A note on misogyny
I can pinpoint the exact moment I knew that women in this country were in trouble. It was March of the year 2016. Donald Trump was speaking with MSNBC’s Chris Mathews. And Trump said under his leadership, he’d seek to ban abortion and that women who sought to have abortions must suffer “some form of punishment.”
Call it my “dark cloud” moment when a little shiver ran up my spine. Everyone has a moment when they abruptly realize that danger has come calling. That was my moment. Since then, Republicans have sought to systematically destroy women’s rights, curtail their freedoms, and lord it over them with contempt.
Of course, what the GOP wants will never happen. Yes, Roe has fallen, but the outcry has been louder and deeper than the GOP ever imagined it could be. So you’d think they would get the message. You’d think they would back off, recognizing that the American people do not want what the GOP is selling — and what they’re selling is misogyny.
The GOP is currently, as I write these words mulling over a variety of bills that would seek to make abortion access even tougher for women. Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina had enough and blasted her party, calling them “tone-deaf” on abortion. Mace lit into her party, saying that any anti-abortion bill the group dreamed up would not pass the senate anyway, which is true.
It was good of Mace to speak up. But I have a different take. I do not believe the GOP is tone-deaf. I believe they know America does not want this — and they just do not care. The two things are different. Being tone deaf implies an honest mistake. It implies perhaps insensitivity but what I am saying is the problem is a more malevolent thing.
The GOP has a choice — turn their backs on these stupid anti-abortion bills and perhaps gain back some popularity or continue and lose more voters. I think they will continue — because they can’t stop. I believe the Republicans hate women, particularly women with power. I think powerful women terrify them. I think they frighten Republican men and always have.
I think when Trump said those words to Chris Mathews so many years ago, a monster was born in the form of republican misogyny, which bloomed brightly. Trump had given Republican hate for women permission to be born, and so it was. This is only my opinion, mind you. This is my note on republican misogyny. And it’s what I believe to be the truth.
