A Letter to Post Gender Columnist Monica Hesse About Her “Gen X Women and Trump” Article

Why Hesse's feminist bias prevents her from seeing why Gen X women support Trump

Dear Ms. Hesse,

As I have written multiple prior letters to you, I have little doubt that you’re aware of my efforts to challenge The Washington Post’s longstanding gender bias against men, provable by its imbalanced coverage of domestic violence¹ and made undeniable by its 2018 publication of a repulsive op-ed, Why can't we hate men?

I respectfully ask that you take the time to read this letter about your recent column, What is it with Gen X women and Donald Trump? and to thoughtfully consider what I say here.

Your article discusses a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos presidential election poll, where you examined the differences in support for Donald Trump among different generations of women. In particular, you pondered the unexpected support for Trump by the women of Generation X, the only generation where more women supported Trump than Kamala Harris.

I believe that your inability to see the reason behind this statistical aberration is due to your one-sided gender worldview, formed by decades of feminist cultural, political, and legal indoctrination. (Not to mention that you’re the Post’s “gender columnist”.)

The Reason for Gen X’s Support for Trump

About this counterintuitive support for Trump among Gen X’s women you ask, “What in the name of ‘Reality Bites’ is going on here?” I believe the answer can be found by examining how each generation of women would consider whether or not they “can have it all”, a theme proselytized by feminists since the 1980’s.² Note that this is roughly the decade that members of Gen X were reaching their formative (and most susceptible) years, where the leading edge of the generation, born in 1965, would have been about 15 years old.

The following chart, based on the numbers you reported in your article, estimates how each generation might answer the question “Can we have it all?”

The following sources illustrate how Gen X has come to disbelieve the myth of “having it all” and thus, presumably, why this group predominantly supports Trump:

• Gen-X women can’t ‘have it all’ after all: author Elizabeth Grace Matthew describes the idea of having it all as one of “perpetual childhood”:

“The same middle-class women of Generation X who see the most distance between the ‘all’ they set out to have and the ‘some they are working so hard to maintain should congratulate themselves because their very struggle indicates that they have managed something extraordinary: to embody adult responsibility in perhaps the only culture in history in which women and men are encouraged to pursue not just eternal youth but perpetual childhood. ‘I can have it all’ is, after all, a sentence most commonly uttered by preschoolers in defiance of the necessary limitations imposed on them by grown-ups.[emphasis added]”

• Why We Can't Sleep: Women's New Midlife Crisis, in this book Generation X author Ada Calhoun, noting that both she and other Generation X women were miserable, examined the new midlife crisis facing Gen X women and the unique circumstances that have brought them to this point:

“Speaking with women across America about their experiences as the generation expected to “have it all”, Calhoun found that most were exhausted, terrified about money, under-employed, and overwhelmed. Instead of their issues being heard, they were told to lean in, take “me time”, or make a chore chart to get their lives and homes in order.”

• Samhita Mukhopadhyay, former executive editor of Teen Vogue, in Forget Having It All. Let’s Try Having Enough, writes that “having it all” is a flawed concept:

“The debate about whether women can ‘have it all’ has plagued discussions about women’s career progress for decades. As much as we acknowledge that it is a flawed concept …every few years, it reemerges through a series of think pieces and debates about what it means and how, even though we all know it’s not really possible, we are still expected to strive for it. Rarely do we talk about what ‘all’ means.”

But despite its origins, “having it all” continues to be a myth force-fed to women. It promotes the idea that life is about the abundance of infinite choices we make. Of course, we can have it all— as long as we are willing to do it all. [emphasis added]

Beyond Having It All: Why Millennials and Gen Z Will Likely Follow Gen X’s Pattern

What about Millennials and Gen Z? In the future, will they follow in Gen X’s footsteps in supporting future Trumps?

I believe the answer can be surmised by noting that the preference for Trump increases as each of the three “have it all” generations ages, highlighted in yellow. Working backwards from Gen Z, we see that support for Trump starts at 30% (Gen Z), rises to 35% (Millennials), finally ending at more than half of female Gen X voters who support a man who bragged about his ability to “grab women by the pussy”.³

A good case can be made that this increase occurs as each generation comes to realize that the promises of feminism have too often been based on hollow lies, causing distress and unhappiness to successive generations of women.

Women’s Happiness is Declining

Although feminists promote an image of happy, independent women who don’t need men, what they won’t talk about is the fact that for many women, feminist progress comes with a heavy price tag: higher rates of female suicides, depression, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections over the last five decades:

The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness: “By many objective measures the lives of women in the United States have improved over the past 35 years, yet we show that measures of subjective well-being indicate that women's happiness has declined both absolutely and relative to men.” – National Bureau of Economic Research (2009)

Why Don’t We Tell Women What’s Making Them Miserable?: “But it isn’t clear that feminism’s fruits are helping everyone. Happiness metrics confirm that women are struggling: Suicides, depression, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted infections have all increased dramatically over the last five decades. Women aren’t becoming happier, just more medicated.”

