Conservative women believe complicity will save them. But an emboldened far-right is gunning for their rights - and therefore all women in the USA

[IwantToRetire]

... now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned and Donald Trump is back in the White House, many on the right feel they no longer need to hide the naked sexism fueling their movement or put up with the annoyance of women in even token leadership positions. As Kiera Butler at Mother Jones reports, the anti-abortion movement is embroiled in an escalating civil war right now over these issues. Male leaders of the Christian right 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 the "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."

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 Stankorb 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.

This isn't mere idle chatter, either. House Republicans passed a bill (which stalled in the Senate) this session to require citizens to have a passport or birth certificate matching their name to vote. This would be a back-door ban on voting for any woman who took her husband's last name and doesn't have a passport, an estimated 69 million women. It would also disproportionately affect Republican women, who are more likely to be married, more likely to have changed their name and less likely to have a passport.

article as a whole with many shocking comments about women is at https://www.salon.com/2025/02/26/a-woman-is-like-a-child-maga-quickly-turns-its-sights-on-stripping-women-of-power/

So the SAVE bill was designed to ensure that those voting are US citizens and have ID.

Just like the system in the UK, in fact.

And no, it wouldn't disenfranchise those who have changed their name, like married women.

"In Sec. 2(f) of the bill, under “Process in case of certain discrepancies in documentation,” the SAVE Act tasks the Election Assistance Commission with creating guidance and the states with creating a process “under which an applicant can provide such additional documentation […] in the event of a discrepancy with respect to the applicant’s documentary proof of United States citizenship.” In plain language, the SAVE Act expects states to ask for supplementary documents, such as a marriage certificate, when a birth certificate shows a different name than a person’s photo ID card. As has become common for federal legislation, the SAVE Act sets high-level goals and standards and leaves it to federal agencies and states to figure out the specifics."

Criticise the US government and president all you like, but get your facts straight.

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The difference is, if women’s rights are taken away, TW can identify out of their oppression by detransitioning, a luxury actual women don’t have

TW don’t care about the actual rights women have already lost in America because they’re men

It does seem like whoever is in charge, women will get thrown under the bus. I don't think there's massive support for extreme anti-abortion measures in the US but who knows?

A few Republicans who have been talking about abortion have been talking about lowering the time limit (when there is no risk of life to the mother) to some period between 12 and 20 weeks. There's also been some acknowledgement of scans showing fatal foetal conditions.

The very extreme 'no abortion ever in any circumstances, lets persecute women who miscarry' rants by a tiny minority have been useful because they have made people with some vague understanding of reproductive processes go - hold on a minute.

How is attempting to secure fair sport, equal opportunities and single sex spaces for women, or outlawing unnecessary medical and surgical procedures on U19s connected to removing women's rights?

I don't think there's massive support for extreme anti-abortion measures in the US

There doesn't need to be with the Heritage Foundation now in control of the government.

Availability of abortion is decided at State level now.

Yeah, but at least they will know what a woman is before they disenfranchise them and deny them rights over their own bodies. That's apparently all that matters to many.

I really wish The Handmaid's Tale had been compulsory viewing. I found Serena Joy the most interesting character for this exact reason- you lead a movement, sacrifice for a movement and then get excluded from your own movement. Handed a pretty dress. Try to be your old self and get punished for it. (No spoilers please I'm only on Season 3!)

I feel such a mixture of pity and contempt for these women. They don't understand they will never be 'good' enough to be safe but begging for and accepting their own leash makes all women more unsafe.

I doubt they are going to take the vote off women, if only for the practical reason that it would lose them a lot of votes. Republican women are more likely than Democrat women to be married and using their husbands name.

Everyone knows what a woman is, whether genderists or extreme right wingers. It's just that genderists pretend not to know when it suits the MRAs.
Genderism and the extreme far-right pose similar threats to women's rights - horseshoe effect.

My problem with the article is that the women in the Republican party who support the EOs and policy changes which protect women are not the same women as the tradwife types or Serena Joy types. Republican feminists are in the GOP because they prioritise values like self-reliance, personal freedom, etc - not because they think women are less than men. So saying that they are complicit seems to miss the mark.

ETA: Supporting women's rights to equal educational and sport opportunities (for example) would seem to lead in the opposite direction to removing women's rights to vote or own property.

But surely they are complicit if they have voted in a regime that subsequently starts to dismantle women's rights? That might not have been their intention, obviously, but of they chose to ignore the massive red flags that Trump and his cronies were waving, then that's on them.

This is relevant.

Having said that, the problem is greater for migrant women - they are more likely to not have birth certificates or marriage certificates or to have ones which the government might decide not to recognise.

And these women are more likely to vote Democrat.

