How Matt Gaetz and Republican pundits weaponize sexualization against women

Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., went viral this month for all the wrong reasons following this horrendous tweet: “How many of the women rallying against overturning Roe are over-educated, under-loved millennials who sadly return from protests to a lonely microwave dinner with their cats, and no bumble matches?”

It was a particularly egregious example of how Republicans sexualize women to demean them. To be fair, Gaetz’s tweet might not seem like sexualization on first read. He’s insulting supporters of Roe v. Wade by claiming they are single, sexless and undesirable. But in doing so, he’s reducing them to their sexual lives and sexuality with the express purpose of diminishing them.

There’s a long tradition of trans people being portrayed as sexually motivated serial killers in movies like “Psycho” and “The Silence of the Lambs.” More recently they’ve been accused of sexually assaulting cis women in bathrooms — even though there’s no evidence to support this accusation. These are all harmful examples of sexualization. Trans women are reduced to (imagined) sexual acts, just as Gaetz reduces Roe supporters to (imagined) sexual behaviors.

Being accused of being a sexual predator is different from being targeted for street harassment in some ways. But for Serano, there were also similarities. And both forms of sexualization were enabled by being marked as part of a marginalized group.

White straight men are assumed to be complex individuals — they are the default, the status quo. As such, they are rarely reduced to sexual bodies, behaviors or desires. That’s why people like Donald Trump and Matt Gaetz, who have been accused of sexual harassment and assault and sex trafficking, respectively, aren’t defined by those charges.

In contrast, people in marginalized groups are more likely to be viewed as out of place, as wrong or as in need of explanation just by existing. So when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida decides to create a moral panic by claiming that LGBTQ people in Florida are a sexual danger to children, he knows it will resonate, because people are already inclined to mark and sexualize LGBTQ people.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/matt-gaetz-republican-pundits-weaponize-sex-sexualization-women-rcna29300