The misogynist agenda of "MAHA moms" [View all]

[marmar]

The misogynist agenda of "MAHA moms"
RFK Jr. is using his "MAHA moms" to push women out of the workplace and into the kitchen

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published March 26, 2025 6:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) Like the skilled propagandist he is, Robert Kennedy knows that nothing impresses a right-wing audience like surrounding himself with a fleet of fawning, mostly white women. Kennedy's version of a cheerleading squad is the "MAHA moms," a group whose name derives from the misleading "Make America Healthy Again" slogan Kennedy concocted as part of his successful bid to be Donald Trump's Health and Human Services Secretary. Kennedy is forever doing photoshoots with these women, a clutch of so-called "wellness" influencers who echo Kennedy's endless stream of false health claims, like that vaccines are dangerous, that getting the measles prevents cancer and that esoteric diet fads like frying food in beef tallow will prevent disease. It's all false. But Kennedy sells the lies with an appealing message that the homespun wisdom of "moms" should be trusted over what all those scientists and doctors have to say.

....(snip)....

"MAHA moms" are sold with claims that they will empower women. Kristen Louelle Gaffney, a former Sports Illustrated model who has rebranded as a "MAHA mom" to sell her brand of snack foods told the Guardian that she sees it as a "feminist movement within households" because moms are on Instagram bragging about "this new cabbage soup I’m making" or how they cook without seed oil, one of the random ingredients MAHA has falsely declared is dangerous now. (Kennedy wants people to switch to high cholesterol alternatives like beef tallow — basically lard — which is very much the opposite of what actual nutrition scientists recommend.) If it's not clear how hyping shady supplements and sharing recipes contributes to the feminist project of fighting for gender equality, that's because it's not. On the contrary, the whole "MAHA mom" phenomenon is deeply sexist, and part of the larger MAGA agenda of getting women out of the workplace and back, quite literally, into the kitchen.

As Thomas Edsall of the New York Times reported Tuesday, despite Kennedy and Trump's rhetoric about keeping "our children healthy and strong," the administration's policies serve the opposite goal. The administration is rolling back decades of environmental protections that protect children from pollution exposure that is known to cause everything from asthma to cancer. As one expert told Edsall, "It is hard to imagine a more sweeping agenda to make Americans less healthy."

....(snip)....

The anti-vaccination rhetoric Kennedy engages in draws on more of the same. Getting your kid vaccinated is regarded as almost a cheat code for mothers, as if they're taking the easy way out by getting their kids a shot that prevents sickness to begin with. Instead, Kennedy and the MAHA moms romanticize the sick bed and the time-consuming maternal work of nursing a kid back to health. In response to the measles outbreak in West Texas, caused by the surge of vaccine refusals, Kennedy skated past the expert opinion to vaccinate to hype his view that the real solution is intensive mothering. He insisted that "we see a correlation between people who get hurt by measles and people who don’t have good nutrition or who don’t have a good exercise regimen," for which there is no evidence. While paying lip service to the vaccine, Kennedy preferred to focus on recommending that mothers wait until the child gets the measles, and then inundating the child with cod liver oil, vitamin A and other intensive treatments. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/03/26/the-misogynist-agenda-of-maha-moms/