Trump, Incels Pickled in Misogyny, and the Emboldened ‘Your Body, My Choice’ Crowd

Within hours of Donald Trump defeating Kamala Harris, the phrase “Your body, my choice,” began reverberating around social media. According to The Guardian’s Arwa Mahdawi, “social media [saw] a major spike in gleeful misogyny” (https://amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/nov/09/trump-your-body-my-choice). On Tuesday night, Nick Fuentes, an influential white supremacist, tweeted: “Your body, my choice. Forever.” In a post-election live stream, Fuentes said things like: “We control your bodies. Guess what, guys win again, okay. Men win again ... There will never ever be a female President. It’s over. Glass ceiling? It’s a ceiling made of fucking bricks.”According to Mahdawi, Fuentes’ comments were only the tip of an iceberg of red wave misogyny. “Young men are now starting to comment ‘your body, my choice’ and ‘we own your bodies now’ on TikTok videos posted by women. In an analysis published on Friday, [November 8], the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a think tank focused on extremism, found ‘a 4,600% increase in mentions of the terms ‘your body, my choice’ and ‘get back in the kitchen’ on X“ (https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/your-body-my-choice-hate-and-harassment-towards-women-spreads-online/). While misogyny is nothing new in American life, and is especially vigorous on social media platforms, the election of Trump has brought it further out into the open. Tracking narratives targeting women across X (formerly Twitter), TikTok, Facebook and Reddit in the few days since the election ISD found “the use of derogatory and misogynistic language ... already rife among well-noted manosphere and extremist communities on these platforms,” had already picked up steam. ISD also observed “reports of these narratives being used to harass women offline, particularly on high school and college campuses.”Here are some of ISD’s findings: Since the election, in addition to the massive increase “in mentions of the terms ‘your body, my choice’ and ‘get back in the kitchen’ on X. ... misogynist language, such as the use of ‘dumb cunt’ to target Harris, television personalities such as Rachel Maddow and others, received more than 64,000 mentions on X from more than 42,000 accounts on November 5.”Nick Fuentes’ “X post, ‘Your body, my choice. Forever.’ has since received 35 million views.”“On TikTok, female users are reporting that accounts are commenting ‘your body, my choice’ en masse on their posts. One TikTok creator stated: ‘I had to delete a video because I was being threatened and several men commenting [sic] saying they couldn’t wait until I get raped or ‘your body my choice.’ Another stated: ‘I woke up this morning to men commenting ‘your body, my choice.’ “The phrase ‘your body, my choice’ appears to have made its way offline, specifically into schools. Young girls and parents have used social media to share instances of offline harassment. They include the phrase being directed at them within schools or chanted by young boys in classes.”“On Facebook, the phrase ‘your body, my choice’ [was] trending, with 52,000 posts [within] 24 hours. One parent stated: “Today my daughter was told three separate times on campus ‘your body, MY choice.’ The third group of boys told her to ‘sleep with one eye open tonight.’”“On Reddit, users utilized the platform to warn others of offline harassment. One user stated, “Women were being harassed today at UNM and told to ‘go home where they belong’ by gangs of men in MAGA gear.”In some instances, women influencers that cater to “traditional values” joined male counterparts. Their content included videos of women upset by the election loss of Harris, referring to them as “retards;” they have also parroted Trump’s remarks from a leaked Access Hollywood video in which he told a TV personality that he grabs women by the genitals. One woman influencer on X posted that Trump had just grabbed Harris by the “pussy” on election day. That post received 33,000 views.”“Previous calls to repeal the 19th Amendment, which previously spiked on X on October 22, resurfaced online. Posts calling for the repeal of the amendment increased by 663 percent compared with the week prior. The top 10 X posts at the time calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment received more than four million views collectively.”ISD found posts on X that called for “rape squads” or “rape,” the largest of which had 18,000 views and came with the phrase “your body, my choice.” Manosphere influencer Andrew Tate, in a post on X on November 7, stated: “I saw a woman crossing the road today but I just kept my foot down. Right of way? You no longer have rights.” The post received 688,000 views in under two hours. Another X user, stated: “women threatening sex strikes like LMAO as if you have a say”; the post has received 10 million views. ISD’s findings reflect how deep hatred and bigotry toward women runs in the country. As The Guardian’s Mahdawi noted: “I wouldn’t say that the masks are fully off now that Trump has won, because they were never exactly on to begin with. This sort of unabashed misogyny is hardly new: social media was a hotbed of bigotry long before Trump’s victory.” For the foreseeable future, the misogynistic impulses of Trump’s army will no longer be restrained. “One thing I can tell you,” Mahdawi wrote, “is that misogynistic online edgelords aren’t in any way out on the fringes any more. They have a direct line to the incoming president’s ear.”