I’m a woman who doesn’t have children or cats, but I do have dogs, six of them, if you want to do the math.
If you listen to Donald Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance, I don’t have a stake in the future of our country.
I’d like to hope that every one of us would like the world to be a better place – better than it was for our parents and grandparents and ancestors.
My own family includes my mom, sister, four nieces and one nephew, as well as aunts and uncles, cousins and more. My definition of family also includes dear friends who I consider family. Some have children; some do not.
While no doubt we all fiercely protect the well-being of our own families, I’d like to think that many of us would fight for anyone who may need our help, that we want not only a better world for our family, but for the generations that follow.
If it were up to MAGA Republicans like Donald Trump and JD Vance, women’s only job would be to stay at home, have children and satisfy their men.
Women wouldn’t have careers or work in politics, and they certainly wouldn’t be smart enough to be elected the president of the United States.
I don’t want to ever live in a world where this is considered the norm.
Through their own words, Trump and Vance have disrespected women time and time again. And still, women are showing up at Trump’s campaign rallies, supporting the former president and his new VP choice and their mission to “make America great again.”
For the life of me, I can’t understand why.
Republican, independent or Democrat, I can’t fathom why a single woman would support Trump and Vance, as they clearly think women are dumb and don’t have much value outside of sex. If it were up to them, I’m sure women wouldn’t have the right to serve on juries or vote, for that matter.
Trump has referred to intelligent, respectable women as “dumb” (Kamala Harris), “a birdbrain” (Nikki Haley), “crazy as a bedbug” (former House speaker Nancy Pelosi), and his record shows that he refers to women in other less-than-endearing terms including insulting women for having a low IQ, or calling women “bimbo,” “fat” or “ugly.”
Trump has made offensive, sexist, vulgar, bawdy and lewd comments about women and their “ass” or “pussy.”
How is this kind of language, these views on women, acceptable to women, much less men?
Trump has said because he’s a star, he can do anything he wants with women. Anything.
After the attempted assassination against Trump, he said he planned to tone down the hateful rhetoric, but he’s failed to do so.
He’s gone after a former District Attorney and current Vice President – purposefully disrespecting her by mispronouncing her name, attacking her race and gender and calling her dumb. It’s one thing to disagree on the issues; it’s another when you insult and degrade anyone who disagrees with you.
I expect more from our President.
Trump’s VP choice, JD Vance, has said that any woman who doesn’t have a family is “miserable.”
Vance, in a 2021 Fox interview with Tucker Carlson, said: “We are effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.
“And it’s just a basic fact if you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it.”
Vance has used the same offensive rhetoric not just behind closed doors but in numerous speeches and interviews.
I expect more from my Vice President.
The comments by Vance are so offensive, they don’t deserve a response from me or any other woman who may or may not have children, but it does deserve a response from all American women through our votes on Election Day.
In an era where women are losing rights related to reproductive freedom due to a conservative Supreme Court, one might wonder what is next.
If you read the tea leaves and look at proposed legislation by Republican colleagues at the state and federal levels, women may not only lose their right to the morning-after pill or an abortion, but may soon lose access to basic birth control.
Men are not passing laws to regulate their own health choices. No men are being required to reverse vasectomies because it is God’s will that they continue to reproduce. Men are not banning the use of Viagra, though through their own reasoning against victims of rape related to abortion, one could make the argument that the ability to have sex or not is also God’s will.
For some reason, Vance and Trump and men like them think they know more than doctors and more than women about their own bodies.
Vance stands by his “childless cat lady” comments even after admitting he likely “struck a nerve” with the left.
I can’t fathom how it hasn’t struck a nerve with every woman, regardless of political affiliation.
“I mean, these people recognize that they’re unhappy. They’re living in one-bedroom apartments in New York City. They’ve played their entire lives to win a status game. They’re obsessed with their jobs,” Vance said.
Vance went on to say that these childless women “hate normal Americans for choosing family.”
People would be “happier coming home to a smiling kid” than “worrying about their crappy job,” he said.
I, for one, love my life. Sure, I love my job, too.
I also love my husband. I love my immediate and extended family including my nieces and nephew and cousins and aunts and uncles.
And I love my country.
And yes, you are damn right, I love my dogs, too.
When I leave this world, I want to do my best to ensure that it is in a better place then than when I was born, and that includes a vote against this kind of thinking on Election Day.
Women, whether they have a career or choose to stay home with their children or a combination of both, should recognize that we don’t need two men who have these opinions of women leading this great nation of ours.
We should all expect more of our leaders.
Women are not dumb, and we don’t need men like Trump and Vance making decisions about our bodies or our lives.
For this dog mom and the cat ladies out there, we need to exercise our right to vote. At least for now, a woman’s vote is equal to any man’s vote, but that may change if Trump and Vance are in the White House.
Let’s show Trump and Vance just how smart we are – with our vote against them.
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Crystal Graham
