What can women do now?

Produced by ElevenLabs and News Over Audio (NOA) using AI narration.

Hoh the women must who didn’t vote for Trump are going to live their lives knowing that a majority of Americans not only voted against their immediate health and well-being, but also for a candidate who has actively sidelined and vilified people like them? After months and months of watching Donald Trump and his band of bros denigrate Kamala Harris and all women in general — the childless, the fertile and the post-childless — 55 percent of male voters supported him, according to CNN exit polls . This also applied to 45 percent of female voters. What should the other women – those who feel like they live in a country hostile to their existence – do?

The answer is slightly different than what they did last time.

When Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 sent thousands of women onto the streets of Washington, DC, with their signs and their pussy hats, many assumed that the sexism Clinton had experienced was a bug from the Trump era. That if women united, expanded their idea of ​​feminism to include experiences of different races and classes, and fought back, they could change things.

Read: How Trump neutralized his abortion problem

And in some ways they did. That collective power laid the foundation for the #MeToo movement in 2017. During the 2018 midterm elections, more women ran for office and won than ever before. But in the intervening years, the terrain has changed.

Sexism, it turned out, was not a bug but a hallmark of the Trump years. Misogyny certainly seems natural to Trump, but it has been strategically amplified — through surrogates and messaging — to attract supporters, especially younger men of all races. Elon Musk’s political action committee even ran an ad referring to Harris as “a big C-word” — and Communist was just one of the intended meanings. Trump has always been good at exploiting the ugliest aspects of America, and the growing isolation and right-wing drift of young men was a perfect target.

American men are lonely: In 2021, 15 percent are likely to say they have no close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. They’re also more likely to not be in a relationship: In 2022, six in 10 men under 30 were single . In a 2023 survey of men ages 18 to 45, a majority agreed with the statement, “No one really knows me.” Many find solace online, where they consume their news on Reddit and X and soak up content from influencers like Andrew Tate, Adin Ross and Joe Rogan. The content, like its creators, is often blatantly misogynistic.

Many of these young men apparently see Trump – with his miked pantomime and his crowd chanting the word bitch– as presidential. He spoke to young men in a voice they recognized. More than half of men between the ages of 18 and 29 voted for him.

But Trump didn’t just get support from young men; he received support from almost every group. To many older white men, and to the many, many Latino men who broke for Trump, the misogyny may have seemed macho. And what about his female supporters? Representative Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman to run for president, wrote in 1970 that “women in America are far more brainwashed and content with their roles as second-class citizens than blacks ever were.” This still applies today. No matter how many marches women hold or the memes they post online about sisterhood, many women remain disinterested: 53 percent of white women (and a growing percentage of Latinas) voted for Trump. Women can enforce patriarchy just as well as men, as the internet’s “trad-wives” have demonstrated.

Many had hoped that as president, Harris would have overcome not only the political path but also the gender divide. In her concession speech yesterday, she cited women’s rights as one of many causes, speaking of the need for women to “have the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies,” for schools to be safe from gun violence, “for the rule of law, for equal justice.”

Such a recovery will not happen under a second Trump administration, for the obvious reason that division benefits him. Misogyny makes powerless men feel empowered. After Trump’s victory, right-wing activist Nick Fuentes tweeted: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” It really is a man’s world now.

TThe situation is not hopelessbut it may require new tactics. The time for pounding our chests and railing against patriarchy may be over. The protests that felt so powerful in 2016 may have backfired to some extent, as the people who most needed women to hear their message shut them down instead. But women can’t just withdraw either; their lives and futures depend on it.

The answer is engagement: soft diplomacy in everyday life. “We will continue to wage this fight in the voting booth, in the courts and in the public square,” Harris said in her speech. But “we will also conduct it in a quieter way.”

Start simple: thank the men in your life who supported Harris; thank them for their trust and respect for women and for believing that they can lead. It seems small, but millions of men apparently don’t think that way, so let’s encourage those who do.

Listen: Are we living in a different America?

For mothers and aunts of young men and boys, you may not be able to control what they read on the Internet, but you can combat it through conversations and counterprogramming.

And most importantly, women who voted against Trump need to talk honestly to the men in their lives — their cousins ​​and fathers, coworkers and friends — who voted the other way. Talk to them about women’s lives and values. Better yet, enlist other men to help you. One reason fewer black men drifted toward Trump than Latino men is because many black people spoke honestly about the importance of valuing women on social media, in private conversations and at church in the months leading up to the election. They directly addressed voters’ hesitancy about female leadership by discussing the long history of outstanding Black female leaders. Minds can be shaped by the internet and its algorithms, yes, but minds can also be changed by conversations. As Harris reminded everyone, “You have power.”

Despite what many say, the modern woman does not need a man. But women’s lives can certainly be improved if men don’t hate them.