Did Misogyny Ruin the New York Times?
I’ll save you the effort of reading this article and just tell you: the answer is yes.
On November 5th, the New York Times, one of the most prestigious newspapers in the country, published an opinion piece entitled, “Did Women Ruin the Workplace?” The next day, the title had been updated to say, “Did Liberal Feminism Ruin the Workplace?” The subtitle reads, “And if so, can conservative feminism fix it?” To publish such an article right now, while women’s rights are under attack, is appalling. That it came from so highly-regarded a source is alarming. And that this piece masquerades as a championing of women’s rights? Unforgivable.
Original Art by emj
The War on Women’s Rights
Since the Supreme Court leveraged its Republican super majority (including the third of the court that was nominated by Donald Trump) to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022, women’s rights have been rapidly spiraling. Bodily autonomy is the most basic of human rights—afforded even to corpses, from which it is illegal to remove organs that would save another’s life, unless the deceased designated themselves an organ donor prior to their death. But this fundamental tenet of personhood is regularly being denied to women all across the US.
More than half of states are actively eroding or not adequately protecting abortion rights. Even in places like Ohio and Missouri that voted to codify abortion rights, Republicans are still pushing for bans, restrictions, and even murder charges for those who get an abortion. Criminal investigations are also being levied against women who experience miscarriages in ever-increasing numbers. Thanks to anti-abortion laws, the body of a brain-dead woman in Georgia was used as an incubator for her fetus, while women like Tierra Walker, Amber Thurman, Candi Miller, Josseli Barnica, Navaeh Crane, and Porsha Ngumezi all died preventable deaths because doctors were afraid to take action.
Just this past month, a woman in Illinois—a pro-choice state—was repeatedly denied the emergency care she needed to treat a fatal ectopic pregnancy, while a 20-year-old in South Carolina was arrested for attempted murder because police say she tried to terminate her pregnancy. Pregnancy Justice found that in the first two years after Roe v. Wade was overturned, 412 women were charged with crimes related to their pregnancies, including those who had only had miscarriages, and lawyers have begun warning people of the legal dangers of a miscarriage. A recent report on maternal mortality in a post-Dobbs world found that, on average, women in ban states are nearly twice as likely to die during pregnancy when compared with supportive states. Black and Latina women are at three times the risk as white women. Instead of addressing the health crisis caused by abortion bans, states like Georgia have instead chosen to bury the numbers by firing their entire maternal mortality committee.
Some states, like Wisconsin, are attempting to redefine abortion as a wholly unnecessary procedure, and would instead force women into painful, traumatic, and potentially dangerous vaginal births or c-sections. Just this past month, South Carolina introduced the most restrictive abortion bill in the United States. Called S.323, this legislation aimed to criminally try anyone who has an abortion or who helps another obtain an abortion. It also sought to ban IUDs, eliminate all protections for survivors of rape, and remove exceptions for fatal fetal anomalies. Thankfully, S.323 did not pass, but this bill or another like it could still be brought around again. In fact, legislation that criminalizes women for their pregnancy outcomes is being introduced more and more frequently. While these extreme bills keep failing, the margin is getting narrower and the opposition quieter each time.
One well-known supporter of S.323, Mark Baumgartner, is the leader of a religious group that stands outside Planned Parenthood clinics in Columbia, SC to harass women seeking medical care. On October 1st, Mark testified in support of S.323. He opened his speech by quoting the Bible—so much for the separation of Church and State—and insisted that women who get abortions should be tried as murderers. He says such a punishment is justified because women at the Columbia Planned Parenthood have flipped him off or even cartwheeled past when he was harassing them. On November 14th, Mark, who claims to be pro-life, pulled out a gun and shot a man just outside the Planned Parenthood. Despite several witnesses identifying him as the shooter and a video of the crime, police took eleven days to arrest Mark.
Republicans love to bleat about how dedicated they are to saving children when it comes to abortion bans, but the reality is, they are doing very little to actually protect the 74 million children living in the US. Their hypocrisy is everywhere, from the recent government shutdown that increased children’s levels of food insecurity, to policies that make healthcare inaccessible. In fact, during the shutdown, a woman named Nikalie Monroe went viral on TikTok by calling various churches and asking for baby formula to feed a two-month old. The number of megachurches who tell their congregations to force women to give birth but then refuse to feed a starving infant is appalling. Furthermore, gun violence is the number one killer of children from ages one to 24, and until 2017, child marriage was legal in all 50 states. From 2000-2021, there were almost 315,000 minors married in the US, including 17 little girls who were each just 10 years old. But instead of focusing on ending child marriage, gun violence, or poverty, conservative leaders force 10-year-old rape victims to cross state lines to get abortions. They promote deportation policies that rip families apart, pass laws that deny personhood to the LGBTQ+ community, and instate legislation that literally kills women.
