The Opinions - Trump’s Win Terrifies Me. Why Don’t Boys My Age Care?

Episode Date: November 19, 2024

Exit polls from the presidential election reveal a divided country: Women tended to vote for Kamala Harris; men, for Donald Trump. And that divide may extend to citizens who aren’t yet of voting age. Naomi Beinart, a 16-year-old junior, witnessed it at her school in the days after the election. In this episode, Beinart says that while her fellow female students fear for the future, “this election didn’t seem to measurably change anything for the boys around me, whether their parents supported Mr. Trump or not.”Thoughts? Email us at [e-mail]. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it. I'm Naomi Bynard, and I'm a junior in high school. On the morning after the election, I walked up the staircase of my school. A preteen was crying into the shoulders of her braces-clad pier. Her friend was rubbing circles on her back. I continued up the stairs to the lounge where upperclassmen linger before classes.

There I saw two tables. One was filled with my girlfriends, many of them with hollows of darkness under their eyes. There was a thick blanket of despair over the young women in the room. I looked over to the other table of teenage boys and saw Minecraft on their computers. While we were gasping for a breath,

it seemed that they were breathing freely. We girls woke up to a country that would rather elect a man found liable for sexual abuse than a woman. Where the kind of man my mother instructs me to cross the street to avoid will be addressed as Mr. President. Where the body I haven't fully grown into may no longer be under my control. The boys, it seemed to me, just woke up on a Wednesday. What made my skin burn most wasn't that more than 75 million people voted for Donald Trump?

It was that this election didn't seem to measurably change anything for the boys around me, whether their parents supported Mr. Trump or not. Many of them didn't seem to share our rage, our fear, our despair. They don't even seem to share our same fear for the future. I'm scared that I will wake up in an episode of The Handmaid's Tale. I am scared that Trump's new appointees will take away or restrict birth control and plan B from us, the same way they did abortion. I'm scared that the acne-riddled boys I know

will see in a triumphant, boastful Trump the epitome of a manly man and mauled themselves after him. I feel like I'm at the beginning of a nightmare. I'm scared for the next four years. I was eight the first time Trump was elected. Now I am 16. I am still unable to vote,

but now I'm so much. much more aware of what I have to lose. I've seen some of the ways in which many of the boys in my generation can be different from their fathers. The hashtag Me Too movement went mainstream when they were still wearing Superman pajamas. On Tuesdays in health class, they learn about the dangers of inebriated consent. They don't pretend to gag when a girl mentions her period or a tampon falls out of her backpack. They don't find sexist jokes all that funny, and don't often make them in a little.

public. I love and care for many of these boys and have always felt they were on my side, and I'm grateful to my school for taking gender equality as seriously as it takes trigonometry. But most of the guys I saw that Wednesday appeared nonchalant. A smiling student shook his friend's hand and said sarcastically, good election, in the same hallway, where I saw a female teacher clutching a damp tissue. Why were these boys so unpertur. I worry that my guy friends only cared about women until it conflicted with other, more pressing priorities. That morning, I spoke with a male classmate. He asked if I was okay. I nearly melted with relief. See, I knew not all guys were ignorant. Then, before I responded, he continued. Why, he wondered, are so many girls crying?

I stared. I swallowed that familiar lump. And I had one thought. I pray that my older brother never asks that question. How could my classmate not know why girls in his grade were biting their nails and doing breathing exercises in the all-gender bathroom? Our future is sliding down the sides of our faces, and he asked me why we are crying. I have never felt that disconnected from men. I've never felt more like a girl. Eight years ago, I was too young to feel the full force of Hillary Clinton's loss.

Now at 16, I've had the wind knocked out of me. On Wednesday, anger coursed through my veins, but it was diluted by an even stronger feeling. Defeat. I saw it in the eyes of women in my subway car that morning. I saw it in the barista at the coffee shop on the corner, the female security guard at my school, and in the face of the car. of my history teacher. In a terrible way, I've never felt more part of a sisterhood, or more certain that pain is shared within that family. I wish the consequences of this

moment for young women punctured the apparent indifference of so many men and boys I saw that day. I wish they could breathe in with the women and girls I know have been inhaling since November 5th. I can't predict how well I'm going to do on an English test tomorrow, and I definitely can't predict the future from me and my fellow young women. For now, all I can do is tell you how I feel. If you like this show, follow it on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. This show is produced by Derek Arthur, Sophia Alvarez Boyd, Bishaka, Fiby Lett, Christina Samuoski, and Gillian Weinberger. It's edited by Kari Pitkin, Alison Bruzek, and Annie Rose Strasser. Engineering, mixing, and original music by Isaac Jones, Sonia Herrero, Pat McCusker, Carol Saburo, and Afim Shapiro.

Additional music by Amin Sahota. The fact check team is Kate Sinclair, Mary Marge Locker, and Michelle Harris. Audience Strategy by Shannon Busta, Christina Samuelski, and Adrian Rivera. The executive producer of Times Opinion Audio is Annie Rose Dresser.