My feeling is that this isn't an anti woman move. Republican women are useful to the Trump administration in numerous ways. They add legitimacy and that's important and powerful.

This is an anti migrant issue because it targets a particular group more heavily and disproportionately.

And that's more consistent with the rhetoric of the current administration.

I don't think it's right to try pretend it's a broader threat than it is, because actually that weakens the real arguments here and stops you from seeing who this is primarily focused on properly.

White American born women are much less likely to be affected by this. They will have US marriage certificates. It's those who have married foreigners, married abroad or are foreign born who are more at risk. They are much much more likely to vote Democrat.

If you know which message boards to go to, it's trivially easy to find some random bloke arguing against women's suffrage. The next thread will be some other random bloke who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy six months ago for political reasons and is now urging Greece to reconquer Constantinople.

Kristan Hawkins is mentioned as coming under attack. She's been around for years and you may not like her, but nobody should doubt her anti-abortion credentials. She's always faced sniping by a tiny handful of extremists on her own side, almost entirely online.

There are influencers in the online right who matter, and should be scrutinised. This article is not doing that. It's doing the equivalent of taking the most deranged comments from AIBU and billing it as "Inside Keir Starmer's government".

Hardly, if that wasn't what they voted for. Many people on the right dismissed the talk of Project 2025 as manifestation of "Trump derangement syndrome".

If the Dems saw it all coming - and none of the potential attacks on women's rights have actually become Republican policy yet, don't forget - why did the election campaign prioritise retaining and expanding men's privileges over trying to keep Trump out? Obviously they didn't care about women enough. Even if they had still lost, I would be less cynical about the wailing and hand-wringing going on now. They are complicit.

Once again, stop trying to force team TA with women's rights.

You can't just choose to just "dismiss" the huge red flags, vote people in and then claim that you didn't realise what they were going to do. Where is the accountability in that?

If the misogyny of the current regime had been completely hidden before the election, you might have a point, but it was plain for all to see. If certain people chose to ignore it, then that makes them complicit.

There are problems with both the democrats and the republicans on women's rights.

It's not an either or choice.

The force teaming on the subject is appalling in this context.

It's a hell of a choice, isn't it.
Do you want to be complicit with limiting women's freedom or with sterilising and maiming children?
Hand on my heart I'd have to say I'd choose complicity with the former over the latter, if my hand was forced.
I'm so glad I'm not in the U.S.A.

The problem was the Dems were just as misogynistic but in a different way. Kamala Harris sent Dylan Mulvaney a 'birthday card' celebrating his one year anniversary 'living authentically' as a woman. A lot of left wing gender critical campaigners saw Trump as the only way to re-assert women's rights in sport and single sex spaces. And on that he is currently delivering. There may be a massive backlash at the next election and I don't think the Dems are showing any sign of reflecting on why they lost. Hopefully the polling around men in women's spaces will speak to them when they won't listen to feminists on this issue.

It's a shame some on the left have tried so comprehensively to dismiss women.

From abuse, to attacks and violence from men.

Whereas women say no I don't consent.

Overriding that is their mistake.

I've said this before but I don't mind repeating it. The Democrats had some success memeing Project 2025 because hardly anyone is going to actually read this 900 page tome.

The Heritage Foundation has been producing these volumes of proposed policies for future GOP administrations every four years since the early 1980s. Left-leaning think tanks like the Center for American Progress produce similar volumes meant to inform future Democratic administrations. This is what think tanks do.

90% of what's in Project 2025 is boilerplate Reaganite conservatism. There are a few gestures to Trumpian populism.

Some policy bods in the administration will read the volume, cherrypick any policies that look popular and ignore the rest. This is what politicians do with think tank product.

There will certainly be policy proposals coming down the line that need to be opposed. But I really doubt that an administration that's got Pam Bondi and Harmeet Dhillon leading the Department of Justice is going to try and impose a tradwife regime on America.

i think it is reasonable to vote according to which party/candidate most aligns with most of your beliefs/views/requirements.

In my case it was hold nose and vote Labour/SDP. Some women decided that on balance they preferred Republicans - and single issue voters are as entitled as anyone else to vote for whoever they want.

That doesn't mean that they are now unable or unwelcome when they campaign, as they always have, on women's rights issues. There must be very very very few women who voted for Republicans based on gender identity issues who weren't fully aware that, actually, Republicans prefer women pregnant, barefoot and in the kitchen.

We have always had to campaign for our rights, nothing has changed. What will be interesting is to see how many trans people are up there with the women in the US campaigning for women's rights, which they say they hold dear to their hearts. I, for one, will not be holding my breath.

And in other news, the US has pressured Romania to release suspected women traffickers and rapists the Tate brothers, who are currently on a private jet to the US, where they will no doubt be lauded by the "pro women" MAGA movement.