Did sexism hand Trump victory?

Kamala Harris did not lose to Trump just because of sexism in the US (Photo: flickr/ Steve Rhodes)

Donald Trump’s ­victory is going to kill women. He’s expected to bring back some of the punitive, anti‑choice measures from his first term. His vile anti‑choice mates will want Trump to oversee a deepening of ­abortion restrictions on a national level.

But did Trump sweep to victory on a wave of sexist hate? It certainly looks like it. Trump’s personal record marks him out as a particularly odious misogynist.

Trump is a convicted rapist, a serial assaulter of women and an out‑and‑out sexist. He wants to roll back women’s rights over their bodies and talks about how attractive his daughter is.

Elon Musk’s political committee put out an advert calling Harris “a big Old C-word”. This could have meant “communist” but probably did not.

Trump used campaign rallies as an opportunity to hurl misogynistic abuse at his female political opponents—Nancy Pelsoi, Kamala Harris and Liz Cheney.

Crowds chanted “bitch” when Harris’s name was mentioned. Trump’s running mate JD Vance mocked Harris as “childless cat lady.” Yet at least 73 million people voted for Trump. And some 44 percent of women voters chose him to enter the White House.

Harris got even less votes from women that Joe Biden in 2020. Women did not believe that voting for Democrat Kamala Harris would give them a better life.

Apologists for Harris spent the immediate aftermath scrambling for a narrative that put the blame squarely on her gender, rather than her policies.

Sharon Manitta, Democrats Abroad UK spokesperson, said, “If people grow up in a culture where women aren’t respected, where women are looked at in a very unenlightened way, then they will vote within that culture.”

But the Democrats were wrong to believe that women would vote for a woman or even for abortion rights and not for their wider political beliefs and to address class inequalities.

The liberal press decried Trump’s women supporters as “Karens”, an insulting name for entitled white women. And disappointed Democrat ­columnists blamed defeat on Trump’s female supporters, who they ­patronisingly call their “weak sisters.”

Trump’s victory can give confidence to the vile sexists who think women’s true role is in the home, baking bread and birthing children.

But Trump also got support from women who go to work, who pay bills and who expect a degree of social equality. Sexism runs deep in US society, and undoubtedly did impact the nature of Trump’s vile campaign and influence how people voted. 

Trump posed as a strong leader who would be man enough to face down rivals on a world stage. He used misogyny to make ­disempowered men feel powerful.

Back in 2016, 40 percent of women voted for Trump. Those women were more likely than other women to hold racist and sexist ideas.  But they also shared the concerns of male voters about economic growth and security.

People can have contradictory ideas. Women can be convinced that feminism has “gone too far” and still demand their own right to exercise some control over their lives.

Women can be persuaded that they need to defend the traditional family from the invented threat of “gender zealots” while working outside the home and wanting decent pay and conditions.

But Harris’s defeat cannot be simply put down to the US being too sexist for a woman president. That’s shown by the huge ­numbers that voted to improve abortion access—especially in states that ­supported Republicans on the same night.

Referendums on abortion laws were held in ten states. In 2022 the Republican-packed Supreme Court ruled that abortion laws were decided on a local, not ­federal, level.

In seven of the ten states which voted, existing abortion rulings were enshrined into law or improved. There were a number of significant victories for activists wanting to ­protect a woman’s right to choose.

In Missouri, some 52 percent of voters chose to throw out a near-total ban on abortion. Now there is a constitutional right to abortion with no legal limit on gestational age. In Colorado, some 62 percent of voters chose to guarantee funding for women accessing abortions.

Some 62 percent of people in New York chose to strengthen a law which states that no one can face discrimination due to “sex, including sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, and ­reproductive healthcare”.

This law is widely understood to bolster the state’s current access to abortion.

There were some setbacks too. In Nebraska, voters chose to retain the legislation banning abortion after 12 weeks, rejecting a proposal that extended rights to 24 weeks. And in South Dakota, some 60 ­percent of voters chose to pass a measure that would make it a felony to perform an abortion except to save the life of a woman.

The pro-choice majority ­suffered their biggest defeat in Florida. Activists fought to pass a motion granting the right to choose up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. As it stands, women can only get an abortion until about 6 weeks in their pregnancy.

They won a clear majority of 57 percent, but the measure needed 60 percent to pass.

The hard right wing Republican governor of Florida Ron DeSantis won by using legal threats, police intimidation and state money intended for the opioid crisis.

Harris tried to present abortion as a single issue. But women supported their right to have control over their bodies and still vote for Trump’s fake promises of prosperity.

Reproductive rights ­campaigners in the US argue that the fight for abortion rights must be linked to the fight for basic services, for healthcare, childcare, education and housing. Harris refused to lead a fight like this.

It’s impossible to divorce the ­question of class from any serious analysis of the election. 

Most household budgets are controlled by women, and they are being absolutely hammered by rising costs and sinking wages. Women are as much part of the working class as men, and subject to the same pressures and experience similar hopes and dreams.

The real question is what comes next. Xochitl Gonzalez in The Atlantic magazine argued that the protests which greeted Trump’s inauguration in 2016 alienated women. All we can do now, she argues, is be nice to men who voted for Harris, a “soft ­diplomacy of everyday life”.

We have to find a way to break through this pessimism. A great start would be a repeat of the worldwide Women’s Marches of 2017 which saw up to five million people march together against the misogyny of Trump and his regime.

The organisation that emerged from that initiative was asking people to go door knocking to collect any last-minute ballots that were rejected due poor handwriting or ineligible ID.

This is the wrong trajectory. There needs to be more mass resistance, and less focus on electoral processes, especially in the wake of sure defeat, as is the case now.

We have to protest, strike and fight back like our lives depend on it—because for some of us, they do.