Why the U.S. Can’t Bridge the Divide at the Kitchen Table
One of the deciding factors in Donald Trump’s reelection was the support he received from men. A majority (55%) of men voted for him, while 53% of women voted for Kamala Harris, according to CNN’s exit polls.
This reveals something quite remarkable: It’s not just that Americans can’t understand one another across the aisle—we can’t bridge the divides across our kitchen tables anymore. And a big reason for this, it seems, is that we can’t seem to talk meaningfully about reproductive rights.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]For the (largely women) voters who supported Harris, one of the biggest issues in the election was abortion. An overwhelming 76% of people who thought abortion was the most important issue voted for her, according to the CNN exit polls. But the fact that the Harris campaign couldn’t convince the majority of men to support reproductive rights shows just how much the gravity of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision is still lost on a huge part of the electorate.
Since the Supreme Court’s overturn of Roe v. Wade in June 2022, many women have been vocal about how it put their lives at risk. On the campaign trail, Harris spoke about Amber Heard, a Georgia mother who died after she was made to wait hours at a hospital for medical care after taking abortion pills. At a Harris-Walz campaign rally in Michigan in October, former First Lady Michelle Obama graphically presented men with the prospect of their wives bleeding out on operating tables. Partly why her speech was so remarkable was because women largely don’t—or rather often can’t—talk about these things publicly.
This somewhat greater visibility can help explain why voters passed ballot initiatives to protect reproductive rights in 7 states (they failed in 3 others). Yet, within our families and communities, women in on our country are still largely expected to keep quiet about the horrifically messy and life-threatening nature of pregnancy and childbirth. It’s rare for a woman in the U.S. to call in sick to work and announce to her colleagues or friends that she just had an abortion. Speaking from personal experience, I know about the many miscarriages of my very closest friends and family members because, years afterwards, they tearfully told me things like, had it worked out, it would’ve been their daughter’s birthday around this time of year.
Read more: What Donald Trump’s Win Means for Abortion
Our society makes women feel that they have to bear this physical pain and unspeakable grief quietly, without imposing discomfort on people around them.
But here are the facts: About 10-20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the Mayo Clinic. Since the great majority of American women eventually have children—many of us more than one—miscarriages are a common part of many women’s lives. That means every man (and indeed person of any gender) in this country should be worried about the women they love being denied care in such an event.
Other women give up pregnancies because they can’t afford another child—or because they’ve been raped. In the U.S., 1 in every 6 women will be the victim of attempted or completed rape, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
Yet much of the country doesn’t seem to have considered these facts in their voting choices. This, in fact, includes some women. While white women with college degrees were significantly more likely to support Harris, white women without degrees were more likely to support Trump. Similarly, men who may not have had this firsthand knowledge or these facts overwhelmingly felt it acceptable to vote for a candidate who supports policies that could kill the women they love. White men without college degrees overwhelmingly voted for Trump, while white men with college degrees only chose Harris by one point.
It’s time for this to change. But the burden can’t be on individual women who have already suffered so much to go public. It’s on all of us to talk about these things much more. It’s unacceptable for people of any gender or educational background to be clueless about what’s at stake for women on this issue.
After Trump was elected in 2016, women ran for office in droves and a record 117 women were elected in the midterms. I hope that this election prompts a similar reaction—and if there are more conversations about women’s reproductive realities around kitchen tables over the next two years, the next women to run for office could fare far better than Harris.