The Female Happiness Paradox (PDF): “Using data across countries and over time we show that women are unhappier than men in unhappiness and negative affect equations, irrespective of the measure used – anxiety, depression, fearfulness, sadness, loneliness, anger – and they have more days with bad mental health and more restless sleep.” – National Bureau of Economic Research (2022)

Women Are Discovering that Feminists Lied About Men, Families, and Having Children

“Never before has a generation been so massively misled.

That banner can be found on the website of Suzanne Venker, a critic of feminism who helps “… women reject bogus [feminist] narratives about men, marriage, and motherhood that sabotage their success in life and in love.”

Venker documents her claim about women being misled by feminists through her multiple media channels:

• In a Substack post, 4 Lies the Culture Tells, she describes four feminist lies that are sabotaging women’s happiness:
  
  1. Women don’t need men
  2. Men and Women Are the Same, or Gender Is a Social Construct
  3. The Biological Clock Isn't Real
  4. A Career Is More Meaningful Than Marriage and Children
  

• In her book The War on Men Venker provides an illuminating example of the impact of these lies by referencing an article, How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart, by Rebecca Walker, daughter of feminist firebrand and author of The Color Purple, Alice Walker:

“It reminds me of just how blessed I am. The truth is that I very nearly missed out on becoming a mother  -  thanks to being brought up by a rabid feminist who thought motherhood was about the worst thing that could happen to a woman.

“You see, my mum taught me that children enslave women. I grew up believing that children are millstones around your neck, and the idea that motherhood can make you blissfully happy is a complete fairytale.

“In fact, having a child has been the most rewarding experience of my life. Far from 'enslaving' me, three-and-a-half-year-old Tenzin has opened my world. My only regret is that I discovered the joys of motherhood so late  -  I have been trying for a second child for two years, but so far with no luck.

“I was raised to believe that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle. But I strongly feel children need two parents and the thought of raising Tenzin without my partner, Glen, 52, would be terrifying.”

“Feminism has betrayed an entire generation of women into childlessness. It is devastating.” [emphasis added]

• In her book, How to Build a Better Life: A New Roadmap for Women Who Want to Prioritize Love & Family, Venker challenges the decades-long feminist narrative that women should prioritize career over marriage, family, and the innate female desire to have children,⁴ and provides an illuminating example of a woman who regrets not having children, instead divorcing her husband and focusing on her career:
  
  In an article Woman in her 30s cries describing finally wanting kids after swearing off marriage: ‘Betrayed by feminism’, a childless divorced woman, Melissa Persling, appears in a sorrowful video literally crying about her missed chance at motherhood and a happy family life, opting instead for a life focused on the  feminist goals of career and complete freedom from the “slavery” of  marriage. Persling concludes,

“I feel unbelievably betrayed by feminism, and I don't want to put it on the movement [entirely] because I believe you make your own choices… But I was constantly fed this idea that women can do everything. We don't really need men... I kind of want to go back to some of those teachers and coaches and say, 'What did you mean by that? Because we can't do it all.”

Your Feminist Worldview is Causing You to Miss the Bigger Story

Ms. Hesse, your gender bias is causing you to miss one of the biggest stories of the past half century: the damage caused by decades of feminist lies and indoctrination.

I will soon be writing another letter about another recent article by you, Trump caused the gender gap, where I will explain how feminism itself caused the gender gap which in turn helped to create the monster that is Donald Trump. [This second letter has been posted.]

As a short proof, I offer a 2018 article by Andrew Sullivan in New York magazine, #MeToo and the Taboo Topic of Nature that described why so many men support Trump. The article ended with the following paragraph:

“Trump understands this dynamic (cultural misandry) intuitively. [Trump advisor Steve Bannon] believed it was integral to the Trump project, and wants the slanted elite discourse on men to continue and intensify [emphasis added]. I think this issue was an under-acknowledged cause for Clinton’s failure. At some point, Democrats and liberals are going to have to decide if they want to “problematize” half the voting population.”

To adapt a well-known phrase, not directed at you personally, “It’s the feminism, stupid!”

Sincerely,

Stephen Bond,

Publisher of "Letters to The Washington Post" Substack

1. This observation was confirmed by a February 2023 report by The Coalition to End Domestic Violence that described a 10-Year Suppression of the Truth on Domestic Violence by the Washington Post. For further evidence see Domestic Violence: Feminism’s Big Lie.

2. According to a Time magazine article, Forget Having It All. Let’s Try Having Enough, the first use of “having it all” can be traced back to Helen Gurley Brown’s 1982 book Having It All: Love, Success, Sex, Money—Even If You’re Starting with Nothing.

3. Because my intent is only to challenge the Post’s feminist gender bias, I’ve tried to avoid discussing Trump. I do agree, however, with retired federal judge and January 6th Committee witness J. Michael Luttig: "Donald Trump and his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.")

4. I feel it necessary to note that I strongly disagree with J.D. Vance’s comment about the “childless left”, envisioned as “childless cat ladies”. Specifically, I completely reject Vance’s bigotry against those women who choose, for whatever reason, not to have children. It’s a completely legitimate life choice.