Supporters react as Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, concedes the election during a speech at Howard University on November 6, 2024, in Washington, D.C. | Source: Andrew Harnik / Getty
Back in mid-October, President-elect Donald Trump headlined an annual white-tie event dripping with smugness and a sinister, jowly wink. He took to the stage and delivered a punchline with an insidious truth about white women.
“There’s a group called ‘White Dudes for Harris,’ but I’m not worried about them at all. Because their wives and their wives’ lovers are all voting for me,” Trump said.
The room erupted in laughter. But Trump’s confidence wasn’t built on bluster. It was rooted in a damning reality.
Kamala Harris’ defeat isn’t a referendum on her competence. No, it’s a reminder that white women are not easily swayed from their historical alliance with white patriarchy.
His quip revealed that he was cynically aware, as he always has been, of the historical and cultural forces that bind white women to white male power structures. Regardless of their public personas, secret affairs, flirtations with rebellion, social justice pretending and grand statements about anti-racism, white women will still ultimately choose the safety, protection, and status afforded to them by aligning with Trump’s brand of authoritarian and white patriarchal politics. He was betting on even the most outwardly progressive or conflicted white women to embrace the patriarchal bargain.
Trump understood that white women’s loyalty to white supremacy and patriarchal power would hold steady through the 2024 election, no matter how many scandals, criminal indictments, credible accusations of rape he faced, or threats to implement a national ban on abortion—potentially forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies, including those resulting from rape, or to risk bleeding out from pregnancy complications. And he was right.
Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump thanks the “North Carolina Girls,” a group of women who attend many of his rallies, at the end of a rally at First Horizon Coliseum on November 2, 2024, in Greensboro, North Carolina. | Source: Chip Somodevilla / Getty
It’s this very truth that has left so many shocked observers in tears, grieving, scrambling for answers, and even calling suicide hotlines after the election. But the hand-wringing and confusion isn’t warranted. Trump wasn’t really joking on that stage. He was exposing what many people still refuse to admit what has always been true: that white women cannot be trusted and their allegiance to a system that privileges them has never been in question.
If you study American history—I mean really study it—then you’ll understand that this isn’t just about a voting pattern. It’s a centuries-old, deeply entrenched allegiance to white supremacy, masked by fragility and appeals to shared victimhood. In other words, white women have long been astute at masking their complicity in white supremacy while presenting themselves as innocent, vulnerable, and oppressed even as they deliberately help reinforce oppressive structures.
When the results rolled in, and white women cast more than half of their votes for Donald Trump yet again, the narrative of “disillusionment” and “surprise” flooded the airwaves and social media. But that shock is misplaced.
Did people forget that white women showed up strong for Trump in 2016 and 2020? Did folks really believe that years of blatant misogyny, credible accusations of sexual assault, or even the rollback of reproductive rights would finally tip the scales?
White feminist heroes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton basically said f–k the negro in 1869 when the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote.
Did anyone seriously think that centuries of white women prioritizing racial and patriarchal privilege could be so easily undone? Were we clinging be so easily undone? Were people clinging to a fantasy that white women would suddenly prioritize gender solidarity over racial loyalty? Why does this same misplaced hope keep surfacing, election after election?
Quite frankly, it’s pathetic that so many people keep having such faith in whiteness, expecting it to betray itself for the sake of racial equity, justice, or progress. The historical archives speak loud and clear: Whiteness is a lost cause, a force that has always chosen self-preservation over any meaningful alliance with liberation.
White women have never truly been allies to marginalized groups when the stakes involved a loss of their societal privileges. From the era of slavery through Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and into our present socio-political moment, they have unapologetically demonstrated loyalty to white patriarchy because it rewards them in the hierarchy of power. Even if that comes at the expense of their own bodily autonomy and rights, and of others.
People seem to forget how the white feminist heroes Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton basically said f–k the negro in 1869 when the 15th Amendment granted Black men the right to vote. They weren’t just disappointed—they were outraged that Black men would gain political power before white women. Their betrayal wasn’t subtle. It was a loud and vicious rejection of solidarity with Black Americans.
“I will cut off this right arm of mine before I will ever work or demand the ballot for the Negro and not the woman,” Anthony said. Imagine being so committed to white supremacy that you’d opt for self-mutilation over equality. Talk about ride-or-die racism!
Anthony and Stanton didn’t hesitate to make their racism known. They argued that educated white women deserved the vote far more than what they saw as “densely ignorant” Black male “Sambos.”
Longtime women’s rights activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton, front row, fourth from left, sits with executive committee members from the International Council of Women during their first meeting in Washington, DC, 1988; Seated left to right: Alice Scotchard (England), Susan B. Anthony (United States), Isabella Bogelot (France), Elizabeth Cady Stanton (United States), Matilda Joslyn Gage (United States), and Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg (Finland). | Source: Library of Congress / Getty
In February 1869, the duo wrote in The Revolution, “the old anti-slavery school says women must stand back and wait until negroes shall be recognized. But we say, if you will not give the whole loaf of suffrage to the entire people, give it to the most intelligent first. If intelligence, just, and morality are to have precedence in the government, let the question of the woman be brought up first and that of the negro last.” Listen to those belligerent feminists framing their movement as a meritocracy of whiteness.
