Post-Menopausal Radicalism

Why are older American women so left-wing?

Police carried 80-year-old Lynn McFarland out of the Tennessee Senate gallery when the golden age gadfly refused to stop protesting a bill authorizing local school boards to charge tuition of “undocumented” students or deny them enrollment altogether. “Sitting in the hearing,” rationalized McFarland, “I felt at peace and I felt compassion for all of us, and I just could not cooperate. My heart wouldn’t let me.”

McFarland’s Rosa Parks-style theatrics, which helped kill the bill, fittingly took place on April Fool’s Day 2025. Unfortunately, such feminist foolishness
appears to be spreading.

Prior to travelling to Washington, D.C., last August, Nathalie Rose Jones, age 50, of Indiana, asked Secretary of War Pete Hegseth over social media to: 

Please arrange the arrest and removal ceremony of POTUS Trump as a terrorist on the American people from 10-2 pm at the White House on Saturday, August 16, 2025. 

She also wrote, “I am willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea with Liz Cheney and all The Affirmation present.” Secret Service agents identified the mess­enger and apprehended her on Aug. 16. In her interview, Jones reportedly admitted to making the threats, reiterating her intent to assassinate Trump. She was arrested the next day. Luckily for her, a District of Columbia grand jury declined to indict her.

It is hardly news that American women for decades have leaned politically well leftward of men, and lately at an accelerating rate. Less publicized is the role of the late-middle-aged and the elderly among them. Donald Trump’s return to the White House seems to have awakened a primal anger in ostensibly mature women, now retooling themselves as warriors for justice. “Justice,” to them, among other things, means rescuing illegal immigrants of color from deportation, expanding the welfare state, and designating as a fascist anyone to the right of Mitch McConnell.

A Gallup poll conducted in 2023 showed that 25 percent of women ages 65 and older identified as liberal, up from 13 percent in 1999. For women ages 50-64, there was also an increase, albeit less marked, from 18 percent to 25 percent. For men in the 65+ and 50-64 age brackets, by contrast, the respective shifts were “slightly more liberal” and no change. 

The poll’s authors concluded that “a widening of the ideological gaps between men and women over time has been due to women becoming more liberal at a faster rate than men, rather than women and men moving in different ideological directions.” This observation is crucial. It also adds weight to the valid suspicion that women are the prime catalysts for open borders, gender-affirming surgery, and the official assignment of pariah status to whites. That’s not even taking into account the resurgence of females flipping the bird at Donald Trump.

Before giving the left its much-deserved comeuppance, however, it is necessary to take a poke at the right. Many cultural conservatives revel in depicting liberal women as “miserable, unmarried, childless cat ladies,” or something like that. No doubt many of these liberal women own cats (nothing wrong with that!), but they do get married and have children—though not as many as conservative women. According to a 2020 report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), women over age 45 who identified as liberal had only 0.25 fewer children than did conservative women over 45. This gap would have been much smaller if it had included only married women.

Yet liberals, too, can go big on this score. Minneapolis protestor Becky Ringstrom, age 42, arrested this January for tailing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) vehicles with her SUV, is a mother of seven. Samantha Bee, age 56, a Canadian-born, American stand-up comic formerly on The Daily Show and Full Frontal, has three children. Liberal actress Angel­ina Jolie, age 50, has six children, three natural and three adopted. 

Most left-of-center women exhibit an insufferable, world-saving altruism that is oblivious to the complex trade-offs required to create the better world of their dreams. Desiring to be useful in fostering “social change,” unthoughtful agitation is woven into their identities.

Yet conservatives are right in recognizing that most left-of-center women exhibit an insufferable, world-saving altruism that is oblivious to the complex trade-offs required to create the better world of their dreams. Desiring to be useful in fostering “social change,” unthoughtful agitation is woven into their identities. While there is no reason to believe that these women don’t love their kids, it is true that they fer­ociously cleave to a rainbow socialist ideal of moral justice. Amplified by peer pressure, blogs, and social media, they loathe their opponents in a personalized tone. Arguing with them is futile, as I have learned firsthand.

Among female senior citizens and those close to senior citizenhood, leftism in large measure is a by-product of anxiety over the potential loss of Social Security, Medicare, and other retirement benefits. Washington, D.C.-based interest groups use these fears to expand government. Richard Fiesta, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans, writing for the reliably socialist Common Dreams (“The Resistance Has Gray Hair”), celebrates the anger of his clientele. “From No Kings protests to Hands Off marches to Republican town halls,” he notes, “it’s been seniors and retirees who are showing up, speaking out, and holding the Trump administration accountable.”  

Support for social insurance and transfer payment programs, however, can go only so far in explaining the current radical surge. Most leftist women do not live in poverty. And there is virtually no momentum in Congress or the White House to downsize or privatize these programs. The reasons for female fury lie elsewhere.   

