The He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club

When I was in 4^th grade, my classmates played a crude game we called “War.” Boys lined up on one side of the playground, girls on the other. At a signal, both sides ran headfirst towards the “enemy,” shoving each other as hard as we could to push them down.

It was pretty awesome.

I still remember standing on the Girls side, the Boys taunting us. Then we plowed towards them. After several charges, the girls were winning before some panicked teacher’s aides broke it up (#joykillers). Many of those little boys were MAD at being bested by “girls”; in the following days, they called pretty much every one of us a nasty name.

Apparently, that song remains the same. The amount of name-calling targeting presidential candidate Kamala Harris is astonishing. And while Harris takes the incoming fire, women in general are catching some of it, too.

Ever since Trump chose Ohio senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, we’ve heard Vance sneeringly refer to “childless cat ladies.” This is on top of the virulently misogynist policies the GOP is pushing to control women’s bodies. In the pages of Project 2025, it’s abundantly clear that the only “acceptable” family is the traditional one straight out of Father Knows Best.

Trump is ramping up his weapons-grade sexism, even beyond what he said in 2016 about Hillary Clinton. Welcome to the He-Man Woman-Hater’s Club, circa 2024.

Harris’ candidacy has amplified every single negative trope about accomplished women. MAGA and Trump supporters are throwing them all at Harris, like “she’s not a mom” (she’s a stepmother).

OK, so maybe she has stepchildren, “but that’s not a ‘real’ mother.”

She only got where she is in her career because “she slept her way to the top.”

Like many law students, Harris failed the bar exam on her first try. So that flub means she’s “stupid.” Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana recently called her a “dingdong” during a TV interview. And as with any woman who challenges him, Trump frequently calls her “nasty.”

Women pursuing any kind of agency in their lives face similar vitriol. We’ve all been subject to some version of those “dumb/slutty/unqualified” memes; it’s baked in. But something interesting is happening: polls and focus groups show that women of all ages, races, and political stripes, have just about had it, fed up with the insulting, sexist BS (to be fair, plenty of men are too as well).

To quote President Biden from his 2020 debate with Trump, “Will you shut up, man?”

Some of the more panicky males on the hard right are urging husbands to not “let” their wives vote for Harris. Fox news host Jesse Waters claims that men voting for Harris will somehow turn into women (um, what…?). The anxiety over Harris’s growing support to become our first female president is amplifying every toxic masculine impulse. But maybe the exposure will finally purge a few outdated ideas.

On that playground long ago, a bunch of little girls showed some little boys that we could fearlessly compete. And when they called us names, we pushed them into the dirt.

Let’s do similar at the ballot box.

Cindy Grogan is a writer, lover of history and "Star Trek" (TOS), and hardcore politics junkie. There was that one time she campaigned for Gerald Ford (yikes), but ever since, she's been devoted to Democratic and progressive policies.