{"id":45538,"date":"2025-12-09T21:40:02","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=45538"},"modified":"2025-12-09T21:40:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:40:03","slug":"republican-women-suddenly-realize-theyre-surrounded-by-misogynists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/12\/09\/republican-women-suddenly-realize-theyre-surrounded-by-misogynists\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Women Suddenly Realize They\u2019re Surrounded by Misogynists"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dec. 9, 2025 (NYTimes.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"A
Credit…Damon Winter\/The New York Times<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Michelle<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Michelle Goldberg<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opinion Columnist<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1982, Phyllis Schlafly, perhaps the most important anti-feminist in American history, debated the radical feminist law professor Catharine MacKinnon. Schlafly believed that sexism was a thing of the past; to her, if women had different roles in society than men, it was due to their distinct talents and inclinations. She herself, she said, had never experienced discrimination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacKinnon pointed out that Schlafly, who\u2019d written extensively about defense policy, had wanted a position in Ronald Reagan\u2019s Pentagon. Any man with Schlafly\u2019s considerable accomplishments, MacKinnon argued, would have been given a job. Schlafly had to concede that her feminist foe had a point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An ambitious woman who is willing to absolve the right of misogyny can go far, but rarely can she achieve the same status as a man. That\u2019s especially true today, in a Republican Party that\u2019s increasingly giving itself over to the most retrograde forms of sexism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently several Republican congresswomen have been complaining, on and off the record, that their party\u2019s leaders, especially Mike Johnson, the House speaker, don\u2019t take them seriously. It started with Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a onetime MAGA icon who is resigning next month. \u201cThey want women just to go along with whatever they\u2019re doing and basically to stand there, smile and clap with approval, whereas they just have their good old boys club,\u201d she said in September. It turns out she\u2019s not alone in her frustration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, The Times reported<\/a> on Republican women in Congress who say that Johnson \u201cfailed to listen to them or engage in direct conversations on major political and policy issues,\u201d which they seemed to attribute to his highly patriarchal evangelical Christianity. (He recently said that women, unlike men, are unable to \u201ccompartmentalize\u201d their thoughts.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Feeling sidelined by Johnson, some Republican women are defying him. All but one of the House Republicans who bucked leadership to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files were women. Of the eight Republicans who joined with Democrats in November to try to censure their fellow Republican Cory Mills \u2014 who has been accused<\/a> of threatening his ex with revenge porn \u2014 six were women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recently, rumors have swirled that Nancy Mace, who is running for governor of South Carolina, could soon follow Greene in quitting the House before the end of her term. Mace has denied this, but her disgruntlement is no secret. On Monday, she wrote in The Times<\/a>, \u201cWomen will never be taken seriously until leadership decides to take us seriously, and I\u2019m no longer holding my breath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s tempting to roll one\u2019s eyes at women who are shocked, shocked to discover sexism in a political party led by Donald Trump. But it\u2019s a sign of progress that these women are not responding as Schlafly did, demurely accepting their subordinate position within conservatism. They may not all call themselves feminists \u2014 though at times Mace has \u2014 but they\u2019ve internalized basic feminist assumptions about their entitlement to equal treatment. What they\u2019ve failed to understand, however, is that those aren\u2019t assumptions their party shares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Much has been made about the rebirth of gutter antisemitism and racism within the conservative movement. There\u2019s been less public alarm about the resurgence of unapologetic misogyny. Last month, there was an uproar over the support that the Heritage Foundation\u2019s president, Kevin Roberts, offered to Tucker Carlson after his softball interview with Nick Fuentes, the influential antisemite. We\u2019ve seen far less backlash to Heritage\u2019s hiring of Scott Yenor, who\u00a0believes<\/a>\u00a0that workplace discrimination against women should be legal, as head of its B. Kenneth Simon Center for American Studies. Among the sort of young men who revel in transgressive antisemitism \u2014 which is to say, among much of the conservative movement\u2019s rising generation \u2014 calls to repeal women\u2019s right to vote have become commonplace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not long ago, most Republicans at least pretended to accept liberal premises about human equality, sometimes even gloating about one-upping Democrats on diversity. In 2008, Republicans tried to capitalize on the disappointment some women felt about Hillary Clinton\u2019s primary loss by putting Sarah Palin on their ticket. There was a moment in 2011 when Michele Bachmann was a leading candidate in the Republican presidential primary race. For years it was almost a truism that the first woman president would probably be a Republican, some steely American version of Margaret Thatcher in high heels and pearls. Republicans didn\u2019t want to raise up women as a group, but they valorized a certain kind of powerful woman, one who disdained feminism and proved through her success that the strong didn\u2019t need it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, however, Republicans are much less defensive about being the party of chest-beating patriarchy. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has purged<\/a> women from the highest ranks of the military. Johnson has attributed school shootings to the \u201camoral society\u201d wrought by \u201cradical feminism\u201d and the sexual revolution and has said Americans should strive to live by \u201c18th-century values.\u201d Vice President JD Vance is famously contemptuous of women without children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the lower levels of the administration are littered with defiant chauvinists. Paul Ingrassia, whom Trump recently made deputy general counsel at the General Services Administration, is probably best known for a leaked email where he referred to his \u201cNazi streak.\u201d But he also reportedly<\/a> intervened during a federal investigation on behalf of the misogynist influencer Andrew Tate \u2014 who is his former client and has been accused of sex trafficking \u2014 after electronic devices belonging to Tate and his brother were seized at the border, and he called<\/a> opposition to women\u2019s suffrage \u201cvery based,\u201d a term of high praise on the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are still plenty of opportunities in the MAGA movement for women who embody Trump\u2019s preferred style of hyper-femininity, espouse traditional gender roles, or both. Indeed, the president\u2019s obsession with aesthetics can open doors for women who might otherwise never have careers in politics. Many Republicans like having beautiful women around, and they appreciate being able to put a feminine face on their culture war crusades. But as some women in the party are realizing, there\u2019s a big difference between being useful and being respected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Times is committed to publishing <\/em>a diversity of letters<\/em><\/a> to the editor. We\u2019d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some <\/em>tips<\/em><\/a>. And here\u2019s our email: <\/em>letters@nytimes.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Follow the New York Times Opinion section on <\/em>Facebook<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Instagram<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>TikTok<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>Bluesky<\/em><\/a>, WhatsApp<\/em><\/a> and <\/em>Threads<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A correction was made on<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec. 9, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An earlier version of this article misspelled the given name of a departing U.S. representative. She is Marjorie Taylor Greene, not Majorie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com<\/a>.Learn more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michelle Goldberg has been an Opinion columnist since 2017. She is the author of several books about politics, religion and women\u2019s rights and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2018 for reporting on workplace sexual harassment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dec. 9, 2025 (NYTimes.com) By Michelle Goldberg Opinion Columnist In 1982, Phyllis Schlafly, perhaps the most important anti-feminist in American history, debated the radical feminist law professor Catharine MacKinnon. Schlafly believed that sexism was a thing of the past; to her, if women had different roles in society than men, it… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45538"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45539,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45538\/revisions\/45539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}