The NYT’s Cowardly War on Women

Spot the difference between the paper of record and the men trying to repeal women's voting rights

I want to tell you about two videos. One declared that women—“shallow and deceitful” by nature—aren’t “meant for politics,” but are instead “designed to squeeze the cheeks of little toddlers.” The other warned that the very “pillars of civilization” are collapsing because the country is “allowing feminized vices totally free rein”—musing that “women have virtues, and they’re best exercised in the home.”

One of those videos was posted by an ultra-right-wing Christian nationalist pastor arguing for the end of women’s voting rights. The other is from last week’s episode of the New York Times podcast “Interesting Times.”

Can you tell which is which?

We’re in quite a fucking pickle when the country’s paper of record is indistinguishable from a man who won’t let his wife read a book he hasn’t pre-approved. But at least the guy who wants to repeal the 19th Amendment is honest—he’s not hiding his misogyny or ashamed of it.

You can’t say the same for the Times. Within hours of publishing Ross Douthat’s podcast under the headline “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?,” editors quietly swapped it out for something seemingly less objectionable: “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?”

Cowards. If you’re going to publish misogynist drivel, at least have the courage to own it. Because after listening to Douthat’s interview with two anti-feminist writers, it’s clear the original headline was the accurate one.

Since they won’t say it plainly, I will: the country’s most respected newspaper hosted a conversation about whether women’s equality and freedom was a mistake.

This is not a game, or some theoretical debate without real-life consequences. Women are no longer full legal citizens in half the country: we’ve watched patients die of sepsis while begging for their lives, mothers arrested for helping teenage daughters end pregnancies, and little girls too small to legally ride a rollercoaster forced into childbirth.

More than a dozen states have considered jailing women for life—or executing them—for having abortions. Last year, the nation’s highest court heard arguments about just how many organs would be acceptable for a woman to lose before a state should be legally required to give her medical care. And this year, the Trump administration laid the groundwork to ban contraception by labeling it “abortifacient birth control.”

So let’s be clear: the ‘debate’ over women’s freedom isn’t abstract public discourse—it’s a threat.

That’s why it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the same week Douthat and his guests questioned whether American institutions are being destroyed by women’s presence in the workplace, ultra-conservative religious leaders renewed their call to eliminate women’s right to vote.

I’m not talking about a few men trying to rage-bait feminists, or a handful of powerless, fringe extremists. There is a healthy, growing movement of Christian nationalists who are seriously discussing how to repeal the 19th Amendment. They have influence, followings, and connections to the Trump administration. And when polling showed that New York City women overwhelmingly voted for Zohran Mamdani, they collectively lost their shit.

One well-known author and pastor¹ posted a video the day after the election arguing that “nearly every legalized moral atrocity of the last hundred years was made possible by the female vote,” and calling the 19th Amendment a “moral and political tragedy for America.” Another popular misogynist pastor said, “men who love the women in their lives should love them enough to say, ‘you don’t drive the car anymore, because you keep driving it off a cliff.’” (The cliff being electing Democrats, apparently.)

Their reasoning for why women shouldn’t be able to vote is no different than the logic Douthat and his guests used to lament women in the workplace. Whereas the author/pastor says, “Women were not made to lead but to follow and to feel,” Douthat claims women are “oriented toward forms of care and love and communitarian spirit.” While Times podcast guest Helen Andrews insists women’s presence in public institutions has been a “pathology,” and that “feminization” will destroy the rule of law, one of our repeal-the-19th freaks declares, “emotions cannot be used to rule and govern a nation.”

The basic idea is that feminism has flattened natural differences between men and women to great societal harm, and that women are simply too caring and empathetic to be out in the big bad world making political decisions.

Do they think if they frame it as a compliment, we’ll be too flattered to notice that they want to strip away our fundamental rights?

That’s certainly what conservatives are hoping. There’s a reason, after all, that as attacks on women’s rights have ramped up—so has feminist-sounding language: abortion restrictions have become “women’s right to know” laws, and bans on abortion pills are now “anti-trafficking” efforts. Anti-abortion crisis pregnancy centers are simply ”empowering” women with the “right to choose,” and the smear campaign against birth control pills is just a way to encourage women to tap into their “natural” bodies.

But here’s the thing—there’s no amount of flowery language that can cover the stink of good old-fashioned, uncomplicated misogyny. There’s nothing new about claiming women are too compassionate or empathetic to participate in the rough-and-tumble public sphere. And despite their best attempts to maintain a veneer of credibility, there’s no headline change that can hide the fact that the Times is simply reheating the leftovers of YouTube bigots.

The truth is that the war on women’s jobs and votes is already here, and conservatives don’t need to be explicit to get the job done. They can trap women in the home by ensuring they’re forever pregnant and parenting: eliminating abortion, birth control, sex education, and affordable child care. And as women in red states vote en masse to protect abortion rights, Republicans are dismantling democracy to stop those votes from counting—rigging the system so their bans stand regardless of what American women want.

If you think conservatives will stop there, you haven’t been paying attention. In one of the many Twitter threads last week about repealing women’s voting rights, a user said the debate was pointless—because there was no way they’d ever be able to eliminate the 19th Amendment. The most ‘liked’ response?

“If we can overturn Roe, we can repeal the 19th.”

Misogynists aren’t making political points—they’re making promises.

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This summer, I wrote a column warning about the casual dehumanization of ‘debating’ women’s rights. It’s proved unfortunately prescient:

Enough of 'Just Asking Questions'

1. These men absolutely have Google Alerts set for themselves, so I won’t give them the thrill of citing them by name. Follow the links if you really want to know who they are.