I was at a Manhattan museum on a recent October weekend when I noticed the Post-It bug inside the women’s restroom stall. “Woman to woman,” it said, “Remember your vote is private. Harris/Walz!” The message was one of encouragement, but it made my heart sink. Never in my life have I experienced an electoral campaign during which this had to be shared.

But in the devastating aftermath of Trump wins another presidential electionWe find ourselves in a reality marked by such intense fear and intimidation that it is no wonder that women exchange secret messages in the few private spaces we have left.

And the threat of — to use Donald Trump’s favorite phrase: “punishment“- weighs so much on us that we can only prepare for what will come after November 5 or January 20”,whether women like it or not“We women were deprived of what could have been a momentous campaign and historic victory.

We have standardized weird for so long that it seems impossible to suggest that it should not have been this way. Just a few election cycles ago, the political debate featured losers who conceded decisions and voters who did not. storm the Capitol and representatives who did not try to overturn the election.

In an alternate reality, Harris could have faced a Republican opponent who did not. question one’s racial identity and regularly mispronounces his first name. She might not have been accused by mainstream pundits of being “a DEI rental” Or to sleep until the top. The fact that she has no biological children may not have been used as a weapon. a rebuke of his “humility”. And his opponent’s former aide wouldn’t be joking when talking about overturning the 19th Amendment.

But civil discourse is reduced to a useless core at this point, and a presidential candidate may share crude jokes about his opponent with barely an incident in the news cycle. A candidate who has was also convicted of crimeswho was convicted by civil jury of sexual assault. Meanwhile, once-reputable newspapers, now run by billionaires, have refused to support a competent and consistent woman for president.

Hey guys, because I guess the last eight years of women’s marches And #Me too I wasn’t clear: how do you think this made women feel? Women of color? Women who have experienced sexual harassment and survived sexual assault? What do you think is the lesson we have gleaned here about our worth in our own country?

Last week I asked a few women to think about these issues and this campaign.

“Throughout my entire family’s history, people in my family reached a point where white male society said, ‘OK, that’s far enough away,'” my friend. Celeste Headleeauthor of “We Need to Talk,” told me. “Most women, but all women of color, have had their intelligence underestimated, been called angry, aggressive, intimidating. I lost two jobs where they specifically told me that it ‘was because I was an angry person.'”

“Watching Kamala Harris run for president is like watching all the disappointments and heartaches of your life unfold in real time, except this time it’s not about me losing my job,” he said. observed Headlee. “The issues are lose democracy, lose all reproductive rightslosing their bodily autonomy in a way that hasn’t happened to women of color, really since the end of the Civil War.

Journalist and workplace equity expert Farai Chideya saw this moment in the same way. “When we look at this race, we cannot underestimate the impact of misogyny,” she said.

“There are many different ways in which Kamala Harris is seen as less viable because of her sex and the combination of her gender and race. She faces not only sexism, but sexism specifically. misogynoir“.

I have tried, for the sake of my daughters and their generation, to remain positive, even if I regret that they have fewer reproductive rights today than at their age. I can recognize the progress we have made despite and because of staggering setbacks. Would we have had #MeToo without the anguish of Hilary Clinton’s defeat in 2016? Would we now have a record number of women in Congress? Damn, would we have had”barbie“?

“When it comes to social justice, you can’t put the genie back in the bottle” Lily Burana, author of “Grace for Amateurs”, told me. “Gen Alpha women and girls have an awareness of systemic misogyny, of queer issues, of their worth, in a way that would literally be unthinkable to me as a Gen turned the rock over, and people saw these systems of oppression, you can’t ignore them.”

There is no denying that the past few years have been a cataclysmic period of significant progress in gender equality. They were also undeniably a spectacular disappointment, on both a macro and micro scale.

The vision Burana speaks of is painfully omnidirectional, and we also can never ignore what we now know about some of the people closest to us — or the agenda they are willing to support. Toxicity and polarization have broken friendships and divided familieson a deeply hurtful level.

“I just don’t know if the outcome (of the election) will change the feeling in society,” said comedian and writer Micaela Fagan. “You start to feel like you don’t know who you can trust.”

I remember the last time I spoke to a specific family member and was firmly told that we could “agree to disagree.” I can agree to disagree on many things: tax rates, arts funding, and even the nuances and limitations of gun control. I cannot agree to disagree with a side that agrees with a sexual assaulter in the Oval Office. I cannot agree with the dismantling of women’s health and privacy.

I can’t agree to disagree about doctors refusing medical care in case of ectopic pregnancyand women being arrested for their miscarriages. Have you ever had a miscarriage? I have. It’s physically and emotionally devastating enough without worrying that you and your doctor may be questioned, scrutinized, penalized, have your life put in danger, because of the way this is handled. And we can blame all this suffering on the pitiful carcass of what was once the Republican Party.

Now that so many of us know exactly which people in our lives aren’t bothered by punitive reactions against our gender, to what extent can we ever be right again? How can we just relax at Thanksgiving when across the table are people who are fully on board for a dystopian future of Project 2025? The patriarchy really relies on women to keep it comfortable and unchallenged, and it especially relies on it under its own roof.

Of course there is Guys for Kamala And MAGA womenbut gender power dynamics are unique. Soraya Chemalyauthor of the aptly named “Rage Becomes Her,” pointed out to me that other forms of oppression, like racism and homophobia, are based on marginalization. But misogyny cuts to the heart of the home and family. She called this “the most intimate inequality.” That’s what makes this situation so painful – and so dangerous.

“Most families are the same race, the same ethnicity, the same religion, so the pressure point in those families will be gender,” she said.

The complacent political sexism of our loved ones has been a hurtful disappointment. But for other women, the resentment against our gender is much more obvious.

United States The country far exceeds its peers in maternal mortality. One of the leading causes of death among pregnant American women, more than hypertensive disorders, hemorrhage or sepsis, it’s a homicide. So don’t talk to me about how dangerous immigrants arehow mothers are valued, while the party that claims to want to make America great again remains so conspicuously silent on domestic violence. And the threat of post-election retaliation, both in the public and private sectors, is real enough to give us pause.

“I’m convinced that either way it’s going to be bad, and it’s going to be bad in different ways,” Chemaly said. “Frankly, women, particularly poor, black and brown women, are going to suffer the consequences of either a consolidation of the power of entrenched male supremacy or a backlash against the idea that the party of “women “won.”

“Maybe it’s a choice between getting fucked quickly or getting fucked slowly over time,” she said. “In my mind, you’re screwed either way.”

I can’t convince anyone of anything. I can simply express what I know many women have felt: exhausted sadness that any burst of joy from this campaign season has been sucked away by a vindictive, chattering old man and his whining servants.

“Ten years ago we would have said, ‘Yeah!’” Fagan said. “Everyone would have been behind this.” Instead, we pass notes in the toilet. We carefully exploit not only our voices but also our stealth.

A note left in a New York City bathroom in late October 2024. (Photo provided by Mary Elizabeth Williams)

“I feel like we’re in the middle of a global women’s denial movement,” Chemaly observed. “We don’t call it a protest, because it’s not a typical protest led by a charismatic leader in the streets. Women are quietly abandoning heteropatriarchy.”

The patriarchy wants to scare us. And good job, patriarchy, because of course I am! But more than I’m afraid, I’m angry. And more than I am angry, I am determined. The next few years are going to be ugly and overwhelming for women in many ways. This will undoubtedly be beneficial to others as well.

“Patriarchy is not going to disappear quietly, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t on the verge of disappearing,” Burana said.

And in the meantime – at least for now – our vote is private.