In the 2016 Presidential Election and the 2017 Alabama Senate Election, white women overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump and Roy Moore. 52% of white women voted for Donald Trump is the 2016 election and 63% of white women voting for Roy Moore in the 2017 election. It is shocking, unnerving, and confusing that white women continue voting against their own interests. Both of these men are confessed sexual predators. Trump openly said that he assaulted a woman, “grabbing her by the pussy.” Roy Moore was alleged to have sexually abused a 14 year old girl when he was 31 years old at the time and was reportedly banned from the Gadsden Mall in the 1980s for attempting to pick up teenage girls.
How could these women still have the audacity to vote for two men who are obviously very misogynistic, racist, and promote very low ethical values? I believe there are two answers to this question. White women are experiencing fear and denial. They also feel a dedication to their religion and political party. White women have a certain fear that their party is losing power, and, therefore white people are losing power. A majority of the white women voters in both of these elections were conservative and religious with Christian beliefs, morals, and values. Republicans have always been painted as the political party that holds up good Christian morals & values and these women have bought into the Republican Party’s sales pitch. It’s nothing new. The GOP have been doing this for decades. This goes back as far as the Reagan election of 1980 when the “Moral Majority” party was created to support Reagan’s platform of Christian morals and values.
Denial is something that white women experience when supporting candidates like Trump and Moore. They don’t want to believe that these men, who have spoken the word of God and pro-life rhetoric, are sexual predators and anti-women’s health extremists.
Why weren’t claims of Roy Moore molesting under-aged girls enough? How come it didn’t take Trump bragging on tape about sexually assaulting women to have them draw the line and say, “No. I cannot vote for him.” It is obvious that these go against the morals and values of Christian life and the Republican Party. Is the GOP truly the place for those values if white women go against their own interests?
I’ve been told it doesn’t just take only men to uphold a patriarchy. Women have a part in that as well. These two elections prove that, as white women, we’re comfortable enough with the patriarchy that they we’re willing to enable two misogynists.
Many black women have expressed that they felt betrayed by white women after the 2016 election. They did not think about their fellow sisters and how they, as black women, would be impacted by this President. They weren’t thinking about Black, brown, latinx, Asian, indigenous, disabled, LGBTQIA+, incarcerated, Muslim, Jewish, immigrant and refugee women.
Statistics showed that 98% of black women voted for Doug Jones, quote on quote “saving the election,” while white women betrayed them once again. Black women are not America’s cleanup crew. They are not here to do the dirty work for us. We (white women) have to do it ourselves.
In order to gain their trust back, we can’t just show up at the Women’s March once a year barring pink pussy hats. We have to listen, trust, and vote for Black women. We need to support them and march at the next Black Lives Matter rally. Listen to Latinx, brown, Asian, indigenous, incarcerated, immigrant, disabled, LGBTQIA+, Jewish, Muslim and refugee women. Learn about their experiences and why they are as marginalized as they are.
As white women, we need to check are privilege and ask questions like: What are the ways I have benefited from being white? In what ways do I support and uphold a system that is structurally racist? How do my race, class and gender affect my perspective?
If we listen, trust, and respect are sisters and show up to the polls to resist the patriarchy, we will take the world by storm.