First, there is demographic reality. Women live longer than men and hence outnumber them. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics recently calculated, based on historical data, that females born in 2024 can expect to live to 81.4 years; the corresponding figure for males is only 76.5 years. This nearly five-year difference explains why the Census Bureau estimated that women accounted for 54.7 percent of people age 65 and over as of July 1, 2024. The female population figure for the 50-64 age bracket was 50.8 percent—closer but still a majority. 

This has real implications for what the left calls “our democracy.” As women outnumber men in the older age cohorts, they are better positioned to advance their natural interests through education, philanthropy, business, and politics. The political dimension includes elections. At the start of the current Congress in January 2025, women held 129 seats in the House and 26 seats in the Senate. And at the start of this year, there were 14 female governors. Yes, a few of these lawmakers and officials are exemplary. But the worst—and they far outnumber the best—are an abomination. That the likes of Kirsten Gillibrand, Maura Healey, Kathy Hochul, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Abigail Spanberger, and Gretchen Whitmer might one day run this country is, frankly, alarming.

Second, females tend to be more emotional than men in forming opinions about public issues. Owing to various evolutionary and cognitive sources, they are prone to injecting aggressive sentimentality—passion, if one will—into political discourse. This “empathy overload,” as one might call it, subverts sensible public policy. It leads one to minimize individual responsibil­ity and embrace “root causes” (an incessant phrase of Kamala Harris), as explanations for dysfunctional behavior. This is why women so often dismiss the dangers of an enlarged State in their quest for that beautiful chimera known as “social equality.”

One of the more appalling aspects of this sentimentality is the tendency to view criminal misfits as misunderstood victims of society. Some women, entranced by superficial charisma, go beyond sympathy. 

After Luigi Mangione, a.k.a. the “Hot Assassin,” murdered UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 and was placed in detention, he was swamped with bags of fan mail, including marriage proposals from women across America. Decades ago, serial killers Jeffrey Dahmer and Ted Bundy also had lusty female admirers.

Empathy overload also explains why women have been prominent in protesting ICE deportations. Female-oriented news outlets rarely waste an opportunity to side with the illegal migrants. An article in the women’s fashion magazine Marie Claire during last June’s Los Angeles disruptions was typical. “For days, thousands of people have flooded the streets of L.A. to protest a wave of immigration raids by the Trump administration,” wrote Marie Claire Deputy Editor Noor Ibrahim. “As ICE agents showed up to workplaces, tore families apart, and threatened to enter schools, women have emerged as a powerful presence. They led marches and confronted authorities, visibly determined to protect themselves and their community from the threat of deportation.” 

In fact, many of the “protestors” were rioters. Certain participants hurled frozen water bottle projectiles and cinder blocks at federal agents, surrounded the Metropolitan Detention Center, assaulted ICE officers, slashed tires, and defaced buildings. “Peaceful” protestors also doxed family members of ICE personnel, exposing them to home invasions and identity theft. Apparently, Ms. Ibrahim didn’t see any of this as newsworthy.

Third, women are becoming much more accepting of the event that signifies the end of their youth: menopause. For many centuries, women viewed the onset of their inability to bear children as traumatic. In recent decades, however, they have evolved a favorable view. Halle Berry, Sen. Patty Murray, Michelle Obama, Brooke Shields, Naomi Watts, and Oprah Winfrey are among prominent women recasting menopause as the beginning of a new stage in life filled with self-discovery and emotional growth. 

Leftist activism is being integrated into this psychological shift. An article reprinted last year on the Ms. magazine website framed the issue as such. “Menopausal women are a contingent 75 million strong in the U.S. and entitled to accessible, competent care and treatment,” wrote author Jennifer Weiss-Wolf. “We have every right to demand lawmakers and political leaders invest in our well-being, our dignity, our humanity. And we know that when we fight for ourselves, we also fight for our daughters.”

Fourth, elderly and late-middle-aged women have absorbed the catechisms of feminism they learned in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, especially through higher education. Feminism for them did not end inside a chapel or a maternity ward, and there is no reason why it should have. It is naïve to assume that a traditional life automatically triggers a rightward shift. Raising dependent children imposes greater responsibilities on adults, but its political impact, if any, is far from certain. Why is it somehow inconsistent for a woman to raise kids in the home and raise hell in the streets? Quite a few women manage this juggling act adroitly.

The self-righteous gals roaming the streets of Minneapolis, Los Angeles, New York City, Washington, D.C., and other cities, weaponized cell phone cameras in hand, epitomize this dual mission. Radicals can’t stop reminding us that their favorite martyr, Renée Good, was a mother of three. If she were alive today, they assert, she’d be raising her kids to be activists. Sadly, they’re right. That’s exactly what she would be doing.