Their brand of feminism came with a big asterisk: only for women like us. Anthony and Stanton didn’t just advocate for white women’s rights; they actively weaponized white supremacy to push their agenda, which prioritized racial privilege over and sense of collection liberation. Sisterhood be damned!
The schism between white women’s rights activists and racial justice wasn’t accidental. It was deliberate. When Anthony and Stanton declared that educated white women should have the vote before “the negro,” they weren’t merely out of sync with the historical moment. They were clear-eyed, fully aware, and actively upholding a racial hierarchy by advocating for white women as a “better class” of voters.
And here we are today, more than 150 years later, living in the historical echoes. That same undercurrent is alive in white women’s voting behavior, tethered to a patriarchal bargain that they’ve struck time and again.
We saw it during Reconstruction when white women chose to uphold racial hierarchies rather than join forces with Black suffragists. We saw it in the early 20th century when white women formed women’s branches of the Ku Klux Klan to preserve segregation and racial purity. We saw it in the 1950s and 1960s, when white mothers fought tooth and nail to preserve segregated schools.
Did anyone seriously think that centuries of white women prioritizing racial and patriarchal privilege could be so easily undone?
In the 1970s and 1980s, white women were instrumental in opposing school busing and integration efforts meant to desegregate public schools on the heels of the landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. They organized protests, formed parents associations, and lobbied against policies that would have brought Black students into predominantly white schools, prioritizing their desire for “neighborhood schools” over racial equality. Their activism helped cement systemic educational segregation that persists to this day.
In the 1990s, white women threw their support behind “tough-on-crime” policies, advocating for and voting in favor of politicians who promised harsher sentencing laws and the expansion of the prison-industrial complex. These policies disproportionately devastated Black communities but made white suburban neighborhoods feel “safer” and more secure, illustrating yet again a willingness to sacrifice Black lives for the comfort of whiteness.
In the 2000s, white women played a crucial role in the rise of the Tea Party, a political movement that espoused anti-government, anti-immigrant, and racially coded rhetoric. They showed up in droves at rallies, waving signs demanding stricter immigration laws and decrying government assistance programs that they felt unfairly benefited people of color. Their support helped mainstream a brand of politics steeped in racial resentment, laying the groundwork for the populist nationalism that led to Trump’s presidency.
A woman fills out her ballot at a voting booth in Sterling, Virginia, on November 5, 2024. | Source: ALI KHALIGH / Getty
So, why do so many white women continue to vote for figures who are emblematic of misogyny and sexual violence? The answer lies in their historical function as “constant gardeners” of white supremacy. During slavery, white women held a position of intimate power, overseeing and controlling Black bodies with a sense of duty to maintain racial order. They policed the boundaries between races, inflicted physical and psychological terror on Black women and children, all while claiming the mantle of innocence and virtue. White women taught their sons to hate and prepared them to wield that hate. Their influence didn’t disappear after slavery ended; it transformed into open support for segregation, teaching generations to resist integration and uphold white dominance.
White women’s political choices reflect a calculated decision to maintain this power. The argument that they are “pressured” or “controlled” by their male counterparts is infantilizing and dismisses their agency. It ignores how white women have used their position to manipulate and mobilize white male violence against Black bodies. From Carolyn Bryant Donham’s false claim that led to Emmett Till’s brutal murder to the white women calling police on Black people for mundane activities, their cries have often weaponized state violence.
Today, their tears and faux fragility disguise a strategic upholding of a racial order that keeps them above the Black, Brown, and immigrant communities whose votes and political aspirations they undermine. Even the notion that white women would vote differently if only they were liberated from white men’s control has little grounding in reality. Voluntary segregation—moving to white neighborhoods with “good” schools—isn’t imposed on them; it’s chosen, reinforced by the desire to maintain racial and economic exclusivity.
Regardless of their public personas, secret affairs, flirtations with rebellion, social justice pretending and grand statements about anti-racism, white women will still ultimately choose the safety, protection, and status afforded to them by aligning with Trump’s brand of authoritarian and white patriarchal politics.
Kamala Harris’s defeat isn’t a referendum on her competence. No, it’s a reminder that white women are not easily swayed from their historical alliance with white patriarchy. They continue to wield the privileges that alliance grants them, preferring to be protected by the very forces that restrict their reproductive rights if it means preserving their proximity to power. Misogyny isn’t anathema to them when it’s cushioned by racial privilege. They can endure sexist insults, overlook sexual violence, and tolerate political chaos because the larger racial and patriarchal structure still serves them.
The so-called “resistance” among white women that Democrats banked on was always an illusion. The blue bracelets, the tears, the solidarity statements—they’re performative, devoid of genuine, transformative commitment to racial justice. It’s a hard pill to swallow, but the history and the numbers don’t lie.
So, no, we shouldn’t be surprised. And, frankly, the question isn’t when white women will wake up and join the fight for equity. It’s when we will stop expecting them to. We have no reason to trust their solidarity. The blueprint for their political behavior was laid out long ago, and they have shown, repeatedly, that they will uphold the status quo if it ensures their own comfort and safety. “Karen” didn’t emerge out of nowhere—she’s a historical figure who has always known how to defend her place in the pecking order, even if it means sacrificing someone else’s rights, freedom, or life.
Dr. Stacey Patton is an award-winning journalist and the author of Spare the Kids: Why Whupping Children Won’t Save Black America.
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