A a political video reminds women that they can vote for Vice President Kamala Harris without telling their husbands, angering prominent conservatives and reigniting a fiery narrative that highlights the central role of gender in this year’s election.

The videowhich began circulating last week, opens with a woman about to enter the voting booth after her husband, looking at him nervously before making her choice. She locks eyes with another woman as they fill out their ballots for Harris.

“In the only place in America where women still have the right to choose,” says actress Julia Roberts, alluding to an ongoing partisan battle over reproductive rights, “you can vote the way you want and no one will never know.”

The women then leave the voting booth to meet their husbands, who presumably voted for former President Donald Trump.

“Did you make the right choice?” asks one of the husbands.

“Of course, honey,” his wife replies with a smile, sharing a knowing look with the woman next to her.

Although Harris has refrained from talking much about her potential to be the first female president, the video highlights the a widening gender gap between her and Trump, with recent polls showing notable tracks by Harris among women and Trump among men.

Harris’s opponents have used her gender to question her qualifications throughout her campaign. Trump said in July that world leaders would consider Harris “like a toy” based on his appearance, and his allies suggested that Harris’s political success was attributable to diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

Meanwhile, Trump’s campaign has embraced an image of traditional masculinity, actively courting influencers and comedians popular among young men.

Gender is also behind many of the hot-button issues driving voters’ choices this election cycle, including abortion, in vitro fertilization, child care and transgender rights.

The campaign spot, created by Vote Common Good, a progressive nonprofit group that works to mobilize religious voters, sparked outrage from Trump and some of his allies.

Although the organization never paid to promote or distribute the video, its executive director, Doug Pagitt, said the attention it received online means it tapped into an experience familiar to many households .

“So many people in the world I come from, and in the political world around it, believe that women’s responsibility in voting is first and foremost in not having their own voice,” said Pagitt, pastor and social activist. “It’s about replicating what their husband tells them.”

In a phone interview with Fox News On Saturday, Trump said he was “so disappointed in Julia Roberts” and that she would one day look back on the ad and “cringe.” He added that he did not believe the video depicted a realistic marital dynamic, calling it “ridiculous.”

“I mean, can you imagine a wife who doesn’t tell her husband who she’s voting for? » Trump said. “Even if you have a horrible relationship, if you had a bad relationship, you’re going to tell your husband.”

Fox News host Jesse Watters said last week that if his wife did the same thing as the women in the commercial, it would violate “the sanctity of our marriage.”

A Philadelphia judge has scheduled an Oct. 31 hearing in Elon Musk’s civil case over his potentially illegal $1 million donation.

“If I found out Emma went into the voting booth and pulled the lever for Harris, that’s the same thing as having an affair,” Watters said, a remark that prompted many people online to call him for his marital affair, which he admitted to in 2018.

Conservative podcast host Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, called the ad “nauseating” as he criticized the woman for lying to “her sweet husband who is probably working his butt off to make sure she can go away and have a good life and provide for the family.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., joined the critics Thursday, tell Fox News that Democrats are telling women to lie to their husbands: “What kind of totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have Democrats developed?

While some conservative men expressed disbelief and disapproval, many netizens contributed to the discussion by sharing their opinions. experiences with women WHO secretly supporting democrats in Republican homes, saying they fear for the well-being of women whose husbands insist on the control or monitoring of their votes.

In recent months, Post-it notes have also quietly appeared in public restrooms and on tampon boxes across the country, reminding women that no one can see if they are voting for Harris.

Several women involved in grassroots campaigning in more conservative areas told NBC News that getting involved in the Post-it campaign was a way for them to be politically active without facing backlash from the Republican-majority areas in which they live.

The controversy surrounding the ad has prompted some netizens to draw parallels to Margaret Atwood’s classic novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” which depicts a dystopian theocratic regime that forcibly categorizes women and strips them of personal autonomy. Following the speech, Atwood shared a political cartoon of women entering a voting booth dressed in maid outfits and shedding their red uniform on the way out.

For Pagitt, the furious reactions from some men online reinforce the need for the video’s message.

“They took the sanctity of their ballot and turned it into a conversation about men appropriating the behaviors of the women in their lives,” Pagitt said. “Well, I didn’t think you were going to make our point. We’re very grateful that you did.

This article first appeared on NBCNews.com. Read more from NBC News here: