‘Your body, my choice’: Attacks on women surge on social media following election

CNN

By Clare Duffy, CNN

New York (CNN) — Sexist and abusive attacks on women, like “your body, my choice” and “get back to the kitchen,” have surged across social media since Donald Trump’s reelection, according to an analysis from the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

An X post from White nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes last Tuesday night saying, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” has been viewed more than 90 million times and reposted more than 35,000 times. Between Thursday and Friday, the ISD recorded a 4,600% increase in mentions of the phrase on X. And a number of women on TikTok posted videos saying their comments had been filled with users posting the phrase.

“Nick Fuentes” was still trending on X and TikTok on Monday. The phrase “we own your body” was also trending on TikTok, although many of the videos featured women pushing back on the trend.

“Your body, my choice” is an apparent subversion the phrase “my body, my choice,” which was used by women as a rallying cry in support of reproductive rights.

The rise in harassment signals that far-right online trolls and extremists feel emboldened by the outcome of an election that many had viewed as a referendum on women’s reproductive rights. On the campaign trail, Trump himself came under fire for comments about women, including that he would protect women whether “they like it or not.” Vice President-elect JD Vance also took heat for comments about women, including deriding “childless cat ladies” and calling Vice President Kamala Harris “trash.”

Many of those trolls are part of the so-called “manosphere,” which the ISD describes as online “misogynistic communities that vary from anti-feminism to more explicit, violent rhetoric towards women.”

And as with many types of online provocations, experts worry that this type of harassment could spill over into the offline world.

Already, the ISD said, “Young girls and parents have used social media to share instances of offline harassment” involving the phrase “your body, my choice.”

“They include the phrase being directed at them within schools or chanted by young boys in classes,” according to the report, published Friday.

At least one American school district sent a warning to parents this week, informing them that students had used the phrase to target girls at school.

“In the days after the election, we have received reports of some students using the phrase, ‘Your body, my choice,’ often directed at female students,” Cory Hirsbrunner, the superintendent of Stevens Point School District in Wisconsin, said in a e-mail to parents Monday that was shared with CNN. “It is simply unacceptable for students to use any language that is threatening in nature. Any students found to have violated school district policy will be subject to disciplinary action.”

In some cases, X and TikTok users responded to posts saying “your body, my choice” with vague threats of retaliatory violence.

Other, similar posts have also gone viral on X in recent days, including one from Jon Miller, a former contributor to conservative media outlet TheBlaze, saying, “women threatening sex strikes like LMAO as if you have a say,” which received 85 million views. (The post appeared to refer to conversations among young liberal women across TikTok and Instagram about South Korean feminist movement in which straight women refuse to marry, have children, date or have sex with men.)

Posts calling for the repeal of the 19th Amendment, which gives women the right to vote, also surged 663% on X last week, compared to the prior week, the ISD reported.

X did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The platform’s harassment policy generally prohibits only targeted abuse of specific individuals.

A TikTok spokesperson said “your body, my choice” violates the platform’s community guidelines and that content with mentions of the phrase would be removed unless it is explicitly speaking out against such language. TikTok removed three videos identified by CNN that appeared to suggest threats of retaliatory violence.

The ratcheting up of violent online rhetoric also comes as Black people across the country last week received anonymous, racist text messages referencing slavery and telling them they were “selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation,” raising further concerns about violence in the wake of the election. Federal and state authorities are working to find the origins of the messages.

Correction: A previous version of this story misstated the number of reposts of an X post by Nick Fuentes. It is more than 35,000.

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