How Mike Johnson’s behavior exposes GOP push to 'force women out of public life': analysis

03 April

On Tuesday, April 1, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) unsuccessfully pushed back against a bipartisan bill allowing lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote remotely while on maternal leave. Johnson did everything he could to block the bill, but it came up for a vote anyway when nine Republicans joined Democrats in voting to bring it to the floor. And the bill passed.

In a scathing article published on April 3, Salon's Amanda Marcotte argues that Johnson's vehement opposition to the bill underscores the severe Christian fundamentalist ideology that he embraces.

"After it passed," Marcotte observes, "Johnson was so irate he canceled all congressional activity for the week and sent members home…. As many critics pointed out, Johnson himself voted by proxy multiple times during the pandemic, but somehow has decided it's 'unconstitutional' to give the same right to people who have parenting duties that physically pull them away from Congress. But it's not quite right to attribute this to hypocrisy."

Marcotte continues, "Johnson's behavior is perfectly consistent with the renewed Republican enthusiasm for pushing women out of public life and back into the kitchen. As David Graham at The Atlantic wrote in a recent article on how Republicans are implementing Project 2025, the party under Trump has made the 'effort to restore traditional families' a priority. 'In this vision, men are breadwinners and women are mothers,' he writes, pointing out how the Project 2025 blueprint spells out different policy ideas to force women out of the workplace and into roles as stay-at-home wives."

The Salon journalist stresses that "most Republicans oppose" the policy at issue in the maternity leave/remote voting bill" — including Johnson — "because they don't value women's voices in politics."

"Especially for the Religious Right, which most Republicans are aligned with, the goal is getting women out of the dirty business of politics, so they can focus their energies on tending home and hearth," Marcotte explains. "From that vantage point, there is no reason to create accommodations for parents of young children in Congress. Mothers are expected to stay at home and not work. Fathers are expected to come to work, no matter what is going on at home, as domestic labor is left to women."

Marcotte notes that some "MAGA influencers" are now "openly saying" that "women shouldn't be in leadership" in the Republican Party.

"Johnson's tantrum is more of the same," Marcotte warns. "Republican men really mean all this talk about strict gender roles, and women in their party are starting to pay a personal price."

Amanda Marcotte's full article for Salon is available at this link.

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