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Episode 132 -- "Repeal the 19th" (Patreon)

Published:
2026-04-27 17:49:32
Imported:
2026-09

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In recent months, the call to repeal the 19th amendment and rescind American women's right to vote, has proliferated as a hashtag, meme and a shibboleth in certain far-right spaces. But how serious are those championing the cause? In this episode, Moira explains to Adrian that while we needn't worry that the 1920 amendment is going anywhere soon, this demand is about jockeying within the masculinist coalition that brought Donald Trump to power. While the supposed "arguments" for a repeal don't really bear engaging with, the history of the demand and its proliferation at this moment tells us a lot about gender and the (far) right: specifically about an alliance and a competition between tech bros and religious fundamentalists.

Comments

Kim

Anyone who thinks that the concept of biblical marriage or biblical womanhood or biblical patriarchy is a joke or a kink has clearly never lived in the south.

Natalie B

Great episode. The book, “A Well Trained Wife” is a memoir about a woman’s experience living in the Christian patriarchy like Moira was describing, part of Doug Wilson’s cult. It was a nightmare and these people cannot be discounted/not taken seriously. They are undistracted by the fun and joy of life and are always working to spread their misery.

Devin Rooney

I haven't even listened and I'm excited enough to comment. Killer thesis

OuijaFBabysMama

Who is “Ren Carmone”? I must have misheard bc I cannot find likely person online??

Melody S

When I was a fundamentalist my libertarian boyfriend said that women's votes would just mirror their husband's, so what's the point of allowing them to vote. He, and no one else I have asked, could answer "what if a woman is not married?" There are plenty of unmarried women in the church due to sheer numbers. Its ultimately a stupid argument, besides the open misogny.

Ren

Exactly what I was going to say. If you’d seen these beaten-down women, you would not be dismissing this stuff. Also, Moira, thanks for touching on the “sex is political too” position. I can’t deal with people who are ready to talk about bias and internalized oppression in every realm except the sexual.

Ren

Oh but if women just knew their place and repudiated feminism, men would come back to church and everyone would pair off in marriage! (Never mind the Pauline passages extolling singleness or the historical fact that women have always outnumbered men in the church.)

SPUM

All else aside, Prescott and the Verde Valley are extremely beautiful

Kelsey

Not the point but the organ music behind the Bible verses really cracked me up 😂

esperanza rosenbaum

i haven’t listened yet but moira, i was just talking to my manager about booking you for a segment on this exact topic (i work in public radio). so excited to listen and i’ll write to you when i figure out a good way to reach you!

Rissa

Your point about Dobbs degrading our citizenship as women was true and painful, another grief in this moment

Kelsey

It’s about 80% of straight women who change their names when they get married. I did not change my name, but the city employee handling our paperwork initially just automatically changed my last name on the forms. She was rather annoyed when I sent her back to fix it and told us we should probably order several extra copies of our marriage license since people might not believe we are married with our different names (this has literally never been an issue.)

Bea

Not sure if this is the right place to ask, but I would love for an episode on the "death of the white male novelist" discourse I've been seeing everywhere for the past couple of years.

Julia

Back in the „old“ days, unmarried women were the responsibility of the father or a brother including their vote. Because you had to keep at least one daughter unmarried to do all the care work for the family

Astraea

Look, there's some weird little communities in rural AZ (I say as a native of the state), but the landscape is second to none in my opinion. Watch a sunrise up in northern AZ, or a sunset in the Sonoran desert, and have your life changed.

Astraea

Look I'm not a literary critic or anything, but based on the works of mid-century white male novelists that I had to read in high school.... Let him die! (Mostly joking, but there are a fair few books that fall into my personal category of "not only do I not understand why this is a classic, I don't understand why it exists at all.")

Astraea

Okay I am not very far into the episode so will edit if this gets addressed later, but...hard disagree with Adrian that complementarianism can also be understood as "communitarianism." Like yes, the paterfamilias votes for the family, sure. But that is in part because, under complementarianism, it is a *sin* and explicitly against God and the Bible for women to have authority over men. If women are voting? If they deny a man a seat he wanted or pass a law that curtails men's activities or that men just don't like? That's a woman exercising authority over men with her vote, and that's just categorically wrong (according to them). I really can't get behind the idea that women not voting is because of community-mindedness - I'm sure many religious right-wingers will SAY that, but we don't have to believe them. The root of complementarianism is just misogyny.

