You have the luxury to be a misogynist.
It’s the ability to say: I love you, but I’ve got to vote for my pocketbook.
The danger is not simply misogyny. It’s the political bargain in which some white women trade solidarity for security, aligning with structures that make the world less safe for their daughters.
It’s the ability to say: I love you, but I’ve got to vote for my pocketbook.
The danger is not simply misogyny. It’s the political bargain in which some white women trade solidarity for security, aligning with structures that make the world less safe for their daughters.
In American politics, white women occupy a complicated place inside that bargain. They experience sexism. They understand being talked over, underestimated, and legislated against. But they also benefit from proximity to racial and economic power in ways that many other women do not. That proximity offers a political shelter. The idea is that even if a movement targets others, it will not possibly target them.
During the Jim Crow era, white women in the gained the vote through the Nineteenth Amendment. Yet the suffrage movement excluded Black women, even after white women secured the right; many participated in political systems that disenfranchised Black citizens through poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. Groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped reinforce this racial hierarchy by shaping public memory and school curriculum, painting the picture that political participation for some did not mean equality for all.
During the Jim Crow era, white women in the gained the vote through the Nineteenth Amendment. Yet the suffrage movement excluded Black women, even after white women secured the right; many participated in political systems that disenfranchised Black citizens through poll taxes, literacy tests, and intimidation. Groups such as the United Daughters of the Confederacy helped reinforce this racial hierarchy by shaping public memory and school curriculum, painting the picture that political participation for some did not mean equality for all.
This pattern has not dissipated; it has simply taken on a new form. Election after election, large majorities of white women voters have supported candidates whose platforms include restricting abortion rights and tightening immigration policy. In both 2016 and 2020, a majority of white women voters supported Donald Trump despite his record of openly misogynistic rhetoric and policies aimed at limiting reproductive rights, holding the justification of economic stability, taxes, and the price of groceries, protecting their “pocketbooks.”
With this way of thinking, the American vote becomes an act of selfishness rather than a broader political choice for the greater good of the nation. The political movements promising financial stability are frequently presented with plans of obstructive power: restrictions on bodily autonomy, harsher borders, weakened voting protections, and the erosion of democratic norms.
None of this means white women are a monolith. Many have resisted these dynamics and played roles in movements for civil rights, democracy, and gender equality.
But patterns still matter.
With this way of thinking, the American vote becomes an act of selfishness rather than a broader political choice for the greater good of the nation. The political movements promising financial stability are frequently presented with plans of obstructive power: restrictions on bodily autonomy, harsher borders, weakened voting protections, and the erosion of democratic norms.
None of this means white women are a monolith. Many have resisted these dynamics and played roles in movements for civil rights, democracy, and gender equality.
But patterns still matter.
The pocketbook bargain rests on a dangerous assumption: that proximity to power will provide lasting protection. History suggests otherwise. Political systems that normalize exclusion rarely stop at their first targets.
The logic that supports some people being expendable eventually expands to everyone, destroying all structures that once felt secure.
The logic that supports some people being expendable eventually expands to everyone, destroying all structures that once felt secure.
ISIS Shephard
