'On the road to Gilead': Alarm raised over conservative push to curtail women's rights

Comedian and podcaster Deborah Frances-White isn’t joking in her recent column for The iPaper, where she describes a growing movement of men who believe women’s right to vote should be taken away.

"The Guilty Feminist" host noted that she first assumed that it was rumblings coming from the "manosphere," an umbrella term for a loose network of online communities that promote ideologies of male supremacy and anti-feminism.

"However, even the most fiercely anti-feminist forces haven’t openly questioned women having the vote in my lifetime, because no one can remember a time when it wasn’t normal," wrote Frances-White.

She recalled being cornered in the lobby of one of her comedy shows, by a woman who claimed that women are "too emotional" to have the right to vote.

"That was my first alarm bell," she confessed.

White women in the U.S. earned the right to vote in 1920. Frances-White noted that Native American women weren't even classified as citizens until 1924 and some Black women were blocked from voting until the 1960s — particularly in the South.

But in the last decade, Supreme Court rulings eliminated the Roe v. Wade standard, allowing the government to regulate reproductive health.

Frances-White pointed to the "Project 2025" handbook, a plan authored by those working with the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation amid President Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.

The goals include not just replacing FBI staff with Trump loyalists, but the complete dismantling of the Department of Education, the mass deportation of immigrants and cuts to Medicare and Medicaid.

One section, however, focuses on enacting laws pushed by Christian nationalists, including laws that criminalize reproductive health.

"Much of this is being actioned now," she warned.

"Part of this new political climate includes the visibility of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which counts more than 160 congregations across North America, Europe, Asia and South America," she continued. "Their most recent outpost was strategically planted in Washington DC under the leadership of Pastor Doug Wilson. While they are not directly connected to Project 2025, many of their aims align neatly with it."

CREC spokespeople are outright arguing to overturn a woman's right to vote and put women "back to the household." Women's suffrage is "eroded family values" in their eyes. Women should only be voting, they believe, if she is the head of the household. That does not mean that men who are not the head of the household are not allowed to vote, however.

This reflects a broader argument within the Trump coalition. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has contended that if women are to be included in combat roles, they must meet the same physical standards as male soldiers.

In her closing remarks, Frances-White contends that what marks the beginning of the journey "on the road to Gilead" is not the overturning of a ruling like Roe, but rather when ideas questioning women's voting rights spread through conversations, social media, and videos without significant public opposition.

"It’s a quiet conversation in a church basement," she said. "It’s a campaign shared on social media. It’s ideas dropped in YouTube videos with millions of hits. It’s a moment when someone says, “maybe women shouldn’t vote,” and it doesn’t get laughed off. If you believe democracy means that each of us has a voice – the right to vote, choose, speak, dissent – now is the time to guard it."

Read the full column here.