Astraea

Side note: there is an *excellent* book by the ex-complementarian and medieval religious scholar Beth Allison Barr called "The Making of Biblical Womanhood," which is all about how this (frankly anti-Biblical) view of gender roles came to be. It is *fascinating,* if depressing. (I am myself Christian, but not from a complementarian faith, so it was an interesting journey through some conservative Baptist theology and history.)

Cheyenne Montgomery

Wow! If people were leaving “repeal the 19th” in my replies I think I would throw my phone into the sun. Thank you for the work you do!

Bea

Agreed! But there's this made up moral panic at the moment that white male literary novelists are disappearing. I've seen article after article about it in literary mags. This is probably my favourite one because it shows how completely ludicrous the panic is. It name checks multiple young white American male writers and then lists reasons why they don't count. https://www.compactmag.com/article/the-vanishing-white-male-writer/

Astraea

Some of my best friends have either taken their female partner's name or combined both people's last name into a new, composite surname that they both use. It's delightful and I don't understand why we need to keep limiting ourselves to "the woman takes the man's surname."

Astraea

Oh my god, Bea. That was delightful. My brain short-circuited and then exploded like an android presented with an insolvable logic puzzle, but it was still delightful. I wanted to provide representative excerpts but it was just every single sentence. I was especially delighted by how seamlessly and senselessly the author switches between "white men," "white millenial men," "white millenial American men," and "white millenial straight American men." It was just an absolute opus. *chef's kiss* Actually, I have a theory. I don't think this author is actually mad about the fate of white (millenial/American/straight) men. I think he's mad that HE can't get published. He is a *terrible* writer - his thesis keeps changing, and to the extent that he ever *has* a thesis, he contradicts it with both his observations and his theories within a paragraph (usually sooner). He's either too cowardly or too stupid to say what he really means. But also, he is utterly convinced he's saying something profound and correct and *necessary* for the betterment of society. I think his vision of the dying white male novelist is, in fact, just him looking in a mirror. It makes so much more sense than whatever the hell kind of dumbass argument he's trying to make here.

Jacqueline

A great episode about the sad little men who are terrified to compete against women on a level playing field.

Forest 🐞

Also! As a kink practitioner, it really angers me when people who aren't part of the community speak about what they think kink is, knowing 50 shades and nothing else. If you're practicing kink in a healthy way, there's ALWAYS an option to opt out of a scene/dynamic. That's the main thing about it. Does people who do kink abuse people? For sure, I was abused in that type of dynamic. But that's not unique to the kink community, of course

Bea

Right? It's such a masterpiece of nonsense and so accidentally self-revealing. It will genuinely be the best thing he ever writes.

Charlotte Griffith

I need a t-shirt and/or booty-shorts that say “POLITICALLY AND MORALLY CORROSIVE FORCE” across the chest/butt.

Charlotte Griffith

Also— for what it’s worth: when I took a summer class at a Catholic college, there was one covert Catholic integralist in the class. He admitted to eating a “pound of meat a day” and advised us all to do so as well. He was actually an okay student, but even the actual Catholic seminarian (who wore his cassock to class every day) was embarrassed by him. Bro got stuck talking to him at the end-of-term party and was visibly trying to end the conversation and walk away. 😭

Kathryn M

Look I am SO SORRY I CHANGED MY NAME WHEN I GOT MARRIED 😂😭😂😭 I hated my maiden name and it just seemed easier and now I regret it.

Kathryn M

Such an incredible book!

A Felt

“Misogyny is discursively invisible in American politics” Oof. This is all too true, even in the progressive circles I’m in. I’m so grateful to Moira and Adrian for their clear-eyed, morally forceful analysis of the misogyny that most ignore. Episodes of this podcast always make me feel smarter and less alone.

