Dear John,
We know the 2022 midterms are going to be as consequential an election as this nation has ever seen. Record numbers of women are now registering to vote every day. Abortion rights, equality—and democracy itself—are all on the ballot. As midterms approach, how can women’s leadership help preserve our democracy—and how can we ensure more fair representation and democratic outcomes?
This past week, Ms. released ‘Women Saving Democracy’—a collaboration with the Brennan Center for Justice and RepresentWomen, highlighting the importance of women’s votes and young people’s votes, and featuring the courageous prosecutors pledging not to enforce abortion bans, as well as explainers on the roles of Secretaries of State and Attorneys General in protecting our democracy.
We also feature elected leaders from Attorney General Dana Nessel, who is advocating for abortion access in her home state of Michigan, to New York AG Letitia James—who made headlines this week for suing former president Trump along with several of his family members and his business, over allegations of fraud.
Trump, who is also facing charges over his removal of classified documents from the White House, warned recently that if indicted, the country will see “problems… the likes of which we have never seen before.” While violence lurking in the former president’s rhetoric has been discussed extensively, here at Ms. we’ve been digging deeper, and unpacking the gendered implications of Trump’s threats.
“In this country and every other, men commit the overwhelming percentage of interpersonal and political violence; discussions about violence that fail to analyze that fact—or even mention it—are missing an essential part of the story,” wrote Jackson Katz in Ms. this week. “If media commentators want to provide their audiences with deeper insights into the nature of the dangerous escalation in violent rhetoric and action that has accompanied the rise of Donald Trump and the radicalization of the GOP, examining the relationship between masculinities and violence is a good place to start.”
And indeed: gendered violence is baked into the fabric of our current political moment. Election officials—80 percent of whom are women—report to Ms. that they’re seeing more harassment and threats of violence than ever in the lead up to this fall’s midterms. And with multiple GOP candidates threatening to not accept election results in the event of their loss, these women are bracing themselves for even worse to come.
There’s no denying it: our democracy is under attack—and women are on the front lines. We must listen to them—before it’s too late.
