In this op-ed, Features Director Brittney McNamara explores the loud misogyny that proliferated online after Trump's re-election.
Donald Trump, a convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual abuse, was elected to his second term in office, and before the election was even called, misogynists started boldly proclaiming their hatred of women online.
White supremacist Nicholas Fuentes wrote “Your body, my choice. Forever,” on X on November 5, a misogynist rallying cry that has spread like wildfire among young men online. He proliferated the idea in a video, saying, “Hey bitch, we control your bodies. Guess what? Guys win again, men win again, and yes, we control your bodies,” as part of a gleeful anti-woman rant. An X user with more than 100,000 followers wrote, “women threatening sex strikes like LMAO as if you have a say,” and mocked E. Jean Carroll, who Trump sexually abused in the 1990s. And Andrew Tate, a manosphere influencer and self-proclaimed misogynist, has, as expected, been on a tear on X following Trump’s election.
“I saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down. Right of way? You no longer have rights,” he wrote in one post. “The men are back in charge,” he said in another. And in a repost of a woman saying she’s “asking for a President who isn’t a rapist,” Tate wrote “REQUEST DENIED.” These are only some of Tate’s misogynist, racist, homophobic, and simply hateful posts.
And, these are only some of the blatantly anti-woman posts that are flooding the internet since Trump’s election. In addition to open misogyny, WIRED reported on the many violent and bigoted posts celebrating Trump’s win, pointing to posts calling for “rape squads,” talking about “rounding up all the gays into camps,” reveling in “white power,” and threatening Trump’s opposition.
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That people hate women is no surprise. It’s evident at every level of our society, from the prevalence of sexual violence, to the wage gap, to the dismissal of women’s pain, to the lack of women in C-suite jobs, to the fact that we’ve never had a woman in the Oval Office. Misogynoir is particularly prevalent: Black women face higher rates of violence, make less money on average than their white counterparts, hold fewer positions of power, face higher maternal mortality rates, and much more. And, that these Trump supporters hold particular vitriol for women also comes as no surprise, given the prevalence of misogyny both from Trump’s own campaign and from his supporters during it.
Though it’s not surprising, seeing this kind of violent misogyny displayed proudly, seeing misogynists feel emboldened to comment on random TikToks saying “your body my choice,” does feel shocking. Like in 2016, watching those who once hid their bigoted views creep out of what used to feel like the shadowy corners of the internet, seemingly bolstered by a commander in chief who has been accused of sexual assault by about two dozen women, is yet another reminder of what we face in the coming four years. It’s also a reminder of the growing coalition of men who, despite never having lost power, have felt disenfranchised, taking refuge in the increasingly popular manosphere, where men’s plight (real or imagined) is center stage.
That’s the thing about those once-shadowy corners — they’re not so fringe anymore. Tate, who has been charged with rape and human trafficking in Romania (he denies these charges), has 10.2 million followers on X. Joe Rogan, perhaps the most well-known figure in the manosphere, has 19 million Instagram followers and a wildly popular podcast that’s consistently among the top listened. Other figures like Theo Von, Adin Ross, and Sneako have grown in popularity. And, it’s not just men. Women like Hannah Pearl Davis also loudly uphold the patriarchy, something white women often engage in as they prioritize their whiteness over their gender. We see this also in the rise of trad wife influencers, who promise women freedom at the hands of the patriarchy, encouraging women to submit to a head of household husband, to step away from career and personal gain. But what appeal do all these influencers hold? That they blame women for men’s problems.
“[The manosphere] contrasts the growing challenges faced by men with the increasing social, economic and political success experienced by women,” Ben Rich and Eva Bujalka wrote in The Conversation in 2023. “This zero-sum claim posits that female empowerment must necessarily equate to male disempowerment, and is evidenced through simplified and pseudoscientific theories of biology and socioeconomics.”
With Trump’s win, manosphere influencers and their followers are seemingly trying to make it clear to women that their flop era is over. They’re “back in charge,” ready to assume what they feel is their rightful place — following a man who, like them, disregards women’s agency and degrades them publicly. It might be true that the manosphere is growing, and it is true that Trump will be president. But their flop era is far from over, because women won’t allow it to be.
In the face of misogyny, women always fight back. Though they seem popular in these online spaces, policies that are bad for women are actually deeply unpopular when put to the test, as we saw with the overwhelming win for abortion rights at the polls on Tuesday. And when women have lost rights, they’ve banded together to pool resources, offer help, organize, and find loopholes that allow us our autonomy. Women did show up to vote for their rights in this election, and they will not stop caring about those rights. And, if you have a male partner who’s been sucked into the manosphere, espousing misogynist views at you, you can and should dump him. There are many organizations aimed at empowering women, offering resources and guides on how to fight back against misogyny — in moments like this, these organizations only get stronger.
After Trump’s win, feminist author Rebecca Solnit wrote her reaction on Twitter, and her words are applicable here.
“They want you to feel powerless and surrender and let them trample everything and you are not going to let them,” she wrote. “You are not giving up, and neither am I. The fact that we cannot save everything does not mean we cannot save anything and everything we can save is worth saving.”