Moira Donegan

Was just talking to my wife about how much we want to do this road trip!

Karolina Novak

Moira, thank you for articulating THE RAGE and both of you, thank you for your moral clarity. You both are saving my vanity.

Laura

This was a great episode! I agree an episode on toxic empathy/the sin of empathy would be really interesting

Sheridan

The idea that it’s burdensome for women to have the right to vote is immediately cut down by the fact that voting is not mandatory. If you have a delicate disposition that makes voting simply too troublesome you don’t have to. Also if you want unbridled female rage last night I said I wanted to skin the Ontario Premier alive, roll him in salt, and rinse him in vinegar. So we’re not incapable of getting angry.

Ben Schwabe

People who are involved in the kink community regard Christian domestic discipline explicitely as abuse. Kink is a game, consent can be revoked anytime. There are born again abusers who try to co-opt the language of BDSM, I saw some asshole say "safe, sane, and spiritual" instead of "safe, sane, and consensual" which kinda gives the whole game away.

SPUM

If you do make it out there, there's an incredible trail in town called Granite Gardens. You can even bring your dog

Alyssa Ballou

And also not "bumble fuck nowhere". Prescott metro area has something like 250k people and is one of the 2 major population centers in Northern Arizona. I know it's not the Bay Area... But it's not like we're talking Snowflake or Florence.

Astraea

Wow, Florence really out here catching strays....

Astraea

Also, re: road trip: state highways and county roads are where it's at. Some of the most beautiful landscapes you'll see are well off the interstate. Also, as someone who has driven across the country multiple times, state highways are just so much less stressful. It's a very relaxing way to travel if you've got the time.

Alison S

Such good stuff! I would love to hear the HR episode, so much to unpack there. Using HR as a punching bag on the internet when people just mean “women” vs HR in real life often completely failing to protect women in the workplace from harassment etc. Hope you guys get to that one!

Olivia Hodgson

Love when my town (St George UT) is mentioned lol, we do have so many polygamists here and it is DISTRESSING. On that note, I’d highly recommend Trust Me: The False Prophet on Netflix and would love to hear Moira and Adrian’s thoughts!

Susanne Jeffery

This line in the pod stood out to me too. I had to stop playing whilst I (again) marvelled at Moira’s succinct eloquence in everything she presents. I just read her piece on Marilyn Monroe that Lyz Lenz linked to in her Men Yell At Me newsletter this week, and again was floored by her seemingly effortless eloquence. Not just with thorough and concise vocabulary, but with mounting a thesis and following through from every highly researched angle on it. I just admire the intellectual tour de force we encounter every time Moira tackles a topic. Adrian gives her the bandwidth of his thoughtful extrapolations to her theses, and throws in his excellent humour to knock each episode out of the park. My Patreon $ for IBWTR have been the best Patreon $ I’ve spent.

OhLordyAmina

This is not related to this particular episode but I would love some takes on right wing extremism in the UK. In particular why the UK is known as “TERF Island” and I’m noticing they have sort of moved on to this obsession with “grooming gangs”. While it’s a very horrifying story on a massive scale of abuse but it also seems like a cover for British anti-Islamophobia and anti-Immigration.

Emily Hardy

I’m so embarrassed that people outside of Utah know about saint george

Nancy Mae

I’m fascinated by the fact that Moira attends church! I would love to hear more about her religious ideas and feminist beliefs fit together.

Kathryn m

I would have loved for this episode to include some discussion of the influence that the IBLP crowd has on the "repeal the 19th" calls. "But what about unmarried women?" is not an impediment to folks who believe in Bill Gothard's umbrella concept, since they would be under their fathers' authority. Putting the Duggar family on TV for years and years, depicted as just a quirky but wholesome big family, helped normalize the extremist views spouted by those discussed in the episode. On a lighter note, Adrian's crack about "hosanna in the highest" cracked me up

Gretchen Sprinkle

"What are you doing ladies?!" IN MY DEFENSE, how could anyone pass up on taking the last name Sprinkle? Not to mention, my maiden name is Ahrens. Nobody could spell or pronounce it. Although, I'm sure Adrian would have no problem 🤣

