JD Vance on "females"

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From The Guardian:

JD Vance in context:

Consider, if you will, the mysterious role of the postmenopausal female. Her ovaries have shrunk and she is no longer able to fulfil a woman’s biological destiny of bringing children into the world. What’s the point of her?

One Mr. Eric Weinstein, a mathematician and host of The Portal podcast, has helpfully provided some intellectual light on this most vexing of questions. Drumroll please: per Weinstein the “whole purpose of the postmenopausal female” is to help take care of her grandchildren.

A little more context: in 2020 Weinstein had Senator JD Vance on his podcast, and the pair chatted about the importance of grandparents. Vance explained that his extremely accomplished mother-in-law, a biology professor, had taken a year-long sabbatical and lived with them for a year after the birth of the Vances’ first child. 

Weinstein heartily approved of this, noting that nurturing was, after all, the purpose of the “postmenopausal female.” Vance appeared to agree. He also seemed to agree when Weinstein proclaimed that having your grandparents help out with your kids is a “weird, unadvertised feature of marrying an Indian woman.” (Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri Vance, is the daughter of Indian immigrants.)

These recently resurfaced comments are attracting a lot of attention for obvious reasons. Ever since he was announced as Donald Trump’s running mate, Vance has been in the headlines for his history of weird comments about gender and marriage. 

During a 2021 event, for example, he seemed to suggest that it was far too easy for people to get divorced, and it was best for people to stay married for the sake of their kids, even if the marriages were violent. Vance has said these remarks were taken out of context. 

Around the same time he also memorably said that the US was being led by a “bunch of childless cat ladies”. Then, when pressed on the comment, he claimed it was sarcastic and added, “I’ve got nothing against cats.”

Was Vance’s apparent agreement with Weinstein’s assessment of the role of “the postmenopausal female” sarcasm as well? No, this time the excuse is that it’s all fake news. A spokesperson for the aspiring vice-president has accused “the media” of “dishonestly putting words in JD’s mouth.” The spokesperson also claimed: “JD reacted to the first part of the host’s sentence, assuming he was going to say ‘That’s the whole purpose of spending time with grandparents.’”

You can listen to the excerpt yourself, if you can bear it, and come to your own conclusions. I think it’s fair to say, however, that Vance certainly doesn’t vocally disagree with Weinstein’s statement. He also doesn’t say anything along the lines of, “Eric, my friend, please don’t refer to women as females like that, it’s creepy and gives off major incel vibes.”

Ultimately, it’s difficult to give Vance the benefit of the doubt when it comes to these comments considering his past statements on gender and the sort of people that he surrounds himself with. Donald Trump, the man’s running mate, has been legally branded a sexual predator and is one of the most famous misogynists in the world, for God’s sake!

Then there’s Peter Thiel, who hired Vance at his investment firm in 2017 and groomed him for political stardom, donating $15m to Vance’s 2022 Ohio Senate campaign and helping to secure Trump’s endorsement. 

Vance has said that Thiel has been a major influence on him, which is worrying because the billionaire has a lot of incredibly archaic views. He’s called diversity initiatives “very evil and very silly” and has mused that women having the right to vote has been a setback for libertarianism. 

Weinstein, by the way, is also in the Thiel fold: at the time those “postmenopausal female” comments were recorded, the podcast host was the managing director of Thiel’s hedge fund. Males of a feather seem to flock together.

Even if one were to be very generous and say this postmenopausal controversy has been overblown, Vance seems determined to keep insulting as many women as he can. On Wednesday, for example, he suggested to Fox News that it’s not “normal” to care about abortion. “What do you say to suburban women out there who are marinating in this propaganda [that abortion has been banned nationwide]?” the Fox News host Laura Ingraham asked. Vance replied: “I don’t buy that....I think most suburban women care about the normal things that most Americans care about.”

Here’s the thing: suburban women do care about abortion. An April Wall Street Journal poll found that 39% of suburban women cite abortion as a “make-or-break issue for their vote,” and Trump risks losing this important voting bloc because of it.

All of which is to say: please keep talking, JD, you’re doing a great job of alienating half of the electorate! Kamala Harris already has a massive lead with likely women voters in the polls, and Vance seems to be doing his damnedest to make the gender gap grow.