Rarely in the democratic world, an electoral battle is fought based on gender. Nowhere on the planet—even in any obscure country of Africa–a woman Presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, has been targeted for being childless—by none other than J D Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. At the same time, perhaps no Presidential nominee, himself a former President, has been demonized as blatantly as Donald Trump since 2016. After all, millions protested throughout the United States at the time of his inauguration ceremony in January 2017, though he was a duly elected President.
If Americans have not elected a woman President this time, it is hard to believe that they will do so in the foreseeable future. They rejected a White woman, Hillary Clinton (though she got more popular votes than Trump) in 2016 and now a Black in 2024.
The Democratic Party may now be regretting the decision to compel Joe Biden to make space for Kamala Harris as she now has not only lost her election but failed to secure a majority for the party in the 435-member House of Representatives and 100-member Senate. Perhaps the party would have done somewhat better had it gone with the old and tired Joe Biden himself as its face. She lagged far behind Trump in popular votes and failed to muster the support of women in a much bigger way than was predicted earlier.
If 53% of them voted for Harris and 46% of men for her then it is not something very unusual as women always voted more for Democratic Party nominee.
Western hypocrisy
The problem is that the Western media underplays the social reality within their backyard. They are rather busy picking holes in other countries/societies of the Third World. How the belt gender battle was fought throughout the last three months deserves a deep study.
No, this phenomenon cannot be dismissed by simply stating that Trump and Vance are misogynists and that everything is hunky-dory for women in the United States. The fact is that these two gentlemen represent a huge chunk of the population who hold the view that women cannot be trusted for the top job.
That is why even former President Barack Obama had to toil so hard to convince Black males to vote for Harris. Despite this effort, more Blacks voted for Trump than for any Republican in the recent past.
Issues like the economy, recession, inflation, migration, price rise, crime, Gaza, Ukraine, China, and tariffs etc. are quite common for all Americans—be it men or women. Then why is it that so many women (who account for 51% of the country’s population) were expected to vote for Harris? Do women in America not understand these issues and voted for Harris simply because she is a woman who promised the right to abortion and reproductive rights?
Besides, the US media, which in general support liberals and democrats seldom highlight the true picture of the Bible belt, which is the Republican stronghold in the South and Midwest. The news of the election campaign was mostly confined to Democrat-dominated New York, New Jersey, Illinois, California, Virginia, Vermont, etc., or the seven swing states.
The so-called progressive Western media, as usual, virtually blacked out the strong belief in Christian values, family life, and stand against abortion as well as same-sex marriage and LGBT Q in states like Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Kentucky, etc. Florida got some coverage because of Trump.
Many Christians in this entire belt of over two dozen states are somewhat more fundamentalist in their approach toward these issues than any of their counterparts in the rest of the world. But New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Washington, etc.-based media houses would not leave these facts known to the world. In all these states both men and women voted in almost equal numbers for ‘misogynist’ Trump.
Nowhere in the world members of the LGBT Q community are killed as in the United States, which otherwise claims to be the greatest champion of their cause. At the same time, crime against women is among the highest in the globe. The more abortion and reproductive rights become the voting issues of the urban elite the more it witnesses violence against women.
Contempt for women leaders
Even in the most backward region of the Indian sub-continent, no political rival can dare to call the Presidential candidate a childless woman. The example of South Asia is being highlighted because all the countries—India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal—have democratically elected women President or Prime Minister.
The Western public opinion makers have mastered the art of self-censorship as they want to project to the world that they are the real torch-bearers of liberalism, democracy, women’s rights, abortion, reproductive rights to women, etc. And that the rest of the world is groping in the darkness.
The Trump-Vance duo fully exploited the real ground situation in a large part of the United States, where many people in the heartland have started rooting for family life. In contrast the Harris camp tried to exploit the women-related issues and did manage to win the support of a large number of educated, employed, ‘empowered’ women, mostly young and single, of the Democrat-dominated states, which are mostly coastal, more industrial, and richer.
But the Republican supporters have contempt for such women. In a recently written opinion article in foxnews.com, considered a rightist media outlet, a writer called these educated and employed women not ‘wiser’ enough to understand the burning issues of migration, economic downslide, job loss, crime, etc. The author hinted that these women are more interested in themselves.
Rebels-turned-traditionalists
Curiously notwithstanding Trump’s masculinity, more married women voted for him than unmarried and single ones. A close study of Western society, in particular the United States, would reveal that there are a sizable number of elderly women who have tilted toward family life though they were great social rebels, feminists, and liberals during their young age. Several of them, through their writings in the media regret that they lost their precious child-bearing age because they were fascinated by the slogans of empowerment championed by feminists. Many of them even went for an abortion for the sake of their career, unable to conceive later in life.
The champions of abortion and reproductive rights for women failed to take these facts into account. The truth is that abortion in the US was not going to be a game-changer as was being made out by the urban elite. The advancement in medical technology and contraceptives has greatly reduced its rate. It was 29 per thousand four decades back, now it is just over 11 per thousand.
The over-emphasis on women’s rights backfired in the US, where more and more males—rightly or wrongly–have now started acknowledging that over-empowerment of the fair gender is wreaking havoc in society. If in the past men were accused of exploiting women, now women are perhaps paying them back in the same coin. Once again perhaps that may be one of the reasons why gender violence is on the rise.
The US intelligentsia seldom debates these issues.
That is why Republicans—as Obama in the case of Black males—repeatedly asked men to turn up in large numbers to booths as usually their turnout is less than women.
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