Astraea

I can't speak for Moira, but fwiw, there are quite a lot of denominations for which religious beliefs and feminist beliefs are not only compatible, but inseparable. They don't get talked about as much because, frankly, the rightwing nutjobs are a lot louder and a lot better at giving catchy soundbites to journalists - but the non-nutjob contingent does exist, I promise! Biblical translation also contributes to this - some translations are accidentally bad (two-millenia game of telephone), some are deliberately bad (1990s translation commissioned by conservative Churches specifically to uphold patriarchial/complementarian ideology), and some are done by serious, well-trained linguists and historians and theologians (NRSV). My personal opinion is that any honest reading of the Bible *requires* equality among all people, and thus necessarily requires being a feminist. (If we're all made in the image of God, then who the fuck are you to tell me that I as a woman am lesser?) If you're interested, Nadia Bolz-Weber is a feminist Evangelical Lutheran pastor and writer who just absolutely rocks; she is explicitly feminist, and also focuses on ministry to those generally considered outcasts in the church (LGBTQ folks, addicts, people with severe mental health issues, etc). Rachel Held Evans (RIP) was not primarily focused on feminism, but her journey from Evangelical faith to more mainstream Episcopalianism necessarily included a lot of thoughtful writing on the human-centric gender roles we imagine for God. Beth Allison Barr is a medieval scholar and author who writes on Biblical womanhood and how it came to be (and its general bullshit-ness) from a Christian perspective; her book "The Making of Biblical Womanhood" is one of my absolute favorites. So anyway....yeah. Lots of good scholarship on feminism from a Christian perspective. Sorry for the accidental novel; the twisting of Christian teachings to justify the subjugation of women is one of my all-time rant triggers. :)

Nicole

Here to exercise my right to vote for more episodes with the full expression of Moira's female rage please ✅

Jacqueline

Yes I have noticed this too. And yes horrific, horrific things were done on a massive scale, but there is not nearly enough of a spotlight on the fact that the local UK police 100% allowed them to do the abuse and even PROTECTED and HELPED the abusers. When asked, the police said "Well it would have looked racist" to arrest immigrants for crimes that they were definitely doing 😳. And that dogsh*t excuse is widely unchallenged, as far as I can tell. Hot take: when the people that are paid to stop crimes couldn't care less about stopping crimes, the crimes will continue.

Jolanta Benal

Moira seems to be missing the essential distinction between kink and abuse, to wit that in kink the sub is free to consent or refuse and can withdraw consent at any time, even in a nominal 24/7 or domestic discipline relationship. The joke that "biblical patriarchy" is just kink is an obvious screen for anxiety about both actual abuse and kink.

Moira Donegan

Oh, do go on! 😂 But seriously, thank you for the kind words and for reading and listening!

Kathryn m

"pick the last name that sounds coolest" is perfectly rational! I have a friend whose original last name is 1 or 2 letters off from a far more common last name, so it was always annoying to correct people who got it wrong. Her husband's last name is Fox and she thought that was a) an end to endless annoyance and b) way cooler. Hard to argue with her reasoning!

Kristin Herrick

Just wanted to say thank you for mentioning Joe Rigney in the brief discussion about empathy. I’ve seen so many people give Allie Beth Stuckey credit for coming up with the idea of “toxic empathy” (it’s the title of her 2024 book), but Joe Rigney wrote a blog post on the Desiring God website in 2019, well before Stuckey wrote her book. To the best of my knowledge, the terms “sin of empathy”/“toxic empathy” originated with Rigney. The Desiring God website that published his blog post was created by John Piper, whose church I attended for 15+ years, so I know a little bit about all this, unfortunately. (Safely and happily atheist, now.) Would love to hear you two do an episode on this, for sure!

Murphy

The Feminization of public health is a part of this culture shift. Nagging mom (Nanny state) telling you to wash your hands, wear sunblock, wear a mask and go to the Dr and get that shot that hurts, but is important for others... "Caring"

Jeanne H-B

My husband and I combined our surnames with a hyphen, 45 years ago. It was not a problem for our children, or for me, but my husband had to deal with it a lot.

