Amid the half-baked analysis, misplaced blame and general anger filling social media feeds following Donald Trump’s triumph in last week’s US presidential election, one phrase went viral online: “Your body, my choice”. An inversion of “My body, my choice”, the feminist rallying cry used by reproductive-rights and consent campaigners, the slogan was co-opted in a gleeful response to what many saw as an incoming era of feminist backlash and the reversal of women’s rights.
The phrase has been pushed largely by popular right-wing talking heads on social media. One of its early users was the popular white nationalist influencer Nick Fuentes, whose post on X has been liked more than 52,000 times and viewed by over 95 million. The slogan saw a second viral wave in the following days, as women condemned the trend on TikTok – many of them reported receiving rape and death threats as a direct result of speaking out against the phrase. A number of mothers reported their daughters saying the slogan had been chanted by boys at their schools.
The phrase is shocking, even knowing that many of these posts will have been shared purely as “rage bait”, a semi-ironic attempt to trigger liberals opposing a second Trump presidency. But the sentiment is familiar. Since 2022, when Andrew Tate and other so-called alpha-influencers first rose to prominence by promoting the idea that women should be viewed as men’s property – as well as other misogynistic beliefs such as that rape is permissible in some cases – we have seen a rise in right-wing young men. This phenomenon may have once seemed an isolated bubble – something abstract and theoretical. After Trump’s re-election, these ideas seem to be everywhere, and more brazen than ever.
“Your body, my choice” is just one symptom of a new and vicious misogyny, which is no longer lurking in niche spaces online, but braying at the gates of the mainstream – if not already a part of it. This is a real difference heading into a second Trump term, and a factor that will make his upcoming tenure in the White House much worse.
In 2016, the shock of Trump’s win was in large part due to a social blindness about a growing set of alt-right beliefs among the general population, with online origins. These ideas – from deliberately provocative (“edgelord”) white supremacy, misogynist incel ideology, transphobia or general conspiracy theories – were beginning to get a foothold within the establishment. But the reality was that these beliefs still fell outside the Overton window. Even if they were held by some people in power, those people used a comparatively diluted rhetoric when discussing extreme politics in public.
Over the course of Trump’s first presidency, the Overton window shifted, and the cultural definition of respectability and acceptability drastically changed, seemingly peaking with the attack on the Capitol on 6 January 2021. After the riots, it may have seemed that this type of extremism was petering out over the course of Biden’s presidency (conspiracies such as QAnon, for example, appeared far less concerning in 2023 than they did in 2020).
It’s now clear that this was not the case. A mounting backlash to social progress was gaining ground, alongside the continued normalisation of conspiratorial thinking. This wasn’t just happening on the fringes, but shifting the central politics of entire demographics (such as Gen-Z boys and men).
This is where we find ourselves as we enter a Trump second term. Extreme beliefs about women’s rights are now an established part of mainstream American politics. Rather than trying to toe the line of respectability and tradition, Trump can move towards this regressive vision of society from the moment he steps into office. Whereas before Trump’s cabinet was staffed with what we then would have seen as controversial politicians (such as Ben Carson) and clueless right-wing business leaders, we are now entering the territory of actual conspiracy theorists and those with anti-feminist views holding serious positions from the get-go.
Among Trump’s proposed appointments to government roles is the far-right Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who has been announced as the favoured candidate for attorney general. Gaetz has been involved in a number of controversies in the past, including a two-year investigation by the justice department into allegations of sex-trafficking a teenage girl. (The investigation concluded in February 2023 with no charges being filed against Gaetz.)
Giving public endorsements to figures such as Gaetz, and by extension their misogynistic views and behaviour, are only strengthened by the much bigger mandate Trump now has as the first Republican candidate to win the popular vote in 20 years.
The knock-on effects are chilling. Misogyny and a return to conservative, traditional gender roles are an explicit part of that movement where people who believe statements like “Your body, my choice” have been given the licence to thrive. This is not just a redo of 2016, but the grim realisation of everything that has been growing since.
[See also: The revenge of Donald Trump]
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