#0036 Are women at war?

Hey Loved One,

So the thinkable happened: Americans voted for Trump. Again!

This election feels like it’s triggered something beyond politics. I’m seeing conversations everywhere about how women—across countries and political lines—are reacting to this shift, sometimes even turning on each other.

Whilst reflecting on this win, a friend challenged me by saying “If it didn’t affect you directly when Barack was in power, why should Trump be any different?”

To liken Barack to Trump is to miss a fundamental difference. Trump embodies a new kind of global political figure. His rise alongside the concept of 'fake news' reshaped media and public discourse, making him more than just an American figurehead. His digital-age approach has influenced global politics and emboldened people worldwide, creating ripple effects that can’t be ignored. I mean “Trump” was Oxford University’s Children’s Word of the Year in 2017.

The super speed in which (mis)information travels in 2024 means that global politics is truly that with the internet making the world so much smaller. I’d like to think we can all agree that the impact of this election - whichever side you stood on - ricocheted worldwide from the moment it began.

It's hard to reduce voting for Trump as simply a political belief. People are buying into Trump’s values and lifestyle which has already had fatal ramifications for American women. And its reach doesn't stop at the shores of the US’ 50 states.

I’d already guessed that Kemi Badenoch would be strategically planning to become Trump’s biggest ally in the UK and she hasn’t disappointed. In her inaugural Prime Minister’s Question Time she asks Kier Starmer if he’ll be asking David Lammy to apologise for his tweets against the second-time President-elect. Strategically, it makes sense for her party political efforts to have ‘the leader of the free world’ on speed dial and one thing that we can never deny Kemi is her savvy even if her Black card is indefinitely revoked.

Her elevation to Conservative Leader is a stroke of genius by the Powers The Be as they can now go fully on the attack with the shield that is Kemi’s Blackness and her womanhood. She is a DEI tick box dream and yet another example of a Black woman being elevated to champion agendas that may not serve her or the wider Black community.

It echoes the pressures many Black women face to 'save' the systems that don’t truly support them. Hence African American women throwing in the towel in droves after 91% of them voted for Kamala but were denied a win.

NB: I fully expect Kemi to become this country’s first Black Prime Minister if the party doesn’t find a way to cast her aside once the real work has been done.

Anyway, the fall out since the controversial win has been incredible to watch. A wave of virtue signalling has begun where some white women have asked for blue wrist bands to signal to others - particularly Black women - that they didn’t vote for Trump. This is reminiscent of the 2016 election where people reached for the humble safety pin to show they were against Trump’s views. But these gestures raise questions: Are they just a way for White women to avoid having the conversation they should actually be having with each other?

Further infighting came after Dr. Shola Mos-Shogbamimu most recent LinkedIn post disintegrated into a complete dog fight after she posted a video where a White American man highlighted the fact that white American women now had first-hand experience of what it’s like to be “judged by the colour of your skin and not the content of your character”.

He then goes on to ask what bracelet do Black people get to wear so they can signal being one of the “good ones”. As I sat reading the comments with my proverbial popcorn, I flinched watching women turn on each other in the comments and marvelled at the fact that more women attacked Dr. Shola than the person calling them out in the first place.

Other women are making their disgust at the election result felt by deciding to stop having sex with men. The 4B Movement, as described by journalist Afua Hirsch in Vogue, is not a new thing but has been used by women in other parts of the world to protest their mistreatment at the hands of men.

A section of women are really unhappy and I too wonder how so many women decided to ignore the needs of their peers for Trump.

Regular readers are probably aware that this continued assault on women’s rights has been the focus of the last couple of editions I’ve written. And truly it’s because I’ve become hypervigilant. To see the anger and infighting in my portion of the algorithm has truly made me sit up and wonder whether we as a gender are sleepwalking into our regression. Are we in a war of survival that we need to wake up to? Did no one else find Trump’s idea to protect women whether they “like it or not” highly sinister?!

If only we had a safety pin or blue bracelet to hold us together…

Would love to hear what your thoughts have been since the announcement. Is there more (or less) to this moment than I think?

Until next time