Jeanne H-B

Heh, my state's biggest city is less than 45K.

Nancy Mae

Thank you for your accidental novel - very interesting to hear your thoughts! I come from a Christian home, went to Christian school etc so I have very strong feelings on all of this. Where I come from it was classified as “charismatic”, but looking back I was just plain evangelical. It was 90s - 2000s and despite being on the other side of the world, it was actually very American. I’m sure you can imagine my experience was… a lot. I’ll be at to admit that I don’t know a whole lot beyond that world, but I struggle to reckon with the thought that ideas in the Bible aren’t just all metaphorical or straight up fables. (Like angels and demons - talk about broken telephone!). I guess I could say that it’s not even the beliefs that are potentially incompatible with feminism that bother me, but rather my perception that having the idea of worshipping the Christian God doesn’t make sense to me! That said, I try to stay open to the idea that faith can be whatever an individual needs it to be. I indulge in a bit of woo-woo sometimes, so who am I to judge?! 😅

Astraea

Aw, thank you! That experience does sound like A Lot. Fwiw, a lot of folks I know who just cannot bring themselves to believe anymore have pretty similar stories (though mostly in the US). The idea that faith can be whatever you need it to be is, I think, one of the reasons I *didn't* leave the church as an adult. I'm Episcopalian; we don't really interpret the Bible literally and we pride ourselves on the (true) joke that "no matter what you believe, there's at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you." I think if I had grown up in a tradition where the emphasis was on literal interpretation of the Bible, or hierarchical systems emphasizing punishment, etc, I would have left as soon as I hit high school. But for me and for many in the EC, the purpose of faith, belief, the Bible, etc is to teach us how to live a good life *on Earth* that honors the dignity and sacredness of every human being and of the world itself. That's something I can always get on board with, even if I can't believe in a literal Resurrection most days (yes, I know that is heresy, and no, I don't care). And because *actually* living a good life and being kind to everyone is hard as hell to do (give me a shot to punch Andrew Tate in the throat and *I will fucking take it*), I'm glad to have a community to stumble along the road with. But for a lot of people, they either don't need or don't want some/all aspects of Christianity or of organized religion of any kind, and that's completely fine too. My attitude is basically "if it helps you, makes you feel happy and peaceful and doesn't lead you to harm anyone else, go to town." And you're right - a bit of woo-woo doesn't hurt anyone as long as we keep it to the sane side of the anti-vax line! :)

Ray Scheel

Maybe it’s just me but your episodes on the Apple Podcasts don’t have a share option by the episode, the show can be shared though. I checked Planet Money, You Had Me at Black, You’re Wrong About episodes and they have the share option. I’ll provide screenshots if needed. I was listening to this episode and something my buddy posited in one of our social-political conversations ~”why are there no historically successful matriarchal governments” was referenced in your discussion, so I want(ed) to share it and made the above discovery. I ported my Patreon subscription to Apple Podcasts which has caused some confusion to what I had already or not listened to.

Olivia Hodgson

As an intersex person, it is UNBELIEVABLY frustrating that the right is so focused on pretend "harms" of gender affirming care for trans kids when intersex kids are literally being forced into sterilizing surgeries and hormones without proper consent and assessment (https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/07/25/i-want-be-nature-made-me/medically-unnecessary-surgeries-intersex-children-us). Many of these surgeries have significant, lifelong consequences and are done on actual infants. I was put on hormones as a teenager without any assessment, which made me really, really sick, in an attempt to make my body more typical. I'm also pretty lucky as an intersex person, because I had a provider do the bare minimum of ordering an MRI before doing exploratory surgery. Genital surgeries and hormone therapies can be super problematic, but not in the ways that they're being utilized to help trans kids and trans adults. As with so many things, the issue isn't the procedures themselves, it's the lack of informed consent for those receiving said procedures. I would love to hear Moira and Adrian’s thoughts on how the erasure of intersex people and sex as a spectrum impacts advocacy for queer and transgender folks, and would highly recommend Elizabeth Reis’s book Bodies in Doubt: An American History of Intersex to anyone who wants to learn more!