Trump Supporters Rally for Women to Lose the Right to Vote With #RepealThe19th

On Tuesday, Oct. 11, election data guru Nate Silver pointed out his site FiveThirtyEight how Democratic presidential nominee and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is up 10 points among women in the general electorate — and how given this lead, and the lead Clinton is already showing in polls in many swing states, if only women were to vote on Nov. 8, Clinton would win the presidency in a veritable landslide.

Conversely, Silver makes clear, if only men were to vote in the presidential election next month, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump would be the runaway winner.

In no time at all, a slew of angry men took to Twitter calling to #RepealThe19th — as in the 19th Amendment. As in the amendment that gave white women in the United States the right to vote and was ratified on Aug. 18, 1920.

And seemingly just as quickly, women — and other human beings who believe that the right to vote shouldn’t be contingent on being a white man — responded in kind.

One 33-year old New York woman referred me to the following tweet when I asked her how it felt to see men calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment just as America is on the brink of potentially electing its first female president, saying it “sums up anything I would say”:

“Awful. It feels plain awful,” Rachel, a 31-year old woman in Atlanta, told Yahoo Beauty when asked how she reacted seeing the outpouring on Twitter by men calling for women to lose their voting rights.

“I’m offended but not surprised,” Claire, a 37-year old woman in Minneapolis, tells Yahoo Beauty. “Since I doubt that anyone would actually repeal the 19th Amendment before Nov. 8, I can’t take them seriously in this regard. If they think the only way they can win is to strip an entire gender of their basic civil rights, then they’re running scared — which actually amuses me.”

She continues: “That being said, I think that the tone and the messaging in the campaign are having a terrible impact on decades of work toward gender equality. Sure, some people are sexist and idiotic and will remain that way no matter what — and I can’t change that. But what does this rhetoric on a national level say to young Americans who are still forming their worldviews and values? This attitude toward women is absolutely unacceptable, yet Trump and his supporters not only condone it but celebrate it … It also goes without saying: Why are women still willing to vote for this monster?!”

A 34-year old woman in Washington, D.C., tells Yahoo Beauty that she would like to say to men calling to strip women of their right to vote, “Sorry it’s so painful for you to watch paternalism die such a slow death by seeing misogyny personified melt down like a toddler and lose while the world watches.”

And when asked for her take, Summer, a 32-year old woman in New York City told Yahoo Beauty, “Wow, am I grateful I’m not on Twitter right now.”

She adds that learning of this, however, speaks to a larger societal pattern that she finds systemic and problematic: “Women’s behavior is still manipulated in thousands of ways, especially to the extent that it can be monetized. I think that’s how the male establishment has made peace with women’s liberation generally. I absolutely hate watching “you go girl” messages embedded in movies and advertising and political campaigns, feeling myself as the target demographic and knowing, somehow, by the tone-deaf content of the story or the way the delivery rings false, that a man composed these messages without an ounce of authenticity. They’ve tried the more tactical means of pulling the wool over our eyes and winning us over, because of course that’s all it would have ever been: a tactic. So now forcing compliance by denying our rights isn’t at all off the table.”

Another 32-year old New York woman tells Yahoo Beauty that, in her opinion, “It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that this has emerged as an issue. We’ve already seen hints of it in the campaign with the support of Peter Thiel for Trump. Thiel notably hinted that he believed a capitalist democracy is an oxymoron, as the enfranchisement of women led to a supposedly uniform voting bloc against conservative capitalist values. … I’m a libertarian and a conservative and generally vote as such — though I will be voting for Hillary Clinton this election. The idea that the woman’s vote is uniform is actually quite funny, as American women are a wonderfully diverse lot.”

She concludes: “Sadly, the one thing we all have in common is daily exposure to casual sexism and, for many of us, exposure to the harms of sexual assault. It is a remarkable achievement to unify so many of us, and I’m sad that it is for something as vile as opposing someone as disgustingly and openly sexist as Donald Trump. But I do feel that the GOP has largely abandoned its voter base of women who are conservative, business-minded “Don’t Tread on Me”-types by doing just about everything to indicate they would very much like to read (or grope) us. And why should we bother supporting the GOP when they’ve demonstrated a long track record of pursuing policies that are actively anti-woman while they do little to nothing to further traditional American freedoms?”

Echoes Jaime, a 28-year old woman in Atlanta, “I’ve got to say, Trump really has a way of bringing people together. Not only has he turned most of his own party against himself, he’s united the most ignorant people who would possibly exist to form his clan of followers — and so it really doesn’t shock me in the least that these people want to #RepealThe19th. His disgusting lifestyle and the evidence that has surfaced has brought American women even closer together.”

And, she says, she hopes that perhaps the dialogue sparked by the response to #RepealThe19th can do some good: “This is a wonderful time to enlighten our sisters, daughters, friends, and others about what a real leader represents — our future, but especially the past so that we don’t repeat it. That is why Trump will never be president and why so many women have come together to push for over a hundred years to keep someone like Trump out of office. What an exciting time to be on the brink of our first woman president, and I couldn’t be happier that Hillary Clinton will hold this title first. #RepealThe19th will never happen — and you better be damned sure that every woman will show up on Nov. 8 to vote, because even if she’s voting for Trump, she has a voice and she deserves to be heard.”