The presidential election season has been rife with glaringly sexist remarks, especially as Vice President Kamala Harris fights for the presidency.
One blatant example occurred on Sept. 17 at a rally for former President Donald Trump, where Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders took a jab at Harris, saying, “My kids keep me humble. Unfortunately, Kamala Harris doesn’t have anything keeping her humble.” While Harris does not have biological children, she is the stepmother of Cole and Ella Emhoff, her husband’s children from his previous marriage.
Referring to when she first met her stepchildren, Kamala Harris wrote, “Cole and Ella could not have been more welcoming. They are brilliant, talented, funny kids who have grown to be remarkable adults. I was already hooked on Doug, but I believe it was Cole and Ella who reeled me in.” She added, “A few years later when Doug and I got married, Cole, Ella and I agreed that we didn’t like the term ‘stepmom.’ Instead, they came up with the name ‘Momala.’” Harris’ comments reveal her deep bond with her stepchildren, as not just a figure in their lives but as another parent. The flagrant disregard from right-wing politicians for Harris as a parent comes down to more than just the dismissal of stepmothers as parents. This criticism is rooted in a deeply Christian-normative American society, where women are not seen as valuable unless they have biological children. In this society, a woman’s worth is rooted in her reproductive capabilities or choices, instead of her own qualities and characteristics, regardless of the former having anything to do with her impact as a leader.
Sanders’ comments are of similar nature to JD Vance, Republican vice presidential nominee. In a previous interview with Tucker Carlson, Vance said the Democratic Party was run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too,” Vance claimed. “You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC — the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.” While Vance’s claim is inaccurate especially given the fact that two of the three people he named are parents, with Harris being a stepmother and Buttigieg an adoptive parent of two, that is beside the point. When straight, cisgender, white men run for office, right-wing Republicans often look at aspects like their background qualifications and leadership skills, instead of how a candidate’s status fits into the Republican Party’s viewpoint.
After Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, Vance spoke at a campaign rally in Philadelphia, calling Walz’s political record a “joke.” Vance said, “She selected Tim Walz, a guy who wants to ship more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to give illegal aliens driver’s licenses and who wants to make the fentanyl crisis so much worse because he refuses to do his job.” Despite the negativity of Vance’s feelings towards Walz’s political viewpoints, he criticized his record and goals as a politician instead of attacking him personally. This contrast shows a fundamental difference in how Vance, and other like-minded Republicans view women versus men as politicians, clearly showcasing more respect for the latter.
This brings us to a broader conversation about reproductive rights. Vance has been steadfast about his views on abortion, saying, “I want to save as many babies as possible.” As a Christian, I understand his perspective on wanting to ensure the health and safety of babies. However, Vance takes his stance to an extreme level with further remarks from 2022 that he “certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally.” In June 2022, the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade eliminated the national constitutional right to abortion and gave power back to the states to decide their stances. As a result, 28 states have abortion bans based on gestational duration. Pregnant women have suffered because of these restrictions with little to no exceptions.
In Georgia, the state which bans abortion after the first six weeks of pregnancy, Amber Nicole Thurman suffered as a direct result of state legislation. She had previously taken abortion pills, but some of the fetal tissue was still left in her body, causing a rare infection. It took doctors, faced with the fear of prosecution and up to a decade in prison, 20 hours to operate, and by then it was too late as Thurman devastatingly passed away. These restrictive bans completely minimize the point of the pro-life movement, by disregarding the mothers’ health and leading to deaths that could be prevented.
While many Republican politicians like Vance are fighting to implement national abortion bans that could lead to more cases like Thurman’s, Harris, as a woman, understands the hard-hitting impacts of not being able to have a potentially medically necessary treatment. Harris importantly recognizes that protecting the life of the baby should not come at the expense of the life and health of the mother. As a result, she is fighting to secure federal abortion protection for all women, keeping in mind the trimester restrictions that Roe v. Wade had in place. For these reasons, now more than ever, it is extremely important to vote. Please check out vote.org for how to register to vote or confirm your registration status.
Hailey Baker, FCRH ’27, is a political science and philosophy double major from Gaithersburg, Md.
