"Your body, my choice."
It's a chilling take on a once-empowering slogan for women's reproductive rights that seems like something straight from The Handmaid's Tale.
Yet, the co-opted phrase is being chanted by boys to girls at schools across the United States. College students are proudly yelling it at female peers. Others are walking across campus with messages stating "women are property" scrawled on signs.
Online paints an even darker picture. Social media is rife with deeply misogynistic comments, as trolls tell women they "have no rights now".
This is a confronting reflection of Donald Trump's America.
If only we could have predicted this, right?
Watch: Woman reacts to Nick Fuentes viral monologue. Post continues below.
Trump's campaign honed in on young men, as the Republican rubbed shoulders with popular podcaster Joe Rogan.
And it worked. Men aged 18-44 were a crucial pillar of support for Trump, voting for him over Kamala Harris 52 per cent to 46, according to AP exit polls.
It was at odds with their women counterparts, who voted in support of Harris at 55 to Trump's 43 per cent.
Trump's popularity was evident in the polling, but the violent rhetoric that has followed his victory cannot be ignored.
Misogynsts and incels who previously kept their vitriol to the darker corners of the internet are now loud and proud, emboldened by having a president who once said you could "grab [women] by the pussy".
White supremacist and far-right political pundit Nick Fuentes posted, "Your body, my choice. Forever" on X (formerly Twitter) as Trump's victory became clear — and supporters latched on.
"Hey b*tch, we control your bodies! Guess what? Guys win again. Okay? Men win again," the 26-year-old said in a video celebrating Trump's win.
"There will never, ever be a female president… It's over. Glass ceiling? Dude, it's the ceiling made of f**king bricks. You will never break it. Your stupid face keeps hitting the brick ceiling. We will keep you down forever. You will never control your own bodies."
From November 5 to 6, there was a 4,600 per cent increase in mentions of the terms "your body, my choice" and "get back in the kitchen" on X (formerly Twitter), according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
The institute says the onslaught of online abuse and harassment following Harris' loss is more than just a continuation of misogynist trends documented in both the lead-up to the election and the aftermath of the 2020 and 2022 cycles.
"As an emboldened group of 'manosphere' influencers, extremist ideologues and politicians exploit Donald Trump's election as a rebuke of both reproductive rights and women's rights, the impact on women could extend into the next presidential election and beyond," it said.
The "manosphere" refers to a collection of online groups of men that emerged in response to feminism, female empowerment and the alienating forces of neoliberalism.
"It appeals to its audience because it speaks to their experiences of rejection, alienation, economic failure, loneliness and a dim vision of the future," Curtin University History and International Relations Senior Lecturer Ben Rich and Curtin Extremism Research Network Co-director Eva Bujalka wrote for The Conversation.
"It contrasts the growing challenges faced by men with the increasing social, economic and political success experienced by women," they said.
"This zero-sum claim posits that female empowerment must necessarily equate to male disempowerment, and is evidenced through simplified and pseudoscientific theories of biology and socioeconomics."
The attitudes are pushed by the likes of Fuentes and self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate.
The 4B movement
Fed up and frustrated, some are turning to the 4B movement — a vow to swear off men.
The movement, which originated in South Korea in the mid-to-late-2010s, stands for four Korean words beginning with "bi" or "no" in English:
- biyeonae: no dating men
- bihon: no heterosexual marriage
- bisekseu: no sexual relationships with men
- bichulsan: no childbirth
"The birth strike is women's revenge on a society that puts impossible burdens on us and doesn't respect us," one Seoul office worker who's intent on remaining childless told the New York Times.
It's had mixed response, with the country's president Yoon Suk-yeol saying in 2021 that feminist movements were "blocking healthy relationships" between men and women in the nation.
South Korea has the lowest fertility rate in the world.
While much of this is linked to the rising cost of living and people prioritising work over starting a family, according to NPR, some credit it to the 4B movement.
For Americans, the movement seems like a way to regain bodily autonomy in a country they believe does not respect them.
"This sadness is morphing into anger. I have never felt female rage like this," one woman said in a TikTok viewed 5.6 million times.
"We can't let these men have the last laugh… we need to bite back," one person wrote in an X post with more than 470,000 likes.
Another viral post said: "It's time to close off your wombs to males. This election proves now more than ever that they hate us & hate us proudly. do not reward them."
Regardless of whether the movement takes off in the US, one thing is clear: women are fed up and ready for action.
Feature image: TikTok/@Jadeswildparty/Getty.
Top Comments
on a side note, that Fuentes has his home address doxxed, which I think is a much more valuable way to send a message. I hope he feels as unsafe as all the women who he has made feel unsafe.
From the polls I have seen, the number of female Trump voters starts dramatically rising in women aged in their late 40's.
It's no coincidence that women who's likelihood of needing procedures like abortions are significant less would vote for someone who is ready to take such medical rights away.
These are people who have the mentality that "it doesn't apply to me so why should I care"?.
They forget it may apply to their daughters, their granddaughters, their friends etc.
But really, what they fail at most is the basic decency to understand an issue doesn't have to affect them to want to make change.