by Terry Moon

It is a fact that Donald Trump and his MAGA movement are trying to take control of women’s bodies. In the fifty years of the Women’s Liberation Movement, the demand has always, always, been that we have the right to control our own bodies. That remains the truth.

What is staggering to realize is that now the retrogression has become so deep and lethal that not only is the fascist right trying to take control of our bodies, they aim to define what we should think, what we should feel, in fact who we are!

TELLING WOMEN WHAT TO FEEL

What’s horrible and reactionary about what Trump’s Vice-Presidential candidate J.D. Vance said is not so much that women who don’t have children love cats, but that they “are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made…” He’s saying that women who choose to not have children should be “miserable.” It’s a not-so-subtle code of saying that if women don’t have children, they will be miserable because they are not fulfilling god’s plan. To Vance and his ilk, women have no right to self-development or self-determination, they can’t even think about it because their destiny, their lives, are determined by their biology. That’s right, we’ve gone all the way back to biology is destiny.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley, in his very clever 2021 speech where he blames the Left and Democrats for undermining men’s god-given masculinity, says something similar. He does it, not by talking about women but about men. Men too have a certain destiny set down by god that they must fulfill or they will be miserable. First, he defines “traditional masculine virtues” as “things like courage, and independence, and assertiveness.” Ironically, he claims that “the Left” defines these “traditional” masculine virtues “as a danger to society.” In truth, these traits are only viewed as a danger when women express them—and then it’s those on the Right who are appalled—a truth that he, not surprisingly, ignores.

Hawley opines that America is a mess because Democrats and the Left attack men. But he says: “liberty requires virtue. And in particular, it requires the manly virtues. America needs good men.…” He can’t quite get away with ignoring the fact that it is not only men who are courageous, independent and assertive: “That’s not to say that women don’t possess them,” he briefly admits, reclaiming them for men in the very next sentence: “But it is to say that these virtues are the bright side of the aggression and competitiveness and independence that psychologists, no less than philosophers, have long observed in men.” Oh, well, then it must be true.

‘MANLY VIRTUES’ RULE

Hawley doesn’t come out and say directly that women’s place is in the home, having children and taking care of her man, but he certainly doesn’t want them to have good paying jobs. While he thinks that “We must make every effort to restore a vibrant manufacturing sector in this country,” it is only men who are going to work there: “…that can employ working men at living wages—wages that can feed a family, and support a community.” His vision is clear: America should be the place where men are the heads of families, women have the babies, men make the decisions.

Hawley is cleverer than Vance: he doesn’t insult women openly, only ignoring them and at the same time demanding that they must play their traditional roles so that men can practice their manly virtues: “We should be clear,” he pontificates, “in the message we send about family and unapologetic: There is no higher calling, and no greater duty, than raising a family. And we should encourage all men to pursue it.” It’s pretty hard to raise that family if the little woman would rather have a cat, or worse, would rather be a doctor, or finish college, or just be an equal partner in making decisions. She must be put in her place.

A third strident male voice commenting on women’s place and what they should think, feel and be is Harrison Butker’s. This football player’s claim to fame was giving a sexist, anti-Semitic, and anti-LGBTQ+ commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas in 2024. Since then, he’s recently started UPRIGHT, a PAC whose goal is to “reclaim the traditional values that have made this country great” by getting conservative Christians to vote—and not for Kamala Harris. As I write these lines, he’s out campaigning with no other than his brother in sexism, Hawley.

TELLING WOMEN WHAT TO THINK

Butker felt free at Benedictine to let loose his fundamentalist Catholic ideology, spending a lot of time castigating priests for not being fundamentalist enough as he praised and advocated for the traditional Latin Mass. He told students: “it is our duty and ultimately privilege to be authentically and unapologetically Catholic.”

The segment of his talk that got the most notice was the fundamentalist dogma regarding women who he wants to speak to because it is women “who have had the most diabolical lies told to you.” His contempt for the women in the audience is revealed in his next sentence, which assumes that women’s desire for a future not circumscribed by marriage is driven by a desire for fame and fortune: “How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career?” Then he tells them, like Vance, what they should be excited about: “I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”

As for women having any control over our bodies, Butker rages: “But let’s be honest, there is nothing good about playing God with having children—whether that be your ideal number or the perfect time to conceive. No matter how you spin it, there is nothing natural about Catholic birth control.” Butker is expressing his rage that U.S. Catholics use birth control almost as much as non-Catholics. I’m sure he knows they also have abortions.

Butker also “leans in”—one of his favorite expressions—on Hawley’s idea that men in the U.S. are “attacked” for their “manly virtues”: “Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the U.S., and a correlation could be made in their drastically lower violence rates, as well. Be unapologetic in your masculinity, fighting against the cultural emasculation of men.” Of course, no other country has either the number of guns or the permission to use and carry them everywhere as the U.S., but let’s blame women-headed families for the violence instead, and perpetuate the lie that men are being told they are “not necessary.”

TELLING WOMEN WHO WE ARE

So why spend so much time on these three men who spew this kind of Catholic fundamentalist sexist, anti-gay religious arrogant convictions? Because these are some of the same kind of people who are running the most extreme anti-abortion organizations in the U.S., like Susan B. Anthony-Pro-Life America, and American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs.

That is why they insist that women experiencing life-threatening pregnancies must—must—deliver an “intact fetal body” either by an unnecessary Cesarian section, which is much more dangerous and expensive than an abortion, or by going through an unnecessary and possibly dangerous labor. Be it Catholic, Evangelical, Jewish, any fundamentalist religion is a danger to women and opposed to our freedom.  

This is so because fundamentalists will never be satisfied with ending abortion—although that is where the battle is right now in the U.S. They will not stop until they have defined our lives: taken control of our bodies, determined what we should think, what we should feel, in fact who we are! That is why this is a battle we cannot lose.