?
Throughout our country’s history, women have had to repeatedly fight for the same rights as men. Women did not have the right to vote for 144 years. That is still 40 years before women were able to go to the polls to cast a ballot.
Even the ability for women to wear pants in public was not granted until 1923.
You may be thinking, “Big deal, that was a century ago,” but it was not until 1972 that women were able to have access to birth control without their husband’s permission, and the ability to get a credit card without a man did not come until two years later.
The historic case of Roe v. Wade granted women the right to choose and make decisions about their own bodies in 1973. However, the Supreme Court went back on their ruling in 2022, once again leaving the fate of women’s lives up to individual states.
Since then, nine states have placed a total ban on abortion, with no exceptions for rape or incest. Which is ironic because many of those states, such as Arkansas and North Dakota, have some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the U.S.
In the United States, 20% of women have been victims of rape or attempted rape. 81% of women report they have been sexually harassed or assaulted.
This is the reason women are afraid to walk alone at night. We clutch our keys between our fingers and check underneath our cars before we open the door.
So many of us have bedazzled pepper spray, sparkly self defense rings and pink rape alarms on our key chains. To be a woman, is to be afraid of the men that lurk in the shadows, but now that Trump has won the presidency, they are stepping into the light.
The comments of women’s TikTok accounts are being flooded with statements like, “Trump won, get back in the kitchen and just…raise the kids already,” “They’re good at cooking, cleaning and making [babies], but that’s where it ends. The 19th amendment was a grave mistake,” “70 years? we’re going back further swe[e]theart.” Perhaps the worst statement currently circulating online is “Your body, my choice.”
Not only is this a horrific spin on what women have been saying for years in the pro-choice movement, but it is men taking ownership of women’s bodies in the most disgusting way possible.
I stated in my last article that if Trump were a woman, she would never have made it through to the primary in 2016. In the same vein, if Kamala Harris were a man, he would have won the presidency this year.
The inability of the people of the United States to elect a woman as president in this day and age is truly astounding. Trump actually received around 2 million less votes than he did in the 2020 election. And while Harris is likely the most qualified candidate for president in U.S. history, nearly 13 million less people voted for her compared to Joe Biden in 2020.
Although I am lucky that I did not have to “cancel out” my father’s and many of my other male family members’ and friends’ votes, I know a lot of women have been disappointed by the men in their lives. However, disappointment seems like an understatement. In fact, we are furious.
We are furious at the older men who decided that they did not want to protect their daughters and nieces.
We are furious at the young men who fell for the “alpha male,” “red pill” content from the likes of Andrew Tate, Nick Fuentes, Charlie Kirk and Logan Paul. The same men who have convinced their followers that women are designed to submit to men. But go ahead, continue saying you voted for Trump “to save the economy.”
And to the women who voted for Trump, I am so sorry. I am sorry that you have been lied to and tricked into thinking Trump will protect you and uphold your values. I am sorry if you voted for Trump because you think it will make the men in your life respect you, because the men who proudly voted for Trump will never truly respect you or any woman.
Still, over half of the women of this country are afraid. We are afraid that all of the rights we have fought for and won will be taken away. We are afraid for the future of our daughters. We are afraid for the future of democracy. Most of all, we are afraid of all of the hateful and spiteful men in America. And no, it is not all men–just the 54% who voted for an accused rapist and felon.
