Introduction: Echoes of 2016 in 2025 – Why This Warning on Women’s Voting Rights Demands a Second Look
When Robyn Dunphy penned “Will women lose the right to vote?” on our old site on November 22, 2016, the ink was barely dry on Donald Trump’s surprise victory in the presidential election. The piece captured a raw, visceral fear: that the rise of Trumpism, fueled by misogynistic undercurrents and white supremacist rhetoric, could erode hard-won democratic gains, starting with women’s suffrage under the 19th Amendment. Back then, hashtags like #RepealThe19th trended amid polls showing stark gender divides in voting preferences, and Robyn warned of a broader assault on rights that might extend to minorities, immigrants, and anyone outside the archetype of white male dominance. Nearly a decade later, as Trump begins his second non-consecutive term following the 2024 election, these concerns feel not just prescient but urgent. With online misogyny surging, policy proposals threatening voter access, and explicit calls to strip women of the franchise gaining traction in conservative circles, this article’s republication serves as a stark reminder that history’s warnings often resurface when ignored.
In the wake of Trump’s 2024 win, threats to women’s rights have escalated dramatically. Online abuse against women has spiked, with sexist phrases like “repeal the 19th” reemerging on platforms like X (formerly Twitter), often tied to emboldened “manosphere” influencers amplifying derision and violence. Recent X posts reveal a flurry of activity around #RepealThe19th since January 2024, with users – predominantly right-wing accounts – mocking women’s decisions, blaming them for societal ills, and openly advocating for suffrage’s reversal in contexts ranging from election outcomes to cultural critiques. This isn’t fringe chatter; it’s echoed in high places, as seen when Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reposted a video featuring pastors from a Christian nationalist church calling for women to “submit” to husbands and repeal the 19th Amendment, tying it to broader patriarchal ideologies.
Policy threats compound these cultural shifts. Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for a second Trump administration, doesn’t explicitly demand repealing women’s suffrage – as fact-checks confirm – but it proposes weakening voting rights protections, including dismantling enforcement of the Voting Rights Act and National Voter Registration Act, which could disproportionately affect women and minorities through aggressive voter purges and criminalisation of registration errors. Meanwhile, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act, passed by the Republican-led House in April 2025, requires in-person proof of citizenship for voter registration – such as a birth certificate matching one’s current name – a hurdle that could disenfranchise millions of married women whose legal names have changed, as voting rights groups warn. These measures, ostensibly aimed at non-citizen voting (already illegal and rare), risk exacerbating the voter suppression tactics Robyn highlighted in 2016, like long lines and low turnout, which persist today amid mixed economic indicators and ongoing bigotry.
Robyn’s fears of “Sieg Heil” followers orchestrating a return to white male supremacy resonate anew, as post-election reports detail increased neo-Nazi activity, misogynistic attacks, and bigoted incidents mirroring 2016’s surge. Figures like Ann Coulter, whom Robyn critiqued for self-serving anti-suffrage rhetoric, find echoes in modern influencers and even GOP allies who’ve praised repeal efforts in the past. Globally, women’s fights for basic rights – in places like the Middle East and Turkey – parallel U.S. regressions, underscoring Robyn’s call to remove “rose-coloured glasses.”
As we republish this piece in August 2025, the question lingers louder than ever: In a nation where women’s votes helped shape Trump’s victories yet now face existential threats, will future generations – your daughters, perhaps – retain the franchise that took over a century to secure? Or will the shadows of 2016 engulf us fully? Read on, and decide for yourself.
Will women lose the right to vote?
Impossible, you say? Women could never lose the right to vote, you say? I am reasonably concerned there will be an attempt to stop women voting in the USA during the next four years and if that happens in the USA …
I first felt my gut wrench when, back in October, #RepealThe19th was trending. Essentially, if only men voted, Trump would win. Back then, the counter argument was if only women voted, the result would be very different. No-one expected Trump to actually win: if reports post-election are to be believed even Trump did not expect to win. Then the election happened and 53% of white women voted for Trump. Admittedly, only about 55% of Americans exercised their right to vote, a shocking statistic, but not a topic for consideration in this article. How many white women didn’t vote at all?
It is of concern there seems to be some difficulty voting in the USA at the best of times: long queues at polling booths, arguments over keeping booths open to accommodate the numbers – and yet this was nearly the lowest voter turnout in two decades. Surely a nation that can spend billions on wars can afford a billion or two to ensure every eligible citizen can actually vote.
Aside from the practicalities of the election process, what we have seen since the result has been some very frightening behaviours. Neo-nazis running rampant, misogynists feeling they now have the right to attack women in public, bigots leaving notes on people’s cars telling then to go back to Africa. All of a sudden the KKK is almost an acceptable institution again.
It isn’t so much Trump personally I am worried about, it is his “Sieg Heil” followers. Trump will no doubt merely become (or is already) a pawn in a carefully orchestrated return to white male supremacy.
White male supremacy requires the removal of the rights of over 50% of the population – women. Yes, women are more than 50% of the population of voting age. Once women are suitably put back in their place, it isn’t much of a stretch to take away the rights of black Americans, LBGTI people, anyone not born in the USA: in fact anyone that is not a white male born in the USA. Look at who Trump is surrounding himself with – or being told to surround himself with: some very inhumane characters. Many of whom would prefer that women were put in their place.
Read very carefully many of the beliefs expressed by many of the men surrounding Trump. Some are totally weird – not just strange or old-fashioned – weird.
Women in the Middle East are fighting for the right to drive and vote, women in Turkey are fighting a law absolving men of statutory rape if the rapist marries the victim. If you think these Neanderthal white men running rampant in the USA aren’t cut from a similar cloth, I suggest you take off the rose-coloured glasses. Try this “rape activist” from the good ol’ US of A.
There are even women in the USA who suggest/believe women shouldn’t have the vote – Anne Coulter, for one. Great way to make a lot of money, of course, for her.
Now this lot are in power. Will your daughters retain the right to vote?
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Voting has been made immeasurably harder for many US citizens, particularly women. The documents required to prove identity have been narrowed, the difficulty of acquiring those documents increased, and the name on the electoral roll must match – letter for letter – that on the original birth certificate. Changed your name after marriage? – bye bye vote without considerable faffing about sorting documentation, and many working people do not have the time to deal with it.
Why do so many men hate women ? Or fear them?
If absolutely rabid and, in my book, dangerous religious fantatics like Hegseth, Doug Wilson (head of Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches) and hundreds of other high-powered E(xtreme)RRRWNJ’s who have the ear of the Insane Orange Emperor (as long as they keep funneling “donations” into his offshore accounts) get their way then, yes, an attempt may will be made to remove women from the voting registers. And as an added bonus and some luck put them back into the Victorian era where they will, rarely, be seen and defintely not heard.
A misogynist macho paradise.