Have we reached peak patriarchy? It’s mind blowing the ‘leader of the free world’ has never been a woman in 235 years of US Presidents. You simply can’t ignore the gendered aspects of the contest playing out in US politics. It’s both exciting and terrifying.
Who could forget the disgraceful treatment of Australia’s first female Prime Minister Julia Gillard with those ‘Ditch the Witch’ signs and threats of drowning her. Women are still grossly underrepresented in Australian parliaments, particularly in the Coalition.
Back in the US, Kamala Harris the Democratic nominee for president has ‘mo’ (momentum) as they say. She’s turned the polls around and hasn’t the patriarchy gone bonkers?
Donald Trump is flailing trying to land a blow with his predictable misogynistic tactics – questioning Kamala’s black identity and calling her ‘dumb’ and ‘low IQ’, and deliberating mispronouncing and mocking her name at every opportunity.
Republicans are apparently cringing behind closed doors calling Trump’s attacks ‘undisciplined’ and a ‘public nervous breakdown’.
As a former prosecutor, Kamala Harris says she’s heard it all before, but don’t you love her reply – ‘So hear me when I say, I know Donald Trump’s type’. And that’s the thing, isn’t it? He’s a type. An all too familiar type, and once you know that type for what it is, the spell is broken.
To make sense of the weirdness, here’s a brief primer. The patriarchy is a foundational tool of capitalism. It seeks to uphold male supremacy, socially and economically, while defining the purpose of human existence as ‘maximising profits’. Under this system nature is also external and only there to serve the purposes of the patriarchy and capitalism.
A woman’s role under patriarchy is to serve her male counterparts, while under capitalism a person’s worth is defined by what they contribute economically to society through labour. The intersection of these systems means women have the job of providing free labour to men, in terms of housework and childcare, while also producing children who will ultimately become part of the workforce.
It’s no coincidence that women’s reproductive rights are in the spotlight in US politics. It’s also why Republican vice-presidential nominee JD Vance has a weird obsession with child-free people. Vance told a conservative podcast that Americans without children are ‘more sociopathic’ and make the country ‘less stable’. He set the memesphere on fire by describing high-profile Democrats as ‘childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own life choices’.
Kittens for Kamala were unleashed in the most amusing ways, and celebrities piled on, so Vance wheeled out his wife to hose down the damage. He only meant it as a ‘quip’ she explained. You know, a joke. Eyeroll. His wife said he’d ‘never, ever, ever want to say something to hurt someone who was trying to have a family, who really, was struggling with that’.
So, the take home is, it’s ok if you’re trying to have kids but can’t, but if you choose to be child-free, you’re a threat to the patriarchy. Republicans are hell bent on making The Handmaid’s Tale non-fiction.
Incidentally, one in eight couples in the US struggle with infertility. That’s around 6.7 million people. Skyrocketing infertility rates are fuelled by the toxic cocktail of hormone-disrupting chemicals we’re all swimming in, courtesy of the ‘drill baby drill’ fossil fuel industry that Trump vows to crank up on day one if he’s re-elected.
Upping the weirdness ante, Fox News host Jesse Watters said that men who vote for the female Democratic candidate have ‘mommy’ issues and, ‘I heard the scientists say the other day that when a man votes for a woman, he actually transitions into a woman’. It’s a frightening low for a news host to dog whistle toxic masculinity from under the white coat of science, while simultaneously dumping on the trans community. Maybe AI spat that out for him?
Meanwhile White Dudes for Harris, with the stated aim ‘to cut through the MAGA crap’, raised four million dollars for her campaign. They had their X (Twitter) account suspended and later reinstated, which had commentators suggesting Elon Musk got ‘scared’.
The energy and enthusiasm for Kamala has surged and is palpable, even here in Byron Bay. She’s engaging voters, particularly young and black voters, which is crucial with non-mandatory voting in the US. Getting people out to vote is the key to her success.
She introduced her vice-presidential running mate, Tim Walz, saying, ‘He’s the kind of person who makes people feel like they belong and inspires them to dream big’. This says so much about her values and style of leadership.
The Green New Deal Network, a coalition of progressive organisations, has endorsed her and is putting boots on the ground to doorknock where it counts. They believe she will build on the success of Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act that committed two trillion dollars to get the US to net zero by 2050.
Kamala in Sanskrit means ‘she of the lotus’. Indian-American voters have a new rallying cry: LOTUS for POTUS. The stakes couldn’t be higher in this fight for the future. We’re going to need the intervention of the Goddess!
♦ Jo Immig is a former advisor to the NSW Legislative Council and Coordinator of the National Toxics Network. She’s currently a freelance writer and researcher.
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