As someone who has survived an abusive relationship, Roe McDermott recognises the signs. She wants women to know there is survival and a different life ahead. But it gets better by recognising the very extreme danger we’re in and acting accordingly.
I remember the moment I realised that my abuser hated me. I had finally, finally left him, had packed up all the things I had in his apartment and told him that I was done – done with the degradation, the harassment, the gaslighting, the cheating, the obsessive monitoring of my movements, the limits on who I could speak to, the threats, the fear. I was done. All the research and statistics tell you that leaving an abuser is the most dangerous time, and they’re right. He realised he was losing control over me and so he lost control. He screamed, threw things, threatened me, punched the wall beside my head, and I left my body. I realised I couldn’t get out of his apartment without him killing me, and my legs buckled. People say that, don’t they – “my legs buckled.” It sounds like a cliché, but they did. I thought I was going to die and my legs couldn’t hold me up to face it.
That’s not when I thought he hated me though. Weirdly, I still thought he loved me, but in a broken way, a way he couldn’t accept in himself or express in a healthy way. I survived that day, managed to leave his apartment, and I kept hoping that one day he would realise what he had done to me, and that he needed to change. That’s what I told him once when he kept obsessively emailing me and messaging me for months after – that I thought he was a good person, deep down, that I loved him and wanted him to be better, and I hoped he got there.
He replied with utter vitriol, his rage and disdain dripping from every word. What I had genuinely meant as love, as hope, as a commitment to seeing the potential he had to be better, he only heard as criticism. I had dared to tell him that wasn’t good enough as he was, I had dared to tell him that I and the world had higher standards for what constitutes a good person than someone who abuses and controls and endangers and harms women. I had dared to tell him that I saw the gap between who he said he was and how he actually behaved, and he couldn’t take it. He would not accept it. He wanted the illusion of being seen as a good person, and I had broken it, so he hated me. He hated me for seeing him clearly, even with all the love and hope I still held for him. And because I saw him clearly, he had to destroy me. And he did. He rewrote reality and changed the narrative. He told everyone we knew that I was a liar, a psycho, hysterical, that I made up stories and played the victim, that he was a good man and I was a crazy b*tch, out of control.
People believed him. Because when men tell us they’re good, we’re taught to believe them. We’re taught to focus on their words, not their actions. We’re taught that if a man says he’s good, says he respects women, says he’s not abusive, then we should accept that, that believing men’s stated intentions, their self-assessment, their chosen identity as Good Men is a form of love and care.
The Mechanics Of Abuse
I’ve been thinking a lot about abuse in the run-up to the American election. Not just because Donald Trump has been repeatedly proven to be a misogynistic sexual abuser, and not just because of the rampant and extreme cruelty that Republicans have directed at people of colour, Palestinians, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, and women throughout their campaign. I’ve been thinking about abuse because Americans had an abuser for President for four years, and then told that abuser that they were done, they were leaving – and they did. They elected someone else.
And just like in abusive relationships, leaving Trump was simultaneously the only thing Americans could do to try to survive – and it was also the most dangerous thing. Because Trump lost control. He had over half the country tell him that he wasn’t a good person and that they wanted better for themselves.
So Trump reacted as abusers always do – he lashed out with even more extremity, violence and rage than before. He tried to gaslight the world by lying about election results and he supported a violent attack on the Capitol. He ramped up his misogyny and violence and continued to lie, constantly, about how he was good and that Democrats and his critics were hysterical liars playing the victim. His three appointed Supreme Court justices overturned Roe v Wade, allowing the enactment of abortion bans that have already resulted in the deaths of women who need abortion care and a rise in maternal mortality rates. He continued to constantly lie and gaslight, claiming a false version of reality when the contrasting evidence was right there. He continued to tell people that he was a good man and that his critics, of all genders, were crazy b*tches, out of control.
And all the while, many Americans persisted with the narrative that while Trump was one bad apple, America was still good. America had potential. America could be better. America is a Good Place. This narrative comes from a place of hope and love and care and I think it probably needs to stop now. It does a disservice to women who are trying to grapple with what’s happening and it stops us from recognising the truth about abuse – a truth we need to see and feel and accept in order to try to protect ourselves.
Women, America hates us.
American women, your country despises you.
American women who see the truth about Trump and know he’s a racist, misogynist, bigoted sexual abuser? It hates you most of all because you can see it clearly, and you tried to leave, and now you’re being punished.
