‘Awesome!’ CNN’s Kate Bolduan Disgusted By Rape-Evoking Slogan Fired At Women After Trump Victory

CNN anchor Kate Bolduan couldn’t contain her disgust as she reported on women being harassed with a phrase that’s evocative of rape, connecting it to President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

One of the more stunning features of Trump’s win is the slate of groups with which he made gains — including with women. This even as abortion rights ballot measures achieved majority support in 8 out of 10 states (Florida’s measure failed even though 57% voted in favor because the threshold was 60%).

According to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, Trump’s victory coincided with a spread of “Hate and harassment towards women.”

On Tuesday’s edition of CNN News Central, Bolduan and CNN’s Clare Duffy keyed in on that report, and the phrase “Your body, my choice” that was proliferated in a viral tweet by white nationalist Nick Fuentes, who, notably, said prior to Election Day that he would not vote for Trump:

KATE BOLDUAN: Since Election Day. It’s become clear that attacks on women on social media has just surged. Sexist, gross and honestly, just stupidly offensive.

Boys who would like to pretend they’re real men, but instead are very clearly intimidated by women pushing phrases like “Your body. My choice.”.

This is getting millions of views. CNN’s Clare Duffy is here with more on this. How bad is this getting, Clare?

CLARE DUFFY: Yeah, it’s really significant. These are characters, and this is the kind of language, that has existed in dark corners of the Internet. But it’s become clear that these people feel emboldened in the wake of this election where there was so much focus on women’s rights, women’s bodily autonomy.

This really started on Tuesday night when white nationalist Nick Fuentes tweeted, posted on X this post that said, “Your body, my choice. Forever.”

As you can see, they’re 90 million views.

And since then, according to this analysis by a nonprofit human rights group, mentions of that phrase on X have grown 4,000% in just a couple of days.

But they’ve also recorded increases in the use of phrases like “Get back in the kitchen” and calls to repeal the 19th Amendment, which of course gave women the right to vote.

And this is all part of this growing what researchers call the man-o-sphere, these online misogynistic communities where the discussions range from antifeminism to these more explicit calls of violence against women.

And there are already women who are being targeted by this. You saw TikTok videos being posted by women who said that “your body my choice” was showing up in their comments and their DMS.

And I’ll tell you, Kate, when I woke up this morning after writing this story yesterday, I had this phrase in my email inbox. And I think the concern for researchers really is that this online rhetoric will translate to offline harassment and abuse.

KATE BOLDUAN: Yes. There’s not a, it’s not a big step. We’ve seen, you know, not too distant past to see what online rhetoric, how it can translate into real life, real problems.

I mean, it’s it is dumb, stupid and idiotic on the most basic level, but it is also dangerous and it’s pervasive mostly on Twitter, now, X.

Is there any– is– Elon Musk said anything about it? Is any chance in you know what that Elon Musk will be doing anything about it?

CLARE DUFFY: Yeah, the company hasn’t said anything about this latest surge, but I do think we have to look at the changes that he’s made to the platform.

He has rolled back moderation in other areas. We’ve seen increases in other kinds of hate speech, in conspiracy theories, some of those coming from Elon Musk himself.

And the company’s harassment policy only really regulates harassment against specific individuals. So this kind of broad abuse of women doesn’t even violate the company’s policies.

KATE BOLDUAN: Awesome!

Watch above via CNN News Central.