The GOP likes to prominently feature conservative feminists such as Karoline Leavitt, Kristi Noem, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, all of whom play a role like that of Serene Joy in the Handmaid’s Tale. For those of you who haven’t read Margaret Atwood’s book or seen the show, Serena Joy is granted a tiny piece of the patriarchal pie by the all-powerful male rulers in exchange for being their puppet. She assures the masses that women will like submitting to men, and that it will be good for them. Serena Joy is the embodiment of conservative feminism and the lie it sells to women.
The Lie of Conservative Feminism
So what exactly is this so-called conservative feminism, and how will it help save our society? The phrase itself is an oxymoron, because conservative, traditionalist beliefs are incompatible with true feminism. Instead of championing women’s rights, as a feminist would, these conservative women are advocating against their own interests, and are encouraging others to do the same. For example, Megyn Kelly, who holds a law degree and is known for her time on Fox News as well as her own podcast, voiced her opinion that fifteen-year-old girls are “barely legal” adults rather than literal children. She went on to insinuate that Epstein might not be a pedophile because he was raping girls over the age of 10. It should go without saying that giving men a green light to assault children by changing the definitions of the law to make their actions legal is harmful for everyone.
Another conservative known for advocating to reduce women’s rights is Veronica Partridge, who told the world, “Women today wearing leggings often cause men to think of them sexually or lust after them.” This proclamation comes after her husband told her that he has trouble controlling himself when he sees a woman in leggings. Rather than teaching men to have the same level of basic self-control that most dogs are capable of exhibiting, conservative feminism tells women that we are the problem.
In fact, Veronica Partridge’s husband, high-profile pastor Dale Partridge, posted a video declaring exactly how problematic he thinks women are. He states, “Nearly every legal atrocity over the last 100 years was made possible by the female vote … The 19th Amendment has been a moral and political tragedy for America.” Included in his list of so-called atrocities and tragedies? Legalizing abortion. LGBTQ+ rights. Immigration. Social programs to help those in need. Obama and Biden’s presidencies. Mamdani winning NYC’s mayoral race. To fix the horror of women having autonomy, Dale believes, “We should return to the household vote, where women share their thoughts with their fathers or their husbands, and the men in their life make the final decision.”
That’s right—no more votes for women. While it’s easy to dismiss one man’s views, it isn’t just fringe conservatives who are pushing for revoking the 19th Amendment. Pete Hegseth, the current Secretary of Defense, praised and reposted a CNN interview with a pastor who says women shouldn’t be allowed to vote. This pastor, Doug Wilson, self-describes as a Christian nationalist. Like Dale, he supports repealing the 19th Amendment and instead instituting a household vote in which the man has ultimate say. Doug further believes women should not be allowed to hold leadership roles and should be barred from the military. Also on his to-do list? Criminalizing being gay. Teaching all Americans that there was a mutual affection shared between slaves and slave-owners. And forcing not just the US but the entire world to submit to his version of Christianity. Doug’s church, originally from Idaho, has recently opened a new parish in Washington DC, which Pete and his family attend. Doug has thousands of parishioners, and Pete has initiated a monthly prayer service at the Pentagon. This terrifying mindset is working its insidious way into our legislation through movements like the SAVE Act. Should it pass, this law will make it significantly harder for Americans to vote—especially if you’ve ever changed your name, as over 80% of women in opposite-sex marriages have.
According to conservative feminism, instead of stressing over something as silly as politics, women should instead all become “trad wives” and spend our picture-perfect days doing nothing more than keeping house and being a birthing machine for our husbands. While anyone who wants to be a stay-at-home parent should absolutely have that option, there are miles of difference between respecting people’s personal choices and forcing one group’s choices onto everyone else. According to self-proclaimed trad wives, the key difference between themselves and stay-at-home moms is that trad wives “submit to their husbands”. The trad wife trend was started by Hannah Neeleman, the Julliard-trained dancer behind Ballerina Farm. Neeleman documents her ultra-traditional life and publicizes it on ultra-modern platforms like TikTok, and she conveniently leaves out the fact that her husband is heir to an airline fortune, making their lifestyle financially possible.
Neeleman’s glamorized and romanticized life is further promoted by organizations like Evie Magazine. This publication, which declares itself the “future of femininity” and a “conservative cosmos,” is well-known for pushing conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and anti-vaccine misinformation. In addition to promoting transphobia under the guise of “protecting women” and encouraging readers to consume animal organs, Evie Magazine champions an idyllic view of being a trad wife. Evie seems to forget that without feminists, marital rape still wouldn’t be considered a crime—and that appallingly, it took until 1993 to achieve this recognition federally. Restoring the laws of ye olden days of the 1980s when a woman legally couldn’t tell her husband no sounds incredibly unappealing. Losing the right to vote and being considered property? Even less so.