The Misogyny That Runs Throughout America
It’s not just Trump. It’s the people – men and women alike – who voted for him the first time even though he admitted on tape that he enjoys sexually assaulting women. It’s the white Democrats who didn’t want Trump but refused to vote for Hillary Clinton because she wasn’t “likeable” and because she didn’t reach that status of a perfect candidate – a standard that male candidates don’t have to reach to secure votes. It’s the Senate who appointed Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court despite being accused of sexual assault. It’s the same Supreme Court who voted to overturn reproductive rights and prosecute women for having miscarriages. It’s Ron DeSantis and the other Republicans who spent millions in taxpayer dollars running disinformation campaigns about abortion to block pro-choice amendments being passed. It’s the political pundits who used misogynistic rhetoric around Kamala Harris throughout her campaign, suggesting she was ‘overly emotional’ even as Trump repeatedly proved himself to be an anger-fuelled tyrant, and insultingly suggested she ‘slept her way to the top’ while still ignoring Trump’s admissions of sexual assault. It’s J.D. Vance who calls women who don’t have children “childless cat ladies” and wants to force women to have children through abortion bans and by giving families with children more votes. It’s Trump and the Republicans who will not give a clear answer on whether they will protect contraception. It’s the boys and men who support misogynistic influencers, comedians and podcasters, and the men who complain that women won’t date them ‘just’ because they’re Republican and don’t believe in women’s bodily autonomy. It’s the supposedly liberal and Democratic men who didn’t turn out to vote, and the men who insist on still talking about how they feel that Kamala Harris was unlikeable or problematic – when again, her opponent was Donald Trump.
The Link Between Anti-LGBTQ+ Communities And Misogyny
This feeling of hostility towards women underlies a lot of America’s other forms of hate, too. LGTBQ+ people are rightly terrified of another Trump presidency, as his campaign has been accompanied by and promised more attacks on queer rights. Over the past four years, Republicans have enacted so many pieces of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation that the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement saying that LGBTQ+ Americans were “living in a state of emergency.”
Republican rhetoric around trans issues has been a fever pitch of lies and radicalism, latching on to trans women athletes as a scapegoat and spending over $77 million spreading lies and transphobia in ads in ten States. Trump has spread nonsensical lies about schools sending children for gender-affirming surgeries without their consent and his genuinely bizarre claim during a presential debate that Democrats “want to do transgender operations on illegal aliens that are in prison.”
On his 2024 website, Donald Trump committed to enacting a federal ban on gender-affirming care for minors and to establishing a federal definition of gender that recognises only male and female as assigned at birth. His platform also called for the nationwide implementation of “Don’t Say Gay” laws targeting LGBTQ+ students in schools and vowed to prevent transgender women from participating in women’s sports. Trump’s running mate, JD Vance introduced a bill that proposed criminal penalties for doctors who provide gender-affirming care to trans youth.
These proposals build on the actions of Trump’s first term, which saw a series of measures hostile to the LGBTQ+ community. Notable actions included banning transgender individuals from military service, removing references to LGBTQ+ people from federal websites, reversing protections for transgender students in schools, and opposing workplace protections for LGBTQ+ employees. His administration also implemented a policy barring people with HIV from military service and cut funding for global HIV prevention and treatment programs.
There has been repeated rhetoric around queer people being “groomers”, which has resulted in drag bans and the Project 2025 proposal aims to not only put extreme bans on pornography but aims to extend the definition of pornography to include any form of media or literature that mentions LGBTQ+ people or issues, allowing for bans of books with LGBTQ+ characters, mentions of queer families and issues, and the prosecution of teachers and librarians who supply any books with LGBTQ+ content to children can be prosecuted as sex offenders.
Homophobia and bigotry around queerness is layered and multi-faceted in its awfulness, but it’s impossible to ignore its links with misogyny and the hatred of women. The hatred of gay men, trans women and gender-nonconforming people is partly driven by a hatred of women and femininity and a deep suspicion towards and desire to control anyone who would reject traditional ideals of masculinity. This worship of traditional, white, patriarchal, hetero masculinity and the accompanying hatred of anyone who doesn’t conform to traditional ideals of masculinity is why gay men and trans women can face much more intense bigotry and vitriol than lesbians or trans men – while they still absolutely face homophobia and transphobia, bigots can more often overlook something they see as being associated with maleness, as it doesn’t threaten their worldview as explicitly.
This obsession with traditional forms of masculinity underscores everything that Trump and Republicans do. When Harris’ running mate Tim Walz spoke out about supporting LGBTQ+ rights, disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson accused him of being gay, because being a straight man who cares about vulnerable communities, who offers respect to others, who wants to share equality equally with all and not just straight white cis men, is apparently unthinkable. A worshipping of toxic masculinity means a rejection of anything that embraces equality, as that would topple the status quo of patriarchy.
The Need To See Reality Clearly
Of course, there are many other issues that are terrifying about a Trump presidency, that were worthy of critique in Kamala Harris’ campaign, and that need to be addressed in America’s two-party system, its core-deep racism, and its worship of colonisation and capitalism. Of course there are. But I need women, especially women in America to hear this, to feel it: your country has shown that it hates you. It showed you before and has shown you again.
