The women of the reactionary wave: ‘What’s wrong with being submissive?’

It was long thought that women would be the last hold-outs to the reactionary wave, and progressive politicians and causes have long relied on them to stay firm. U.S. women were supposed to vote for Kamala Harris behind their Republican husbands’ backs in order to put the brakes on a misogynist, xenophobic, et. al. candidate. But reality, ever more complex than one’s assumptions, proved otherwise. There are at least as many Trump-supporting women as there are progressive men, according to the Republican tsunami that took place during last Tuesday’s elections.

Young BBC reporter Layla Wright, who is 27 years old, traveled to the United States on the eve of the country’s election to spend a few days with women more or less of the same generation, but who have embraced ultra-conservative, paranoic talking points. The result is the documentary America’s New Female Right. Here await all the diatribes one might expect (against feminism, LGBTQ+ rights, immigration, globalist elites) and perhaps, some surprises (against women’s right to vote, their presence in the labor market, the influence of the Devil himself on our world today).

The program takes shape around three activists and influencers who have thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, and who are located within the cutting-edge of the reactionary culture wars. The youngest, at 17 years old, is Hannah Faulkner, who advocates against “genital mutilation” — her term for gender-affirming surgical procedures. She’s a girl who was home-schooled by a Bible-obsessed father intent on shielding her from the contamination of secular forces. Then there’s 24-year-old Morgonn McMichael, who speaks of feeling marginalized as a young girl for her authoritarian viewpoints and who is now a tradwife crusader. Sample quote: “What’s wrong with being submissive?”

In both cases, our reporter manages to establish a certain rapport. The third woman profiled by the documentary is Christie Hutcherson, who is a decade older and whose rhetoric is potentially the most martial. She speaks with gusto of having heard the “male voice” of God, who sent her to patrol the southern border with a paramilitary group intent on hunting “invaders,” as they have dubbed immigrants. Of the three, Hutcherson becomes the tensest when Wright timidly takes her to task. At one point the reporter, moved by a scene at the base of the Arizona border wall, asks if she can give some water to exhausted African migrants who have just crossed the desert. She is told no, that it would amount to aiding and abetting the enemy — which doesn’t sound very Christian.

These are extreme profiles, but it’s worth keeping in mind that these women have considerable followings. Viewers hear of the existence of “Satan’s plan,” which is hell-bent on destabilizing Western civilization. The advances of the women’s movement of the 20th century are called into question: “I’m not going to say that women shouldn’t vote, but giving women the right to vote has contributed to the destruction of the family.” Another pearl of wisdom: “Feminism is a thousand times more toxic than so-called toxic masculinity.” What these new despots seek, the three women affirm, is a generation of “docile and emasculated men.” Of course, the great replacement theory is also embraced: the belief that borders are open (false) so that the Latino, Black or Arab immigrant population can supplant the current white majority. It’s quite the festival of misinformation.

The documentary aspires to paint a portrait of these three women as symbols of the ultra-right movement. Its results are interesting, but not overly so. In part, because Wright is not good at polemic, and rarely confronts her subjects and their abundant contradictions. Sometimes, she merely lets them talk, raising an eyebrow from time to time. The film fails to present any context for these reactionary influencers, or an examination of their followers. Wright tries to mask the fact that, in truth, she’s observing the women as one would aliens (a risk that is run, with much better results, by Alexandra Pelosi in a similar yet more accomplished film: HBO’s The Insurrectionist Next Door).

If you’re looking for answers as to why the world seems to be turning away from liberal values, you won’t find them here. The film’s quest to get to know the most extreme of the extremists is good for getting its viewers riled up, an apt moment for the clutching of one’s pearls. But it’s a harder task to explain why millions of everyday folks who are far from out of the ordinary, and who are living everyday lives, have been seduced by this revolt against progress, having gone to the polls guided by what Antonio Gutiérrez-Rubí calls “our other self,” “the beast we all carry within.”

None of these three women aspires to be president, and Trump himself has now toppled two female candidates to the office (one fears it will be a long time before the Democrats present another woman in the race for the White House). One of the great paradoxes of our time is how the great female Western leaders have tacked to the right, from Thatcher to Meloni to Merkel, with Le Pen (and Ayuso) waiting in the wings. The reactionaries are winning. Last Tuesday, they swept the board. Though it’s difficult, it now falls to us to explain why.

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