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    Young Women Will Never Stop Talking About Sexism

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    I was not going to write any more election post-mortems based on the current data. California is still counting votes, and it will take months for the whole picture of the electorate to come into focus.But that hasn’t stopped chatter from strategists and politicians about the ways Democrats should change their candidates and messaging. There has been heavy emphasis on appealing to young men specifically, with many advising that the left should go about manufacturing its own Joe Rogan. One articulation of this viewpoint comes from Richard Reeves, who writes in an op-ed in The Boston Globe that Democrats shouldn’t talk about sexism, and claims that the problem is that they haven’t focused enough on issues affecting boys and men. James Carville keeps repeating the charge that “preachy females” are the problem and Democratic messaging comes across as “too feminine.”It feels absurd to ask rank-and-file Democrats to stop talking about sexism when Donald Trump himself and several of his cabinet picks so far have credible accusations of sexual misconduct lodged against them, and when Trump’s campaign sunk to new lows in disparaging women.Democrats should absolutely be soul-searching and figuring out ways to win. But Reeves’s suggestions — “More investments in vocational training, for example in apprenticeships and technical high schools, would mostly help boys and men to secure better jobs” — were already an explicit part of Harris’s platform for economic opportunity, which she talked up on the campaign trail.Harris did not mention sexism as a reason for her loss in her concession speech. And the overwhelming consensus was that Biden’s low approval ratings, and his failure to bring an end to inflation sooner, were the major reasons that she did not win. But does that negate the sexism raining down on our young women, who are walking across campus hearing their classmates tell them: “Your body, my choice”?Trump’s totally cavalier attitude about violence against women — the ones he said he would protect whether we “like it or not” — is most glaringly evident in his nomination of Matt Gaetz as attorney general. More than 100 nonpartisan organizations that combat sex trafficking and gender-based violence signed on to an open letter to the heads of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee asking them to reject Gaetz because he has been investigated for sex trafficking himself and said: “The nomination of Mr. Gaetz sends a signal to the country and the world that sexual misconduct and exploitation and corrupt behavior will not only go unpunished, but will be rewarded.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      I’m 16. On Nov. 5 the Girls Cried, and the Boys Played Minecraft.

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      On the morning after the election, I walked up the staircase of my school. A preteen was crying into the shoulders of her braces-clad peer. Her friend was rubbing circles on her back.I continued up the stairs to the lounge, where upperclassmen linger before classes. There I saw two tables: One was filled with my girlfriends, many of them with hollows under their eyes. There was a blanket of despair over the young women in the room. I looked over to the other table of teenage boys and saw Minecraft on their computers. While we were gasping for a breath, it seemed they were breathing freely.We girls woke up to a country that would rather elect a man found liable for sexual abuse than a woman. Where the kind of man my mother instructs me to cross the street to avoid will be addressed as Mr. President. Where the body I haven’t fully grown into may no longer be under my control. The boys, it seemed to me, just woke up on a Wednesday.What made my skin burn most wasn’t that over 75 million people voted for Donald Trump. It was that this election didn’t seem to measurably change anything for the boys around me, whether their parents supported Mr. Trump or not. Many of them didn’t seem to share our rage, our fear, our despair. ​​We don’t even share the same future.I am scared that the Trump administration will take away or restrict birth control and Plan B — the same way they did abortion. I am scared that the boys I know will see in a triumphant, boastful Mr. Trump the epitome of a manly man and model themselves after him. I was 8 years old the first time he was elected. Now I am 16. I am still unable to vote, but I am so much more aware of what I have to lose.I have seen the ways in which many of the boys in my generation can be different from their fathers. The #MeToo movement went mainstream when they were still wearing Superman pajamas. On Tuesdays in health class, they learn about the dangers of inebriated consent. They don’t pretend to gag when a girl mentions her period or a tampon falls out of her backpack. They don’t find sexist jokes all that funny and don’t often make them in public.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ¿La elección de Trump fue un revés para las mujeres de EE. UU.? Ni ellas están de acuerdo

