For those of us who grew up with Donald Trump, Nov. 6 was a reminder of waking up to his presidential nomination in 2016 — flashbacks of panic on social media, followed by years of #MeToo stickers, women’s marches and pussy hats flooding our Instagram feed. Today there’s a similar deluge of infographics, Robert Frost quotes and Twitter posts as we reel from the election results.
Our generation has, unfortunately, become desensitized to this media frenzy. We’re accustomed to Trump’s blatant bigotry, starting with his “grab them by the pussy” comments, the Jan. 6 insurrection and his incredibly denigrating comments about Kamala Harris.
It’s difficult to feel the tangible effects of political elections, especially in a country as big as the United States, on a personal level. But watching Kamala Harris’ concession speech at Howard University on Wednesday, as the camera panned to the women and girls in the crowd with tears in their eyes, I felt a painful twinge in my heart.
Donald Trump’s triumph sends a clear message: Americans would rather have a convicted sex offender for a president than elect a woman.
The past eight years following Trump’s first term have seen many setbacks in the women’s rights movement: the effort to ban birth control pills and other forms of contraception, endangerment of LGBTQ+ rights and most notably — the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
In the Trump era, a wave of fundamentalist conservatism has seized the sociocultural moment. The recent trend of “trad wives” on TikTok is a clear example, influencers of often religious background (particularly Mormon) promoting a traditional lifestyle. Ballerina Farm is one such “trad wife,” filming herself making chocolate from scratch while nursing eight children on a farm in Utah — one of her posts garnered upwards of 2 million views on Instagram.
There has also been a trend of alt-right male-supremacist influencers online, such as Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, whose rhetoric about treating women like sexual conquests and other harmful ideas normalize women’s subjugation. These men have a very strong appeal to young men, as evidenced in the voting data from this week’s election.
According to a voting data report by AP, 52 percent of men ages 18-44 voted for Donald Trump — Trump garnered 59 percent of white men’s support, and 47 percent of Latino men. In a post-election wave of online misogyny, political commentator and self-proclaimed incel Nick J. Fuentes tweeted “Your body, my choice. Forever.”
This cultural and political shift towards conservatism, along with the significant blows to women’s rights, is a dark omen. If America continues along this path, it will lead to a dark future of gender discrimination and women’s suppression.
As an Iranian-American who spent the first nine years of my life in Tehran, I know what that future looks like.
Iran is consistently cited as one of the most dangerous countries for women in terms of gender parity, opportunities, education and health. An enforcer of gender apartheid, the Iranian government restricts women’s rights to marry or divorce, their custody rights and the mandatory enforcement of hijabs in public spaces.
The Mahsa Amini protests of 2022, an uprising sparked by a young Kurdish woman’s death at the hands of Iran’s Basij over an improper headscarf, overwhelmingly centered women’s rights in the Iranian people’s liberation movement — their slogan is “women, life, freedom.”
What Iranian women are fighting for is the freedom of the ordinary. The freedom to wear whatever they want; hold hands with their boyfriends; kiss in public. “My Favorite Cake” (2024), a film by Maryam Moghadam and Behtash Saneeha, captures the tyranny of everyday life in Iran.
The story follows an elderly woman Mahin (Lili Farhadpour), widowed for 30 years, in search of a new boyfriend. As it’s illegal to date in public, many widowed elderly citizens have little choice but to live alone. But Mahin fearlessly visits parks and restaurants to find a new love.
The film broke Iranian censorship laws by portraying Mahin in her home without a headscarf, and in scenes where she and her love interest Faramarz (Esmaeel Mehrabi) dance and drink wine. There is also a scene where Faramarz takes Viagra. Moghadam and Saneeha were banned from leaving the country upon the film’s release.
This is what happens when women’s decisions about their bodies, their partners and their lives are policed. When legislation limits access to abortion and contraception, to marriage and divorce. When one’s existence and activities in public could mean their death at the hands of police.
The increasingly visible misogyny and continued encroachment on women’s freedoms is familiar to me. If America continues its current trajectory, our future won’t look so different.
Tania Azhang PZ ’25 is Managing Editor of Arts & Culture and Opinions. She is tired of crying over images of devastated young girls.
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