The many, many white women who voted for Trump don’t believe this yet, because they think that if they personally feel okay and if Trump says he respects women, then he must be telling the truth. They’ve fallen for the lie that many abuse victims fall for: as long as I behave, he’ll be good to me, which means he loves me. But this is how misogyny operates: it’s not a man telling you outright that he hates you. It’s a society, environment and individuals that treat women with hostility, keeping her under control, policing her behaviour and punishing her if she steps out of line.
This could look like, for example, a President saying he respects women but stripping their rights away. It could look like a government that says they see women as equal but who punishes and attacks women who report sexual violence. It could look like a political party that says they value mothers but are willing to force motherhood onto women, let mothers die rather than give all women reproductive rights, and then offer no economic or social support to mothers so they have to remain financially reliant on men. It could look like a society that claims to support women – unless you’re a Black woman, queer or feminist, or hold any beliefs that challenge patriarchy and the status quo. It could look like a man telling you he loves you, and punching the wall beside your head if you try to leave. It could look like a country that saw you asking to be treated better and chose to lash out and destroy you.
How They’ll Try To Blame Harris For The Election
Over the following weeks, misogyny is going to look like something very particular: blaming the results of this election on Kamala Harris and on women in general, saying that Harris’ campaign was flawed, that not enough women turned out to vote for her, or in general, that pro-choice women and trans women and queer women and leftist women and feminist women were too alienating, too demanding, too hysterical, too unlikeable, too extreme for wanting equality from a country that claims to love them.
This will be misogyny and victim-blaming in action. The election of Trump is not a story about one woman’s election campaign, it’s a story of America’s hatred of women generally. To women, especially American women, there is hope. There is survival and a different life ahead. It can get better. But it doesn’t get better by continuing to believe that underneath it all, he loves us really. It gets better by recognising the very extreme danger we’re in and acting accordingly. That means not believing that if only we behave well enough, we’ll be respected. That means not believing men’s words that they love and respect us while they take our rights away – or watch our rights being taken away and do nothing. That means recognising all the ways that we are told that our personhood is lesser and that we matter less. It means letting go of the dream of a loving, respectful relationship and acknowledging that you’re in an abusive one – and protecting yourself.
What Now?
Now is a time to grieve, and process. Take it if you need to. Rest. You’ll need your strength, for there will come a time to act. To speak out, very loudly, about the ways you have been abused and the abuse you fear is coming. To point out the lies and the gaslighting and the hypocrisy. To find other women and allies and stand in solidarity so you know you’re not alone. To organise, and gather all your resources – emotional, physical, communal, activist, political – and get ready to fight for your survival.
Pay attention to those around you. Those who are willing to fight for you; those who buy into the lie that you’re crazy and hysterical and he’s not that bad; and those who remain silent, wearing the label of allyship when it suits but who won’t turn up for you when it counts, when it’s inconvenient, when it doesn’t benefit them. Trump will be gone in four years and he won’t be able to run again. But there will still be a country filled with people who voted for those who hate you, people who supported your abusers, people who think you deserve it. You will have to reckon with that, and it’s going to be hard – and it’s the only way through.
Just a week ago, Harris gave her closing argument to America in advance of the vote, saying that Trump “has spent a decade trying to keep the American people divided and afraid of each other – that’s who he is. But, America,” she stressed, “I’m here tonight to say: that’s not who we are.” Harris was wrong. But she doesn’t have to be.
The reason that abusers isolate victims from other people, the reason they control their movements, the reason they never state their oppressive intentions out loud is because abuse cannot survive when it is openly recognised. It cannot survive when it is named openly among communities. Abuse cannot survive when victims are kept silent and prevented from coming together, from finding supporters and from pushing back as a collective. It’s why the most misogynistic countries in the world literally prevent women from speaking in public, from speaking back to men, from speaking to each other, because speaking truth to power is the start of everything.
Women, America hates us. This is an abusive relationship. And you cannot fight for an abuser’s approval or acceptance – you can only fight for your survival, your freedom, and a different relationship. You can fight for something different, and believe that it is possible – but only if you stop believing the lie that America is a good, really, underneath it all.
Leaving an abusive relationship involves believing deep down that you deserve better, and that it is possible. Opening your eyes to the lie is the first act of hope and resistance. Opening your eyes to the lie is the way you see clearly what you need to do, and who is around you to help. Opening your eyes to the lie is the first step. We don’t need to know the exact path into the future yet. We just need to believe that it’s possible and start walking towards it, together.
Women’s Aid offers a free 24-hour National Helpline 24/7 on 1800 341 900. It’s a safe, confidential and non-judgmental space to talk through what is happening at home and get practical support, including emergency safe accommodation.
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