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      Kamala Harris habría sido la primera mujer presidenta en los casi 250 años de historia del país. Pero muchas mujeres eligieron a Donald Trump, a pesar de su historial de sexismo.Para muchos estadounidenses de izquierda, está rotundamente claro que las mujeres que apoyaron a Donald Trump en las elecciones presidenciales votaron en contra de sus propios intereses.Las mujeres liberales, en particular, han pasado los últimos días prácticamente atónitas, dándole vueltas a cómo otras mujeres podrían haber rechazado a Kamala Harris, quien habría sido la primera mujer en dirigir Estados Unidos en sus casi 250 años de historia. En su lugar, eligieron a un candidato que desperdiga misoginia aparentemente con regocijo. Por segunda vez.Una votante de Maine, entrevistada después de que Trump declarara la victoria, ofreció una reflexión compartida por muchas personas. En sus palabras: “La hermandad no apareció”.En muchos sentidos, los resultados de las elecciones parecieron contradecir generaciones de avances hacia la igualdad de la mujer y para el feminismo en general. En las últimas décadas, las mujeres han avanzado en casi todas las facetas de la vida estadounidense, representan en general una mayor proporción de la mano de obra que en el pasado, ocupan puestos de trabajo bien remunerados y superan a los hombres en la educación superior, aunque siguen estando infrarrepresentadas en los niveles más altos de la empresa y el gobierno.Ahora se encuentran en un país donde Trump ganó decisivamente con una campaña que enfrentó a hombres contra mujeres, sentándose con conductores de pódcast que comercian con el sexismo y eligiendo a un compañero de fórmula que había criticado a las mujeres solteras como “señoras con gatos y sin hijos”. Trump se atribuyó el mérito de nombrar a los jueces de la Corte Suprema que anularon el derecho constitucional al aborto, pero pareció pagar un bajo precio en las urnas. Inmediatamente después de las elecciones circularon por las redes sociales publicaciones de hombres que decían: “tu cuerpo, mi elección”.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Women’s March Event, Organizers Say They Are Preparing a ‘Comeback Tour’

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      At a demonstration on Saturday, the crowd was small and enthusiasm was lacking. But organizers are planning a big march ahead of the inauguration.On Saturday, after former President Donald J. Trump’s re-election dashed progressives’ hopes of a new era for women’s rights and other left-wing causes, Women’s March held a hastily arranged protest-cum-dance party outside the headquarters of a conservative think tank in Washington. Only about a few hundred people showed up.The first Women’s March, held in the aftermath of Mr. Trump’s 2017 inauguration, drew hundreds of thousands of people to the National Mall in Washington to protest what they feared would be an assault on reproductive rights, immigrants and civil rights under his administration. But this week, Women’s March organizers are grappling with despair among their base that the president they oppose has been elected to a second term, and questions about where the movement is headed.The goal of the Saturday afternoon event was to reinvigorate the organization’s progressive base after the election and perhaps to unleash some anger at the Heritage Foundation, the think tank that had designed a policy playbook for a second Trump administration, Project 2025, whose goals included aggressively curtailing access to abortion. The foundation did not immediately respond on Saturday evening to a request for comment.“You are not going to take our joy,” said Rachel O’Leary Carmona, the executive director of Women’s March, before singing along to the music.But while a band and a D.J. played upbeat songs at top volume, the crowd did not do much more than sway to the beat.The hastily arranged protest doubled as a dance party outside the headquarters of a conservative think tank.Tierney L. Cross for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump, Vance y sus aliados insultan a las mujeres al final de la contienda electoral

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      Trump ha utilizado un lenguaje misógino para referirse a Harris, fomentando un ambiente entre sus aliados y en sus mítines que se regodea en los insultos sexistas.De pie en su mitin final de la campaña de 2024, el expresidente Donald Trump, en los primeros minutos después de la medianoche del día de las elecciones, utilizó un rudo comentario sexista para atacar a la representante Nancy Pelosi, la expresidenta de la Cámara de Representantes quien es una de sus rivales políticas de larga data.“Es una mala persona”, dijo Trump en el Van Andel Arena de Grand Rapids, Míchigan. “Malvada. Es una malvada, enferma, loca”. Hizo una mueca exagerada, con la boca abierta para llamar la atención sobre la siguiente sílaba: “Pe…”.Luego levantó un dedo dramáticamente, fingiendo que se había dado cuenta. “Oh, no”, dijo. Mientras miles de personas se echaban a reír, Trump pronunció la palabra por el micrófono. “Empieza por P, pero no la diré”, añadió Trump. “Quiero decirla”.Mientras la multitud rugía aún más fuerte, algunos de los asistentes empezaron a suministrar la palabra que él apenas había omitido, gritando: “¡Perra!”.En los últimos días de la contienda, Trump ha hecho llamamientos directos a las mujeres mientras hace frente a una brecha de género en las encuestas que les ha preocupado a él y a su equipo. Ha evitado mencionar su papel en el nombramiento de los jueces de la Corte Suprema que anularon el derecho constitucional al aborto, una cuestión que, según las encuestas, es una de las principales preocupaciones de las votantes femeninas.Pero, al mismo tiempo, Trump ha utilizado un lenguaje misógino para referirse a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris y ha fomentado un ambiente en sus mítines en el que oradores y asistentes se sienten cómodos profiriendo el tipo de insultos de género que, en otra época política, habría sido impensable decir en público.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      At Women’s March in Washington, Hope That They Will Hold Off Trump

