In several U.S. states, conservative male lawmakers are pushing to eradicate no-fault divorce.
In places like Oklahoma and Texas, there are now focused efforts afoot to revoke the option to divorce one’s spouse without citing cause, such as abuse or adultery. Prior to 1969, there was no recourse for those who were simply unhappy in their marriages. Then, California became the first state to permit no-fault divorce, with others soon following suit. Today, it is available in every state, as well as in Washington, D.C.
But in recent years, Republican men have been pushing back. The Texas GOP even listed the elimination of no-fault divorce as a part of its official platform in 2022 – despite the fact that places that permit such divorces also see fewer reports of domestic violence and intimate-partner murders, as well as lower suicide rates among women.
Why do away with a practice that has such measurable benefits? When asked, Ohio Sen. JD Vance replied that the notion of “getting rid of [violent or unhappy marriages] and making it easier for people to shift spouses like they change their underwear,” in service of making people happier, is “one of the great tricks that I think the sexual revolution pulled on the American populace.”
Or, as Republican Sen. Dusty Deevers of Oklahoma put it in a 2023 op-ed – before filing a bill to end no-fault divorce in the state – the practice is “a monumental blow to America and one of the primary drivers of the ongoing collapse of Western Civilization,” not to mention “a great sin against God.”
How Dare They
I say this without humor or irony: I am disgusted with these men.
It is not lost on me that this conversation is ramping up as we mark the 2-year anniversary of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade and, in doing so, removed our federal-level access to safe, legal abortions. That decision was handed down by the likes of Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh – more conservative men who sought out power to keep our country small and its women quiet. (And let’s not forget, both Thomas and Kavanaugh have plenty of direct experience with attempting to silence women.)
These men wish to trap us. With what control they’ve kept within their weakening grasps, they work to cut off our opportunities to earn and thrive and have things for ourselves; they take away those hard-won rights to our bodies, as if those rights were even theirs to take in the first place; they alternately shame us for our pleasure, or fetishize it, whenever we find it without them. They attempt to hoard these things for themselves, so that we cannot live or be without men. So that we may be theirs as well – another possession on the list.
And, perhaps most insidious of all, when they cannot exhaust or demean or legislate us into compliance, they seek to turn us against one another whenever possible, manipulating us into thinking we are in competition with one another through negative comparisons and waning opportunities, knowing the best way to minimize our immense strength is to set that force upon itself.
They do so even though they still have so much of what they crave. Even in this age of so-called enlightenment and advancement and progress, women still do the majority of the (unpaid) childcare and elder care, as well as the housework. We plan the days and make the grocery lists. Often to our detriment, and our loss of chances and autonomy.
They do so as we gear up to watch President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump argue, yet again, to be named our Commander in Chief – the proceedings serving as an apt metaphor for the eroding control that older white men, especially, continue to desperately cling to. And the Republican men do so with plans to enact a suite of policies so draconian in nature they’d likely shock even novelist Margaret Atwood, author of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” if they prove able to reaffirm that electoral grip.
As a woman in this world, I know what it is to be hurt by our patriarchy. What it is to lose opportunities to men less qualified and gifted than I. What it is to be disrespected and demeaned by male colleagues. Friends. Lovers. What it is to be seen by them for my usefulness and reliability, and to have those traits routinely exploited, but to never be valued and appreciated for all that I am and all that I do.
And, it must be noted, I’ve experienced all of this – many times over, in fact – while being about as privileged as it gets by most any other metric for assessing one’s social status. My white skin, my marriage to a cisgender man, my able body, my middle-class upbringing and educational opportunities have insulated me in ways that more marginalized individuals cannot fathom.
Yet still, as a woman, I’ve been wounded more times than I can count, by living in a world that still makes it easier for men to grab onto power, and to use it to maintain a sexist status quo.
What It Boils Down To
Now, I’ll tell you what it is they fear: A truth. A simple, plain truth that has become ever clearer with each freedom won, each forward step taken, by women. A truth that pulls the rug out from under all of the patriarchal nonsense, and renders the structures built upon their hatred into a mere house of cards.
We. Don’t. Need. Them.
We now know of life without them, more than ever before. We have children without them. We buy and tend to homes without them. We get degrees and credit cards without them. We build companies without them. We create art that changes conversations, and lives. Without them.
We know what we can do and be together, and what we can do and be on our own. We know what we are capable of. Once we untangle ourselves from the deeply rooted messages around their adoration being our ideal – as an increasing number of us are – we soar.
And these men can’t stand to see us fly above them. So, they seek one another out so that they may plant and grow anger, as one might tend to a beloved garden. They demonstrate an ability to gather and plan and organize that they’re somehow never able to bring into their own damn homes, so that they might devise new ways of holding us back.
To clip our wings and cage us. But no more.
This is not about misandry. I have numerous men in my life who are cherished and beloved by me. I respect them, and care for them. My son’s existence is, truly, my guiding light. But let me be clear – I create such space for them because they earned those places in my life and heart, earned the right to know and love me by demonstrating, in their ways, that they respect and value me. That they adore watching women – those they love, and those they’ve never met – thrive. That they want for our fulfillment.
Those who failed to do so, meanwhile, are no longer men I associate with.
That is the point. The choice is clearer for these men than it has ever been: Honor us, fully and proudly – or be left behind. And they’re scared out of their minds. ◼
