American women have had enough. More than 40 per cent of those aged 15 to 44 want to leave the United States permanently if possible, according to a recent Gallup poll. The figure is four times higher than the 10 per cent who felt this way in 2014.
Who can blame them? Over the last decade, women’s choices and opportunities in the US have narrowed significantly. Financial disadvantage persists with a gender pay gap of 17 per cent, career progression has stalled and having children increases women’s risk of poverty. No matter what they do, they can’t get their heads above water.
Bryn Elise, a young American travel influencer on TikTok, has said: “I think the new American dream is to leave [for] somewhere where we aren’t being poisoned by our food, we don’t need two to three jobs to survive and where healthcare isn’t a luxury but the norm.”
I know what she means. Life in the US is like living in a pressure cooker. I left New York 30 years ago for Dublin – somewhere I felt I could have a better life, somewhere I could breathe – and haven’t looked back since.
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Now Donald Trump’s regime is clawing back women’s rights and safety concerns – from restrictive abortion laws and attacks on voting rights, to low conviction rates for sexual and domestic violence – and is likely to be impacting on their choices too. And then there are cultural factors, such as the prevalence of gun violence and misogyny.
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Women are good at weighing up risks as their lives often depend on it. But there are two particularly troubling indicators that women’s status has worsened in the US: maternal mortality, and political violence against women. The rate of maternal mortality in the US is 24 per 100,000, which is more than three times the rate of most other high-income countries.
Political violence towards women in the US is also on the rise. “The rise in political violence against women is no coincidence, these threats are meant to remove power from women,” says the National Women’s Law Centre.
No matter if they were married (41 per cent) single (45 per cent) had children living at home (40 per cent) or were without children (44 per cent), they all wanted to leave for good. If these women were able to follow through on their desire to migrate, they would be taking the next generation with them too. Canada is the preferred destination for emigration (11 per cent), weirdly echoing the choice for young women fleeing the US in the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale.
The sharp rise in younger women wanting to leave the US has created a large gender gap between them and their male counterparts. Today’s 21 percentage point gap between younger men (19 per cent) and women wanting to leave the US is the widest Gallup has recorded on this trend.
Although medical abortion’s availability through telemedicine and the post has been a lifeline for women who need it, anti-abortion extremists are working to ensure it’s banned nationally
That’s hardly surprising: under Trump, the future for American women and minorities is grim compared to the outlook for men. Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the administration, seeks to create a patriarchal country where white men are back on top of the power pyramid, women are pushed into the home and minorities live on the fringes. Roughly 70 per cent of Trump’s cabinet and 50-plus senior officials have direct ties to Project 2025. Over 140 former Trump appointees and several current senior cabinet officials helped write the plan. And these people are not playing around.
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The 900-page extreme conservative agenda covers almost every aspect of American life and US foreign policy and, according to an online Project 2025 tracker, nearly half of its goals have already been implemented. This includes stripping many fundamental rights and jobs from women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants and people of colour.
Since January, more than 450,000 women have dropped out of the US labour market, with the surge driven largely by women with young children and black women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Outside of the pandemic, it’s one of the steepest declines on record.
It is a bleak time to be a woman of childbearing age in the US. Reproductive rights have been eroded as Christian nationalist ideals have been woven into federal policy, restoring broad religious and moral exceptions blocking abortion care and contraception, IVF and fertility treatments and promoting the surveillance of women’s menstrual cycles and travel plans. Abortion has been totally banned or severely restricted in 19 of the 50 US states. In Texas, family members who suspect a relative has sought information on abortion can bring a court case and be awarded €100,000. Non-relatives can be awarded €10,000.
Although medical abortion’s availability through telemedicine and the post has been a lifeline for women who need it, anti-abortion extremists are working to ensure it’s banned nationally.
Imagine the exhaustion of living in this world. When you walk outside your door, you’re likely scanning for danger: aggressive Maga supporters, angry men with guns, Ice agents rounding up your neighbours, friends who might report your miscarriage, polluted air and water, tainted food and unvaccinated kids in school. Wouldn’t you want to leave too?
Margaret E Ward is a New Yorker, leadership consultant, a disillusioned Democrat and a contributor to The Irish Times
