THE PATRIARCHS’


WARON WOMEN


in public office and the workforce; permissiveness toward sexual assault, harass- ment or abuse; hypermasculine ideals; the criminalization of LGBTQ+ people; tolerance of violence toward women and girls; and an emphasis on the “tradi- tional family,” in which the role of women is primarily domestic. Put simply, the patriarchal authoritarian worldview is that men are “men,” while women are wives and mothers. Everyone else is a threat to the system. It’s not hard to recognize patriarchal authoritarianism in U.S. political life


today, but is it rhetoric or reality? Four key domains are under sustained legal and political attack by legislators seeking to set back gender equality: access to reproductive healthcare; workplace equality and economic inclusion; protec- tion from sexual and gender-based violence; and LGBTQ+ rights. Last year saw record-setting restrictions on abortion access, with 19 states


passing new laws and just six expanding access. The most controversial, Texas’ SB 8, was fully upheld in March, turning private citizens into a vanguard of litigious vigilantes who can sue anyone helping someone else get an abortion after six weeks of pregnancy. The number of abortions in Texas fell 60 percent in the law’s first month—signifying a drop in supply, not underlying demand. Despite enthusiasm for forcing women into motherhood, Republicans con-


tinue to stonewall paid parental leave. The U.S. remains the only country among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s 38 member states without mandated paid leave for new parents, despite the fact that more than 80 percent of Americans support such a policy and only 60 per- cent of current workers are covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act’s guaranteed unpaid leave. At the same time, workforce participation plummeted during the pandemic, with women’s unemployment and nonparticipation nearly double that of men in 2020. Not all countries experienced this “sheces- sion,” which reflects structural inequalities in the U.S. economy, gender seg- regation by job sector, and lack of access to affordable childcare and healthcare. Democrats in Congress have attempted to address some of these issues in the “Build Back Better” bills. But components designed to support working women—such as childcare and extending child tax credits—met op- position, primarily from Republicans, that effectively killed the bills. Meanwhile, laws against gender-based violence have loosened in the U.S.,


thanks, in part, to what scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat describes as the GOP’s “cul- ture of lawless masculinity.” The reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, first championed by then-Sen. Biden in 1994, was blocked for years by Republicans and a few Democrats who refused to close the “boyfriend loophole” that allows certain convicted abusers to keep firearms. When VAWA was finally approved by Congress in March [see Page 8], tacked onto a spend- ing bill, it lacked the gun control provision. Rollbacks on protections from sexual harassment and gender violence include


the Republican Party’s attack on Title IX, a key pillar of its platform in the 2016 presidential election. The Biden administration is expected to propose a revision in April, reinstating survivor-responsive policies against sexual assault and harass- ment. Such measures, of course, depend on a sympathetic White House. Where there have been more sustained legal achievements, such as the recent act ending forced arbitration of workplace sexual harassment, the final bill has fallen far short of advocates’ initial goals by excluding gender and racial discrimination— a serious setback to justice at the intersections of identities and power. Finally, anti-transgender legislation has become a go-to wedge issue for the


Republican Party, which has introduced discriminatory bills at an exponential rate: 79 in 2020, 147 in 2021 and more than 280 already slated for 2022 legisla- tive sessions. Many of these proposals aim to pit cisgender girls and women against transgender people, claiming to protect equity in sports and safety in bathrooms. But the crisis in fairness actually cuts the other direction: marginal-


22 | SPRING 2022


izing and harming gender minorities, not female athletes. In Florida, the “Don’t Say Gay” law bans discussions of gender and sexuality in primary school classrooms and requires teach- ers to disclose their students’ gender and sexuality questions to their par- ents. Anti-LGBTQ+ legislation uses the power of the government to po- lice the gender binary, which under- pins male dominance. Biden’s proposed changes to Title


IX are reported to contain protections for transgender students—including access to bathrooms and sports, and freedom from discrimination. But it is already clear that there will be over- whelming opposition to this change among states that have passed their own laws restricting the rights of trans youth and their parents. Patriarchal authoritarians rely on


stable, narrow constructions of mas- culinity and femininity to assert con- trol in homes, families and private lives. The Republican Party is pro- moting an old yet predominant vision of family values by cynically pretend- ing families are under threat from in- creased tolerance of LGBTQ+ people and rising anti-racist agitation. In do- ing so, it’s positioning itself as the par- ty of “parents’ rights”—a direct bid for white women’s votes—while restrict- ing rights of parents whose children are transgender or subject to racial discrimination in schools. These seemingly inconsistent policies have a common through line: They restrict discussions of racial and gender equal- ity in public schools while inserting ever more state control over women’s and LGBTQ+ families’ rights. It is consonant with the GOP’s unironic co-optation of “my body, my choice” as an anti-vaccine slogan by people who proudly restrict women’s access to medical care.


THE FATE OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IS TIED TO THE FATE OF DEMOCRACY, AND WOMEN’S MOBILIZATION CAN HELP TO SECURE BOTH.


www.feminist.org


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