SÂO PAULO — Make no mistake about the target. The trails of rabid drool that color the Trumpist revolt, the histrionic screams that cheer on Javier Milei’s motossera (chainsaw) in Argentina, the hands clasped in prayer that crown the return of the fallen man in Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazilian temples, the self-indulgent smiles of the crypto-bros populating the antechamber of Nayib Bukele’s presidential palace in El Salvador — all of this has a clear target: women.
I have previously written in this column about the misogyny in the electoral campaign that elected the 47th American president — the one who called his rival “nasty,” “bitch,” while his vice president J.D. Vance limited himself to singling out “childless cat ladies.”
None of that was even necessary, since, as was rightly noted by Harvard professor Steven Levitsky — co-author of How Democracies Die — what brought Trump to power was the price of eggs and the perception that Joe Biden’s administration had not stopped the decline of the average American’s standard of living.
But in these times, misogyny unites, aggregates, and mobilizes male votes — as well as the votes of misogynistic women. Perhaps even more importantly, it represents a visceral, deep-seated sentiment among the autocrats who are increasingly seizing power.
“Organized rage”
They were startled by our “organized rage,” as Milly Lacombe defined it in an excellent video from Rádio Novelo.
We have a lot of rage, says Milly — contained rage — because we have always watched as men are favored in so many of life’s competitions simply for being men: the little brother who plays while we do the dishes, the father who is applauded just for taking his kids to the park, the promotions men get because they resemble the bosses who decide, the votes they secure because they echo the jargon of their political patrons, the stars they receive because they come from equally decorated military families.
In recent years, says Milly, we have learned to “organize our rage,” and it has manifested powerfully in movements like #MeToo, #NiUnaMenos, and #EleNão.
No matter how much they try to downplay these movements — I remember the violence against those who took to the streets in Brazil for #EleNão, as if they were to blame for Bolsonaro’s election — the truth is that this organized rage has had political consequences.
Fully free and politically active women represent a threat to authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders.
A panel of experts, a corporate board, or a ministerial cabinet composed solely of men is no longer acceptable. One of the most powerful men in American high society, who organized sexual exploitation parties for the elite, was arrested and then found dead. Abortion was legalized in two of the most Catholic countries in our hemisphere. A Black minister of state was fired after being accused of harassing a female colleague. A renowned Jewish businessman’s institute had to close its doors, and his descendants can no longer invoke his name with pride because he was a serial abuser of young girls. One of the most powerful presidents in Brazil’s congressional history had to backtrack on a law that would have forced women to give birth to their rapists’ children — after he himself was accused of being a rapist. Kamala Harris, a Black woman, ran for president of the United States openly defending abortion rights, refusing to cower in the face of pleas to “moderate” her stance. She won more than 75 million votes — 48.3% of the total — proving that half of the electorate stands with us.
It is this terrifying power that fuels the desperate displays of macho pride that marked Trump’s campaign and inauguration — from his clenched fist raised after the gunshot to his ear, to the hat that shadowed his wife’s eyes like a veil of imposed modesty, to the executive orders he signed in a spectacular stadium, in front of a delirious crowd, his pen raised like a phallic symbol.
And, of course, the fascist rhetoric of these very orders — their form and content alike.
Force, violence and display of weapons
Clinging to an outdated, wounded, obsolete masculinity, the patriarchs resort to brute force, violence, the ostentatious display of weapons they manufacture in droves, aggression, and hatred toward those who are physically, socially, economically, or geopolitically weaker. The so-called “masculine energy” lauded by Mark Zuckerberg emits, in these autocratic governments, an agonized and brutal roar.
Although Trump has been pressured to deny that he will ban abortion nationwide — faced with Kamala’s clear stance — his first executive orders have already planted the seeds for such a move. In an order aimed at banning transgender existence, imposing the idea that there are only two sexes, and declaring that “federal funds cannot be used to promote gender ideology,” Trump defined male and female sex according to biology “from conception” — opening a loophole that, in the not-so-distant future, could enforce fetal rights over the rights of the women carrying them.
This is merely the first step toward forcing us to bear the children of those who violate and rape us.
Notably, this same executive order was titled “To Protect Women from Radical Gender Ideology,” resolving deep feminist, academic, and societal debates with a single, forceful stroke of the pen.
Democracy vs autocrats
Why, we might ask, do the autocrats of this first quarter of the 21st century hate women so much? Or rather, what kind of fear does “organized rage” evoke in them, compelling them to build their cultural movements, aesthetics, and political strategies around suppressing it?
The best answer I have found to this question comes from the essay Revenge of the Patriarchs: Why Autocrats Fear Women by researchers Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks, both professors at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.
The authors observe that female activism in politics “expanded and fortified democracy” and that autocrats and illiberal democrats understand this intuitively. “This explains their fear of women’s empowerment.”
“When women participate in mass movements, those movements are both more likely to succeed and more likely to lead to more egalitarian democracy. In other words, fully free, politically active women are a threat to authoritarian and authoritarian-leaning leaders—and so those leaders have a strategic reason to be sexist.”
The path leads either to the halls of power or confined to our rooms, or to our graves.
Using concrete examples, the researchers highlight that civil movements led by women are more successful because they broaden the social coalition needed to overthrow regimes that concentrate power in the hands of a few. They also lead to more lasting democratic victories. Furthermore, they list tactical innovations, persuasive power over opponents, and the use of nonviolence as defining features of such movements.
This is why authoritarian leaders use sexist rhetoric to rally popular support for their regressive agendas. Their most powerful weapon is what the authors call: “misogynistic narratives of traditionalist “patriotic femininity” — that is, “greater state control over women’s bodies while simultaneously reducing support for political and economic gender equality.”
“They encourage—and often legislate—the subjugation of women, demanding that men and women conform to traditional gender roles out of patriotic duty.
The essay was written in 2022, but it could just as easily describe Trump’s government.
A persistent silence
This political violence also responds to a generational phenomenon of enormous relevance — the “gender gap” that has been widening in several countries: while most young women are progressive, an increasing number of young men are conservative. Alice Evans, a visiting researcher at Stanford University, even claims that this gap is so vast among Americans under 30 that she considers “Gen Z” to be two separate generations instead of one.
The gap may be even deeper because the patriarchs’ revenge is not confined to right-wing groups or the actions of autocrats. It is evident in the language and aesthetics of Dilma’s impeachment in Brazil, but also in the abandonment she suffered from her own political allies and in the erasure of the history of the two governments led by a woman — a silence that persists.
It is seen in political analyses that overlook Kamala Harris’ vigorous campaign, declaring a “historic defeat” and giving Trump free rein. It is reflected in the lawsuits filed by a renowned Portuguese intellectual against the women who accused him of harassment, and in the leftist websites that, without evidence, label those who defend a woman on the Supreme Court as “U.S. agents.”
But let us not be mistaken about this. There is no turning back in this generational and cultural revolution — the path leads either to the halls of power or confined to our rooms, or to our graves. There’s no more time to hide. Now is the time to radicalize, to seize power, to demand power so we can transform it.
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