A cat lady's survival guide for the second Trump administration

A cat lady's survival guide for the second Trump administration
Time to double down, cat ladies (and men who love them)!

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published November 7, 2024 6:00AM (EST)


(Salon) For days and weeks to come, there will be endless analyses of how Donald Trump, a convicted criminal who fomented an insurrection and was found civilly liable for sexual assualt, still somehow won another presidential election. There's racism, right-wing propaganda, a failing information environment, and perhaps an American death wish. All those were big factors, but we cannot overlook how much the Trump campaign was built around a pitch to men that he would finally bring women to heel.

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What is remarkable about Trump and the MAGA movement is how visceral and personal the misogyny is. These aren't the conservatives of old who hid their woman-hatred behind a Bible and condescending talk about "family values." Trump and his allies channel a palpable anger at individual women for having the gall to walk around like full citizens. We see it in Trump's inability to stop defaming E. Jean Carroll, a woman a civil jury found he sexually assaulted in the 90s. We see it in Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance, and his obsession with "cat ladies." We see it in the bizarre impregnation fantasies of billionaire Elon Musk and in MAGA influencer Ben Shapiro setting Barbie dolls on fire. In the face of this, there's been a lot of pressure on women to do more to soothe fragile male egos. There are endless articles about the "male loneliness epidemic," which are well-intended but overlook how too many men follow leaders who openly encourage antisocial behavior. We talk endlessly about creating healthy masculinities to compete with the toxic kind but sidestep how women can't actually make men want to be better. Pundits have even flirt with the suggestion that if women just, you know, threw a little more sex in the direction of terrible men, that would calm them down. (Stormy Daniels tried placating Trump with sex, and that didn't work, y'all.)

I don't know about y'all, but after the majority of men voted to put a screeching sexual predator back into office, I'm feeling like it's time to wind down this era of hand-holding and hair-stroking. Taking inspiration from Taylor Swift, it's time for a new era: one where being a giant sexist pig has consequences. If MAGA men are half as strong as Joe Rogan tells them they are, they can toughen up and accept women's rejection. There's even ways for progressive men to participate in the "suck it up" program. We can all join hands and tell the guardians of toxic masculinity to kiss our collective rear end. I have some ideas on how we can, in our daily lives, resist the efforts of MAGA men to colonize women's bodies and minds. But please, feel free to come up with some of your own!

Divorce your Republican husband

Those ads showing women secretly voting for Harris were cute, but, in retrospect, too gentle. Look, MAGA men know that they are becoming ever more impossible to live with, which is why Vance and his allies are making noises about ending no-fault divorce. There's no time like the present to kick your Trump-voting spouse to the curb. If anything, you might want to move quickly, before they come after that right, like they did the right to abortion. It's been 9 years. He's not going to see you as a person deserving full rights. Cut him loose. ......................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2024/11/07/a-womens-survival-guide-for-the-second-administration/