Article information
- Author, Navy Red
- Role, BBC News Brazil
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1 hour
“In this country, (…) we are governed by a group of childless women who are miserable with their own lives and the decisions they have made, and so they want the rest of the country to be miserable too.”.
That’s what then-US Senate candidate JD Vance said in an interview with Fox in 2021, which resurfaced on social media after his selection as Donald Trump’s running mate for the November election.
And he used a pejorative term: cat ladieswhich literally means “cat ladies,” but is a negative stereotype of single women.
The main targets of his attack were Vice President Kamala Harris, Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay person in an executive position in the US.
“The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said, adding: “What’s the point of us handing our country over to people who don’t really have a vested interest in it?”
The comments sparked harsh criticism of Vance.
One of the most forceful was that of Hollywood actress Jennifer Aniston, who has spoken publicly about her difficulties in trying to have children through in vitro fertilization (IVF).
“I really can’t believe this is coming from a potential vice president of the United States.”Aniston wrote on social media.
“All I can say is… Mr. Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to have children of her own someday.
“I hope she doesn’t have to resort to IVF as a second option, because you are trying to take that away from her as well,” she added.
He was referring to Vance’s vote in June to block legislation proposed by Democrats to guarantee access to IVF nationwide.
Caption, As one of the most beloved stars in film and television, her voice carries weight.
The resurrected interview is just one of several occasions in which the US vice presidential hopeful made disparaging comments towards childless people, As CNN found out.
Faced with the flood of protests, Vance had no choice but to tone down his message.
Without apologizing, he claimed that people had not understood his sarcasm, and justified himself by saying that he was really “criticizing the Democratic Party for becoming anti-family and anti-children.”
That being the case, his problem with Kamala Harris appears to be that she has not given birth, as the vice president has been a stepmother since she married lawyer Douglas Emhoff in 2014.
Their children are named Cole and Ella, and Harris is called “Momala,” a fusion of mom (mommy) with Kamala.
Caption, Trump defended Vance, saying he “likes families,” but also said people with children are no better than those without.
But ultimately, the question is whether highlighting the fact that Harris has no biological children could undermine her appeal among voters.
Possibly, believes Peggy O’Donnell Heffington, a historian at the University of Chicago.
“There is a part of the electorate that truly believes that having children is not just a civic duty, but something that gives meaning to life, that it is the greatest goal of a woman’s life.”
Defective
Levy, car the Without Children. The Long History of Not Being a Mother (“Childless – the long story of not being a mother” in free translation; Seal Press) further noted that The pejorative image of women who do not have children is long-standing.
“In the U.S., such efforts to encourage (or actually force) women to have children go back at least to the early 19th century, after the Revolution,” she said.
“At that point, people in power began to make it very clear that women’s primary civic contribution to this new nation, or what they were expected to do as citizens, was to bear children.”
Interestingly, not having biological children was something that worked in favor of the first U.S. president, George Washington (who ruled from 1789 to 1797), Heffington noted.
The reason for the revolution was to become independent, found a republic and end the monarchy.
And because kings were often the sons of kings, the fact that Washington was not a biological father to anyone “was something that people really admired, because they thought, ‘He doesn’t have any children who can inherit power, so he’s a very safe choice for a first president.'”
(Besides him, four other presidents did not have children: James Madison [1809-1817]Andrew Jackson [1829-1837]James Polk [1845-1849] y James Buchanan [1857-1861]).
Caption, Roosevelt called childless women cowards and incomplete.
A little over a century after the Revolution, the historian commented, President Theodore Roosevelt compared childless women to soldiers fleeing battle in a speech.
“The idea was that these women were cowards and refused to serve their country when it needed them most.”
As if that were not enough, he spoke of them as incomplete beings.
“He described childless women as bread made without yeast.
“He said they were useless, that they lacked something that was an integral part of life, and that they also lacked something as people,” the author notes.
For Heffington, Vance’s remarks about childless women echo those beliefs.
“In a way, he’s saying that They have failed in their duties as citizens by not having children and therefore cannot be trusted to govern the country.“.
And that could be a sign of what Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s presumptive candidate for the presidential election on November 5, will face.
“I think it’s a very convenient way to attack her, because they’re not criticizing her for being a woman, but for not having children,” Heffington said.
“It’s like they’re saying ‘we don’t have a problem with women, we just have a problem with a woman with a flaw.’ So I’m afraid this could be some kind of harbinger of a much deeper misogyny.”
Fewer children, more time
Image source, Disclosure
Caption, Historian Peggy Heffington has studied the issue of women who are not mothers in depth.
But, according to the historian, there is an underlying theme to this exaltation of motherhood, which is accompanied by limited access to abortion and contraception in some places: the decline in the birth rate.
“I think it’s more about upholding traditional gender roles as a way to control the way women’s lives can be viewed.”
And he stressed that there is a historical precedent.
“In the 19th century, the number of children a woman had began to decline in most of the world, but in the U.S. in particular, it fell dramatically.”
Having fewer children meant having more time, being free from pregnancies and caring for babies.
“There was an explicit concern on the part of some politicians: what will women do with their time? Maybe they will try to get into politics, into the market and get a job.
“So with the fertility rate going down, there was an increase in expectations in the US about what it meant to be a good mother, as evidenced by the propaganda rhetoric around that.
“It is very clear that this idea arises to take away women’s time, since they were no longer pregnant all the time. This prevents them from getting involved in politics.”
Those tensions have not entirely disappeared, Heffington believes.
“Some defenders of traditional gender roles and critics of childless women are concerned about what they consider to be the correct way for women to spend their time.
“[Para ellos]women who devote their time to a career or politics instead of motherhood are, in some way, a threat”.
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