Not a chance. Here comes JD Vance—again!—the vice presidential candidate who believes wholeheartedly in the backward, authoritarian, Christian nationalist orthodoxy that has taken over the Republican Party, and who has pontificated so often in his short career that every week another of his perverse views on the rightful place of women comes to light.
The latest: In a 2020 podcast interview, Vance agreed with a host who said caring for grandchildren is “the whole purpose of being a postmenopausal woman.” Vance praised his mother-in-law, a biology professor, for taking a sabbatical to fulfill that divine purpose.
“Why didn’t she just keep her job and give us part of the pay so we could pay someone else? Because that’s what the hyper-liberal economy demands of us,” said Vance, who also so-called general day care “Class struggle against normal people.”
It’s great that Vance’s mother-in-law was willing and able to help with childcare. It would be nice if everyone had the luxury of that choice. But the idea that caring for children is “the whole point” of older women: no thanks! And how exactly do postmenopausal women without grandchildren justify their existence in this system?
They don’t! They’re just like the “childless cat ladies” Vance derides, who, he said, “are unhappy with their own lives and the choices they’ve made, and want to make the rest of the country unhappy too.” It follows that grandchildless cat ladies — or those who choose not to put their lives or careers on hold to raise their children’s children, or who can’t make that choice at all — are also unhappy, and hell-bent on dragging the rest of the country down as well.
Do these guys really want to fight this battle? Believe me when I say they don’t want to mess with those of us who are in the “give no… er, damn it” phase of life. We didn’t endure years of secret night sweats and hidden hot flashes while trying to keep our jobs, only to be judged by little men so insecure they long for the good old days when men were men and women were obedient incubators.
Is there a part of the gynecological universe that these guys don’t claim a right to? They’re also freaking out about a law signed by Minnesota Governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz that requires public schools to provide free menstrual products to all students who need them starting in fourth grade. They call him “Tampon Tim,” as if it’s some kind of sick brand. And since they never miss an opportunity to stoke trans panic, they accuse Walz of mandating tampons and sanitary pads in boys’ bathrooms, too. Wrongfully, as it turns out, but what do they care?
And God forbid that women between puberty and menopause have any control over their bodies at all. Vance, like all extremists in his party, wants a nationwide ban on abortion and has rejected exceptions for rape and incest, although he has recently tried to backtrack on that demand.
Babies for everyone! Especially for those who share his privileges and values. If you can’t afford babies, the Republican Party won’t give you any help raising and educating them. This is a woman’s problem, just like everything else. Like many proponents of his regressive brand of masculinity, Vance believes that no-blame divorce is a plague and that women should stay even in abusive marriages, as his heroic hillbilly grandmother did after she became pregnant at 13.
The crux of the matter is the control of women from the cradle to the grave.
Stopping it should now be “the sole aim of the postmenopausal woman” and everyone else who cares about women. Vance and his pals can keep their hands – and their scary ideas about us – to themselves.
Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham can be reached at [email protected].
