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Author’s Note: The first draft of below was written about a week after Joe Biden stepped down and Kamala Harris was the presumptive nominee. 

The misogyny unleashed against Kamala Harris since she became the Democratic candidate for President is something we cannot afford to ignore, dismiss, or allow to become normalized.

As a straight, white man in his 40s—who came of age during a time when “locker room talk” was shrugged off—it takes a lot to shock me. I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve become somewhat jaded over the years. But I’ve seen, time and again, how cruelty festers in male-dominated spaces, often masked as harmless banter. And I keep asking myself: Why are so many of my fellow men so deeply misogynistic?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but one thing is clear: we, as men, need to call it out and address it head-on.

This brings me to the current moment, where the immediate response from men in far-right spaces to Kamala Harris’ presidential candidacy isn’t to engage with her views or policies, but to attack her simply for being a woman.

Are we that intimidated by women in power? I use “we” in the broadest sense because I, and most of the men I associate with, are disgusted by this behavior. And we should be.

Within 24 hours of Biden stepping down, a particularly disgusting slur that was a play on Vice President Karris’ name was trending on that vile platform I refer to as “sh*tter.” I usually hate making assumptions, but I’m fairly confident it was trending because of men. In response, I wrote on my Instagram stories: “I don’t think we are better than this. We probably never have been. But we have to try. There’s a direct line from reducing a presidential candidate to nothing more than a sexual slur, to the rape culture that plagues our society. The girls and women of our country deserve so much better. F*ck the patriarchy indeed.”

Then came the memes—like Vice President and Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris on her knees in front of a man. Hilarious, right? I posted it, along with a nearly identical caption, but this time I called out the slut-shaming. And let’s not forget the rhetoric about Kamala not being fit to serve because she isn’t a biological mother. Honestly—What. The. F*ck.

Addionally, Trump posted a vile video on his failing social media platform implying that Vice President Kamala Harris used oral sex to elevate herself to the Democratic nomination. This only reinforces the toxic idea that women are “less than,” that masculinity equates to dominance over women, that women are objects for men to use and discard. At a time when we should be tearing down rape culture, this rhetoric strengthens its very foundation.

In the aftermath of the Harris/Trump debate on September 10th, Taylor Swift endorsed Harris & Walz. Not exactly surprising. Also not surprising was the tweet Elon Musk sent Taylor’s way. Is it cringey? Yup. Is it weird? Of course.

You know what else it is? Misogynistic AF.

I’ll repeat myself until I don’t have to anymore—if you ascribe this to just “locker room talk” and don’t see the tie in between this kind of rhetoric and the aforementioned rape culture, you are part of the foundation beneath that rape culture.

Please, please, please consider this when voting for the President of the United States.

Do the people posting this garbage not understand what it does to the women and girls who see it?

Reducing women to nothing but sexual vessels, ready to accept male dominance and then deliver our babies, is exceptionally vile. I can’t fully answer the question of what this does to women and girls, not with any authority—because I’m not a woman. But I can’t imagine it does anything remotely positive, and I refuse to be a part of it.

I won’t associate with anyone who upholds this misogyny. So, if you’re reading this and supporting candidates or ideologies that prop up this hatred, please unfriend me. Both online and in real life.

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Epilogue: If you haven’t already seen some of the memes and tweets I refer to above, I apologize for not including them. I realize it would make for a more effective post but I refuse to give them any more airtime than they’ve already received.

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