Did anyone else see the horrific display in the Oval Office last Friday as a ritual exercise in male domination? I don’t want to insult great apes, but I’ve seen similar performances at the zoo. Trump and Vance sought to humiliate Zelensky, treating him with the same disrespect they treat .. well, women.
Trump, Vance, and Musk inhabit what’s been termed the “manosphere” — a place where the main events are dominance and submission. The whole point is to humiliate weaker men — and to subjugate women.
Women — especially women of color — have distinguished themselves in standing up to Trump, maybe because they’re less intimidated by him than are many men, and because Trump has shown himself particularly fearful of strong women.
Which if any Republicans have been strong opponents of Trump. Answer: In the Senate, Republicans Lisa Murkowski and (barely) Susan Collins. In the House, the prize still goes to Liz Cheney.
Who has looked Trump in the eye and told him to show mercy for LGBTQ+ and undocumented people in America? Mariann Edgar Budde, the Bishop of Washington, at the National Prayer Service in January.
Who repeatedly took Trump to court on defamation charges, and repeatedly won? E. Jean Carroll.
Which prosecutors and judges were toughest in trying to hold Trump legally accountable? New York Attorney General Letitia James, Atlanta-based District Attorney Fani Willis, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson, and U.S. District Judge Lauren King.
Who most successfully pummeled Trump in a presidential debate? Kamala Harris.
Which journalists have been most aggressive in questioning Trump? Megyn Kelly, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor, CNN’s Abby Phillip, The Grio’s April Ryan, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie, The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman, CBS’s Weijia Jiang, and New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi.
I could go on, but you get the point.
If there was ever a president who represented unfettered male domination, it’s Trump. An implicit promise of the 2024 Trump campaign was to restore patriarchy to America. Trump voters were overwhelmingly male.
As you recall, Trump was found liable for sexual abuse; he famously told “Access Hollywood” that if you’re a famous man “you can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy”; he asserted during the recent campaign that he’d “protect” women “whether the women like it or not”; and he was instrumental in ending abortion rights nationwide.
After Trump’s reelection, sexist and abusive attacks on women — such as “your body, my choice” and “get back to the kitchen” — surged across social media, according to an analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
A remarkable number of Trump’s cronies are sexual harassers and predators. Trump was introduced at the Republican National Convention by Dana White, chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, who was once caught on tape slapping his wife in a nightclub.
Trump’s pick for vice president, JD Vance, has said professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children. He has claimed men in America were “suppressed” in their masculinity. Vance has characterized Democratic leaders as “childless cat ladies.”
At a gathering of conservatives last month, Vance told young men: “Don’t allow this broken culture to send you a message that you’re a bad person because you’re a man, because you like to tell a joke, because you like to have a beer with your friends or because you’re competitive.”
Trump’s pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, paid off a woman who accused him of sexual assault (Hegseth’s own mother accused him of abusing women, though she later disavowed her words).
Trump’s HHS secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., was accused of sexually harassing his family’s nanny and at one point kept a diary of his conquests, which his wife at the time found.
Elon Musk’s “bros” are notoriously misogynistic, as is Musk. One of Musk’s companies, SpaceX, reportedly paid $250,000 to a flight attendant who said Musk exposed himself to her. In a lawsuit filed last year, former employees accused him of “treating women as sexual objects to be evaluated on their bra size.”
One of the most pathetic symbols of the new manosphere is Mark Zuckerberg. After kissing Trump’s derriere, the third-richest man in America called for more “masculine energy” because the corporate world was becoming “culturally neutered.” He told Joe Rogan that “having a culture that celebrates the aggression a bit more has its own merits that are really positive.”
Last Thursday, the Trump regime celebrated toxic masculinity by smoothing the way for Andrew and Tristan Tate to be extradited from Romania to the United States. The Tate bros had been accused of luring women to Romania and then forcing them to work as pornographic webcam performers. Britain is also investigating the Tate brothers for rape and human trafficking in Britain. . . .
As America slides toward neofascism, I think it important to understand that its roots draw from a deep distrust, bordering on hate, of people who seem weak or feminine — people who were born as, or have become, women.
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