Yes, there are creative, thinking, independent-minded females who can be found on both the left and the right. One acknow­ledges and admires them. But in the realm of politics, they are a minority compared to the mindless female majority. And in a democracy, the majority rules. As long as women live longer than men and escalate their indignation, they will exercise even greater outsized influence on the electorate. 

Women with real power, the ones who sit in executive suites, don’t have to hit the streets. They give directives, not take them. Philanthropies run by multibillionaire ex-wives and widows of multibillionaire men are especially central to the left’s “transformative” vision. The sums of money are too enormous to ignore. 

In a democracy, the majority rules. As long as women live longer than men and escalate their indignation, they will exercise even greater outsized influence on the electorate.

Melinda French Gates, age 61, ex-wife of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, has a Forbes-listed net worth of $30 billion. She’s used that wealth to bankroll left-of-center nonprofits through the Gates Foundation and, since 2024, through her own org­anization, Pivotal Ventures. The latter has already donated at least $540 million to groups promoting female empowerment.     

Laurene Powell Jobs, age 62, widow of Apple Inc. co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs, has poured much of her $12.7 billion net worth into a wide range of projects. In 2017, through her Silicon Valley for-profit company, the Emerson Collective, she bought out The Atlantic magazine and moved it further leftward. The year before, she had contributed $2 million to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and bundled an additional $4 million for her. Jobs has also founded several nonprofits, including XQ: The Super School Project. 

MacKenzie Scott, age 56, the former wife of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, may be in a league of her own. Having come into an estimated $33 billion to $38 billion in Amazon stock through her 2019 divorce settlement with Bezos, she set up a tax-exempt foundation, Yield Giving, to provide no-strings-attached grants to ostensibly underserved groups across the globe. So far, reports Forbes, the found­ation has donated more than $26.4 billion to over 2,500 organizations. That sum includes at least $760 million bequeathed to 18 historically black colleges and univers­ities in the U.S. during the last three months of 2025. Less dramatically, it also includes a $2 million grant in 2024 to a St. Paul, Minnesota-based nonprofit called ISAIAH, which, in its own words, is “a statewide multiracial group of faith communities, Black barbershops, childcare centers, and more fighting for racial and economic justice in Minnesota.”

Anyone here wondering why building and sustaining a conservative governing coalition is now almost impossible?  

American politics is now mainly performance art anyway. It’s an arena where facts, logic, and common sense take a back seat to maximizing followers and website clicks. Few office seekers and holders, even on the right, want to risk career cancell­ation for calling out diversity, equity, and inclusion zealots for the hustlers that they are. Who wants to be known for attacking vulnerable communities? Women, not to mention racial minorities of both sexes, might get angry. 

In response to this female dominance, single and divorced men are increasingly exiting the mate market. This is manifest in the proliferation of popular YouTube videos urging men to avoid female entanglements. Replete with references to Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Freud, and Jung, these presentations speak from centuries of wisdom. Yet head-nodding should be tempered by a recognition of the mating imperative. The human species still needs male-female relationships for reproduction and socializing. There are white, black, and Asian neighborhoods, but so far as one knows, there are no male-only or female-only neighborhoods.   

When in full political gear, feminism subverts the mating process. Ideally, agreement on the issues should be a secondary concern in judging marital compatibil­ity. Yet women on the left now view polit­ical views alone as a potential deal breaker. For them, male support for Trump means “no go.”

A poll of more than 5,000 adults conducted in December 2024 by AEI’s Survey Center on American Life revealed a large gender gap even among liberals. Fully 41 percent of single female Kamala Harris voters said they were frightened by Trump’s election; only 26 percent of single male Harris voters felt that way. Such women were repelled by the prospect of dating a Trump voter. Here are a couple of comments:

Supporting Trump is supporting a racist, misogynist, rapist. liar, fraud, scammer, etc., etc., etc.—not interested in sharing my life with someone like that. (From a 29-year-old woman in California).

I hate Trump and everything he stands for. Anyone who supports him is an idiot, a racist, a misogynist, or all three. Could never date anyone in any of those categories. (From a 38-year-old woman in North Carolina).

Believe it or not, these gals are unmarried.

Unless a man is an unreconstructed egalitarian himself, he should avoid such women. Even if they are lookers, they’re not worth it. Emotional neediness on the part of the man yields contemptuous stares, “ghosted” dates, and unanswered phone calls from the woman. Rejection is a part of life. It happens to everyone. Even if leftist women eventually compromise on politics to form a commitment, men should proceed with caution. The gain of a partner is not worth the loss of the soul.

Feminism is here to stay. And “wokeness” is not retreating. Vengeful younger women now have allies in vengeful older women. The outlook may look grim. But if more women come to believe that feminism is letting them down, they just might yield more often to a man’s judgment. Sometimes even grandmas get the blues. 

https://chroniclesmagazine.org/society-culture/post-menopausal-radicalism