All over social media, American women are shaving their heads and swearing off s*x with their partners in protest at Donald Trump’s re-election.
Quoting the 4B movement, which originated in South Korea, they are urging other women to adopt the principles of no dating, no intercourse, no marriage and no children to ‘punish’ their menfolk for choosing Trump over Kamala Harris.
Don’t get me wrong: I have serious reservations about Trump, as I’m sure anyone with half a brain does. But the idea that his return to the White House will usher in an era of female repression equivalent to the kind of dystopian nightmare depicted in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is absurd.
Yes, Trump has had many ‘women’ problems (see Stormy Daniels et al); yes, a Republican rump supports hardline policies on abortion; yes, his deputy called Harris ‘a childless cat lady’, but that was just banter (dare I say maybe even a joke, a concept that American liberals increasingly seem to have trouble processing).
And besides, it was a lot less offensive than dismissing opposition supporters as ‘garbage’, which Joe Biden did.
But the idea that Trump will preside over a misogynist administration that will strip women of their rights, relegate them to the status of second-class citizens and chain them, barefoot and bleeding, to the kitchen sink is simply deluded.
Also, it’s very narcissistic. America’s debt is $35.85 trillion. There’s a hideous war in the Middle East. Don’t these drama queens realise the President-elect has bigger fish to fry?
Whatever else Trump may be, he’s an old-fashioned Boomer libertarian (his political muse being Ronald Reagan). He believes in free markets and freedom of expression. The last thing he’s going to do is neutralise half the country’s taxpayers, many of whom voted for him – 44 per cent, in fact, which is quite something given how supposedly reviled he is among the fairer s*x.
The truth is, surely, that America’s women care about things such as the economy, international politics and the loss of women’s rights in other areas, such as schools and prisons and the sporting field. After all, one of Trump’s campaign promises was to ‘keep men out of women’s sport’ and withdraw funding from hospitals that offer gender reassignment surgery to minors.
