If you are so unfortunate as to be on social media, you might have noticed that the alt-right is furious with women in the aftermath of the 2025 elections. The X algorithm’s favorite cesspools are riddled with anonymous accounts calling for “repealing the 19th Amendment” (women’s suffrage) and uttering 280-character imprecations against the “longhouse” (its term for matriarchal forces it blames for its involuntary celibacy).
For all the bluster, the alt-right is not wrong about a looming problem for Republican office seekers. According to NBC’s exit polls, 81% of women voted for New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, 80% for Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ), and 78% for Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D-VA). In 2024, former Vice President Kamala Harris won 53% of female voters.
The gender divide is real and growing, and the conservative movement is still searching for a serious response. Here’s where it can start.
First, conservatives must cut off all association with figures such as internet personalities Andrew Tate and Nick Fuentes. Fuentes has said many women “want to be raped,” and Tate is facing charges of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. Tate has openly discussed violence against women. Commentator Tucker Carlson has cheerfully platformed both men. Conservatives must reject these vile figures because at our core, we believe all human life has intrinsic value and worth.
Even among the Christian Right, jokes belittling women, such as praising hijabs over modern fashion or making “serious” calls to repeal the 19th Amendment, are becoming common. It’s natural that women would back away from a movement that doesn’t forcefully disavow men who fantasize about violence or joke about symbols of oppression.
The movement rightly encourages marriage and children, but this has sometimes become a verbal shank against single women in their 20s and 30s, who are often not single by choice. “Childless cat lady” might be a funny dig, but it’s hardly persuasive. Is it just becoming the Right’s version of “toxic masculinity?”
Conservatives should appreciate women holistically — not only as mothers and wives in ankle-length floral dresses. The nurturing and compassionate instincts of women are a feature, not a bug. Women are not defective men. They are crucial members of a thriving society.
Conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey has warned of toxic empathy, where compassion is manipulated. But when directed toward higher things, empathy benefits all. Women are gifted social observers. They remember birthdays, notice the lonely, and set up meal trains for new parents or the ailing. They send “thinking of you” texts and scoop up crying children, while fathers might say, “Dust it off, buddy.”
A thriving society needs the care and compassion of women coupled with the pragmatism of men. That’s why conservatives champion marriage. It’s a picture of an ideal society: different strengths working together. But women, like men, are valuable outside of marriage and parenthood.
The conservative movement can offer a flourishing vision to single women in their 30s. We can show them how their compassion can better society — not just through activism, but through neighborly care. We hurt ourselves by dismissing these women as lost causes. The vices of both sexes are at their worst when politics supplants religion.
Conservatives rightly rejected the Left’s broad-brush painting of men as “toxic.” We offered an alternative: Men are not toxic, but they have unique strengths. Now we must do the same for women. Yes, some women’s compassion may be swayed toward harmful causes. But that doesn’t make all women bad. We cannot write off either sex as “the bad one.”
AS A THEORY OF EVERYTHING, THE ‘GREAT FEMINIZATION’ FALLS SHORT
Moderate women are in a lonely place. The Left offers abortion, birth control, and egg freezing as “women’s healthcare” and tells them that men pretending to be women are better women than they are. We must not let both sides tell women they’re just defective men.
Women turning their heads to the right are seeing Fuentes and Tate shoved to the front. Conservatism aims at flourishing for both men and women — single, married, or parents. We need women just as much as we need men.
Ali Holcomb is a communications adviser and national security fellow at Advancing American Freedom.