'Your body, my choice': Attacks on women surge on social media following U.S. election
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Sexist and abusive attacks on women, like 'your body, my choice' and 'get back to the kitchen,' have surged across social media since Trump’s reelection.
Sexist and abusive attacks on women, like "your body, my choice" and "get back to the kitchen," have surged across social media since Donald Trump’s reelection, according to an analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
An X post from White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes last Tuesday night saying, "Your body, my choice. Forever," has been viewed more than 90 million times and reposted more than 35,000 times. Between Thursday and Friday, the ISD recorded a 4,600% increase in mentions of the phrase on X. And a number of women on TikTok posted videos saying their comments had been filled with users posting the phrase.
"Nick Fuentes" was still trending on X and TikTok on Monday. The phrase "we own your body" was also trending on TikTok, although many of the videos featured women pushing back on the trend.
"Your body, my choice" is an apparent subversion the phrase "my body, my choice," which was used by women as a rallying cry in support of reproductive rights.
The rise in harassment signals that far-right online trolls and extremists feel emboldened by the outcome of an election that many had viewed as a referendum on women’s reproductive rights. On the campaign trail, Trump himself came under fire for comments about women, including that he would protect women whether "they like it or not." Vice-President-elect JD Vance also took heat for comments about women, including deriding "childless cat ladies" and calling Vice-President Kamala Harris "trash."
Many of those trolls are part of the so-called "manosphere," which the ISD describes as online "misogynistic communities that vary from anti-feminism to more explicit, violent rhetoric towards women."
And as with many types of online provocations, experts worry that this type of harassment could spill over into the offline world.