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      Nearly eight years after the first Women’s March in Washington demonstrated a furious backlash to the election of Donald J. Trump, thousands of women gathered again in the capital and across the country on Saturday, this time with the hope that Vice President Kamala Harris would triumph at the polls and prevent his return to the White House.The rally and march, taking place three days before the election, was much smaller than the original in 2017 that drew at least 470,000 people — three times the number of people who had attended Mr. Trump’s inauguration the day before. But the mood was far more optimistic, if also somewhat combative.The rally at Freedom Plaza was primarily focused on threats to women’s reproductive rights and other liberties.Cheriss May for The New York Times“We will not go back!” was the rallying cry on Saturday, echoing what has become a signature line for Ms. Harris on the campaign trail. While the march was primarily focused on threats to women’s reproductive rights and other liberties, speakers and signs expressed support for a wide array of Democratic and progressive policy positions. Those included gun control, transgender rights and support for Palestinians. The speakers also urged people to vote, and to take others to vote, although many people in the crowd said they had already cast a ballot for Ms. Harris.“I just hope that all these people — not just women, but men — convince a few people to vote and vote the way we want them. Vote for democracy and our rights, reproductive rights,” said Janice Wolbrink, 69.Ms. Wolbrink was joined by her two sisters, each carrying a bright pink sign that read, “Now you’ve pissed-off Grandma.” Together, the three of them had 24 grandchildren.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Michelle Obama Makes a Searing Appeal to Men: ‘Take Our Lives Seriously’

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      Michelle Obama issued an impassioned plea to American voters on Saturday — and, in particular, American men — anchored in a searing and intimate depiction of women’s bodies and reproductive health, and what she described as the life-or-death stakes of returning former President Donald J. Trump to power.In her first appearance on the campaign trail during this election, Mrs. Obama, long reluctant to engage in the political arena, described the far-reaching consequences of the 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning the constitutional right to abortion, in the concrete terms of personal tragedy.“If your wife is shivering and bleeding on the operating room table during a routine delivery gone bad, her pressure dropping as she loses more and more blood, or some unforeseen infection spreads and her doctors aren’t sure if they can act, you will be the one praying that it’s not too late,” Mrs. Obama said. “You will be the one pleading for somebody, anybody, to do something.”And while she acknowledged the anger that many Americans feel about the “slow pace of change” in the country, she warned: “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage.”Michelle Obama, the former first lady, spoke about the potential risks to women’s health care in frank language. “If we don’t get this election right, your wife, your daughter, your mother, we as women, will become collateral damage to your rage.”Emily Elconin for The New York TimesMrs. Obama’s words — at a rally in Michigan where she introduced Vice President Kamala Harris — amounted to an extraordinary centering of women’s bodies and their private experiences in an American presidential election. She discussed menstrual cramps and hot flashes, describing the shame and uncertainty girls and women feel about their bodies. She told women they should demand to be treated as more than “baby-making vessels.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Bad Do You Want It, Ladies?

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      Usually, I get political wisdom from Rahm Emanuel, not his brother Ari.But a quote from Ari, the Hollywood macher, to Puck’s Matthew Belloni about the gender chasm in 2024 caught my eye.“This election is gonna come down to probably 120,000 votes,” Ari said. “You probably have 60 percent of the male vote for Trump, and the female vote is 60-40 for Kamala. It’s a jump ball. We’re gonna find out who wants this more — men or women.”Are we back to the days of Mars versus Venus? Or did we never leave?It is the ultimate battle of the sexes in the most visceral of elections. Who will prevail? The women, especially young women, who are appalled at the cartoonish macho posturing and benighted stances of Donald Trump and his entourage? Or the men, including many young men, union men, Latino and Black men, who are drawn to Trump’s swaggering, bullying and insulting, seeing him as the reeling-backward antidote to shrinking male primacy.Drilling into the primal yearnings of men and women — their priorities, identities, anger and frustration — makes this election even more fraught. When I wrote a book about gender in 2005, I assumed that, a couple of decades later, we’d all be living peacefully on the same planet. But no Cassandra, I. The sexual revolution intensified our muddle, leaving women in a tangle of dependence and independence in the 21st century. The more we imitated men, the more we realized how different we were.Progress zigzags. But it was dispiriting to see the fierce backlash to Geraldine Ferraro, Anita Hill and Hillary Clinton’s co-presidency and candidacy.In Kamala Harris’s case, the backlash is evident even before the election. Surveys reflect the same doubts about a woman in the White House that I saw covering Ferraro in 1984. Many men — and many women — still wonder if women are too emotional to deal with world leaders and lead the military.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More