A new report from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) has found that digital hate and harassment against women rose rapidly after the U.S. presidential election. Sexist phrases like “repeal the 19th [Amendment]” and “get back to the kitchen” surged on platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook, and Reddit following President Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris. Many of the most frequent comments involve calls for a decrease in women’s rights, while others have explicitly threatened women with sexual assault and harassment. Mentions of the statement “Your body, my choice”—a direct response to the reproductive justice movement’s slogan, “my body, my choice”—grew by over 4600 percent on X. The phrase also appears to have grown in popularity offline, with parents and students reporting groups of boys chanting it to girls in schools. One parent commented online, “Today my daughter was told three separate times on campus ‘your body, MY choice.’ The third group of boys told her to ‘sleep with one eye open tonight.’”
They are raised in an atmosphere of negativity and hate that’s so pervasive they don’t even realize it’s a thing and that there are other options.
I come from a white catholic family and I lived in a properly rural area up through first grade. Like I lived in a trailer and my yard bordered a farmer’s corn field. And we knew the farmer because his land was nice for my dad to hunt deer.
The cynicism, persecution complex, and of course the casual racism & xenophobia aren’t something you are taught. They are just how the world works. It’s an assumed part of the culture and the social dynamic just like religion is.
That shit takes root deep in your neurons, and it takes conscious effort, compassion, and self-reflection to work your way out of it. And even then, some of the subconscious programming and visceral reactions persist and require a level of ongoing mindfulness about one’s right processes and behavior.