Weaponizing Medical Misinformation
Organizations like Evie have found several effective tactics to lure women—especially young women—into the so-called “womanosphere.” One of these strategies hinges on acknowledging and then weaponizing the ways in which the medical system has failed women for millenia. Misogyny taints the entire field of gynecology, from the Ancient Greeks declaring that “hysteria” was caused by a wandering uterus and should be treated with sex and pregnancy (regardless of the patient’s desires) to J. Marion Sims performing excruciating surgeries on enslaved Black women in the 1800s. Despite the horrific origins of the speculum as well as the pain and stress it incites in women today, the US medical sector resists even considering women-led, patient-centered alternatives like Nella, Lilium, or at-home cervical testing kits.
Even birth control, which has given millions of women the power of choice over our own bodies, has a disturbing past. The first large-scale human trial of the pill took place in Puerto Rico in the 1950s. Though the study resulted in an alarming rate of intolerable side effects and may have even been responsible for three deaths, the unfavorable results were dismissed as psychosomatic or irrelevant. While significant steps have since been taken to improve birth control, many women today still experience side effects that should be taken seriously, but instead, are often dismissed. In fact, it wasn’t until May of 2025 that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology finally recognized that procedures like an IUD insertion should incorporate pain management. Notably, these new guidelines were published after Contraline announced ADAM, a male contraceptive similar to an IUD, whose insertion process includes a local anesthesia.
While the horrifying history of birth control and gynecology in the US has predominately impacted Black, Indigenous, Hispanic, queer, and disabled women, the effects have reverberated throughout the entire country such that even white, affluent women feel them. Organizations like Evie as well as social media influencers—particularly conservative women—are capitalizing on all the pain and fear women feel as a result of literal millennia of medical exclusion, neglect, and gaslighting. One NPR podcast discusses research demonstrating that 38% of adults under the age of 35 trust medical advice from social media over real medical professionals. This is especially true with regards to birth control, even though one study showed that over half of these content creators explicitly reject hormonal birth control. Worse yet, the vast majority of the claims made in these videos aren’t backed by any kind of science, and instead are clickbait designed to play off people’s fears.
To that end, Evie is launching 28, a femtech (technology centering on women’s health) fitness app that they claim is designed around women’s menstrual cycles. In a world where research predominately focuses on men (in fact, the National Institute of Health didn’t require women to be included in trials until 1993), this sounds like it could be a fantastic development. However, 28 requires users to provide their menstrual information. Not only does this mean that 28 will know if a user becomes pregnant, but they’ll also be able to analyze her data to determine her pregnancy outcome. If that outcome is not a full-on baby, they may well provide that information to police, who could launch a criminal investigation.
Tellingly, 28 is financially backed by Peter Theil, a co-founder of Paypal and a megadonor to Republican candidates. One of 28’s main goals seems to be convincing women to stop using contraceptives altogether, and they market a birth control detox package, in which they cast the pill as an abusive ex-boyfriend and themselves as the rescuers of young women. Rather than offering an alternative contraceptive, however, they instead advertise “Partner Sharing,” so your significant other can track your fertility like you’re a horse he’s trying to breed. Fertility tracking as a form of birth control is known as the “rhythm method,” and it has a failure rate of 25%. The pill has a 1% failure rate. Despite what Evie magazine, TikTok trad wives, and sports celebrities like Harrison Butker want young women to believe, pregnancy itself is a risk. It can be physically dangerous, and parenthood—especially motherhood—comes with a significant societal tax, including sacrificing or stunting your career and independence. While many people find joy in raising children, no one should ever be forced into either pregnancy or parenthood.
It is absolutely true that birth control and gynecology have a dark and sordid past, and that these are topics we need to discuss more frequently, and in a far more nuanced and comprehensive way. But that doesn’t mean the solution is to incinerate or wait for the expiration of $9.7 million in birth control, or to convince women there are no benefits to birth control at all. And it certainly doesn’t mean we should glorify the messy reality of motherhood while denying women the autonomy to choose our own paths.
The Way Forward
So where does that leave us? It seems clear that conservative feminism is a smokescreen for stripping women of our basic rights and bodily autonomy, and I, for one, won’t let society go back to the Dark Ages without a fight. If that means holding the New York Times accountable for publishing headlines about women ruining the workplace when, in fact, that workplace is still paying women only 81% of what it pays men, then so be it. Does that make me a radical, liberal feminist? Dale Partridge would certainly say so. But I argue there’s nothing radical in thinking women should be able to vote or decide what happens to our bodies.
I believe that there are two critical components to fighting for and retaining our rights. The first is activism, both big and small. Get involved with organizations like Mass 50501, Equality Era Now, the Massachusetts Medication Abortion Access Project, RAINN, the Trevor Project, and Planned Parenthood. Stay informed, both through mainstream media but also independent journalism like Abortion, Every Day. Connect with others in your area, and lend each other strength and support. The only way through this mess is together. The other key to progress is, of course, feminism. By this, I mean liberal, inclusive, intersectional feminism. Our feminism must include trans women, BIPOC women, and immigrant women. It must welcome queer women, disabled women, and neurodivergent women. And feminism needs to include men. Feminism benefits everyone—yes, even men—and so it needs to be for everyone. That is the only way we’ll ever obtain a future where we are all actually, truly equal.
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