Lauren Boebert's divorce reveals the dark little secret of life in the red state (2023)

SeRepublicans act a lot these daysEIt's disgusting, it's not funny, old-fashioned right-wing Christian hypocrisy has something refreshing about it. This time it came from Colorado Representative Lauren Boebert, who is biologically human, but it looks like ChatGPT is channeling the Breitbart comments section. Boebert built her career on hypocritical but often incoherent speeches.The Threat to Families posed by the Left's Sexual "Degeneracy"„such as same-sex marriage or contraceptionThe fact that she also filed for divorce last month only surfaced in the media this week. This follows more fun examplesBoberts „Familienwerte“ for example, the celebration of a teenage pregnancyOr support your current ex-husband afterHe makes out with teenage girls at a bowling alley.

Her decision to leave Jayson Boebert may be the first sign of normal brain activity in Lauren Boebert's skull. As the bowling story suggests, this guy is a nutcase. He started dating then Lauren Roberts when she was 16 when he was 22.your child who dropped out of schoolAt age 18, they had their first child. They were married two years later. During that time, he was arrested for a fight with her on charges of domestic violence. In August he was still working hardHe would have been called by the policethreaten neighbors.

to beher behavior when she finally served himDivorce papers are basically the same.As the Daily Beast reports“When he got the divorce papers, he chased a trial attorney with a rant and set his dog free.” Jayson Boebert denied dealing with the officer's descriptions, including references to alcohol consumption. "Divorce is sad," he told The Daily Beast. The congresswoman defended Jason Boebert in a statement: "Our divorce is a private matter, but misrepresentations must be addressed. Jason deserves privacy, not defamatory stories."

The story is delicious gossip. But it's also a glimpse into an aspect of life in the red states that hasn't been discussed at length and that could trigger an ugly wave of misogynistic rhetoric and politics from Republicans, especially men. The dark little secret of living in a red state is that there are plenty of Lauren Boeberts: conservative women who deny feminism but are happy to pursue hard-won rights like divorce and abortion if given more opportunities for their own independence. Republican men are increasingly irritated by the slightest crackdown on women.

The result is ugly. Sexual Predator is the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. Although abortion bans are extremely unpopular, they are enacted again and again. Now there are even Republican efforts to make it harder for people — especially women — to file for divorce.

Her decision to leave Jayson Boebert may be the first sign of normal brain activity in Lauren Boebert's skull.

It is well known that the average age of women on their wedding day has been rising for decades.About 20 years ago in 1950Nearly 29 years in 2022. The trend is more pronounced in the blue states, but only slightly. Althoughdrier states like Alabama and Mississippi, women are on average over 25 years old when they marry. OThe age at which a woman first gives birth to a childHe is also around 30 years old. The same thing,highest in blue states, but not much.

It's all because American women, whether they live in liberal or conservative neighborhoods, believe that having strong personal independence is best.There are now more women than men with college degreesworkers.Two-thirds of mothers are breadwinners41% of mothers are the main or sole providers of the family or co-responsible for the family.Almost a quarter of children live in single parent families- Most of them are single mothers.

As anyone connected with the conservative community will tell you, conservative women can decry feminism and still value self-confidence. The story they tell each other is that it's not about politics, it's about pragmatism: good men are hard to find. It's safer and wiser to take care of yourself and keep your options open. Honestly, life without a man is often easier.Statistics even show that single mothers have done it.More free time than married mothers.

When women of all political persuasions are given the opportunity to escape a bad marriage, they take action. Nor is Boebert the only anti-feminist on the Republican caucus to sabotage her marriage, once elected and with more interesting options. April 2022,Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene Criticizes FeministsAnnouncement that women are the "lower sex", created from Adam's rib to serve as "the wives of our husbands". But of course she wasn't talking about herself. She appears to have left her husband shortly after his election, andFormal divorce proceedings begin in September.

Not surprisingly, male Republican leaders do not see conservative women's exploitation of hard-won women's rights merely as a non-political expression of "independence." Instead, they reacted like Jayson Boebert turning the page on the process server handing him divorce papers, meaning they weren't happy about it.

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This misogynistic temper was most evident in the overturning of the Roe v. Wade and the subsequent wave of abortion bans passed by the Republican-controlled legislature. These bans aren't just unpopular with Democrats. In red states, voters repeatedly rejected abortion bans, but male-dominated Republican legislatures pushed them anyway.even preventing voters from participating directly in it. In many cases, women leaders seem appalled by their male counterparts' extremist attitudes on the issue. For example, in South Carolina,Republicans advance to the SenateJoin the Democrats in stopping abortion bans, and they often act like they've just realized that all the anti-abortion rhetoric in their party is serious.

The dark little secret of living in the Red State is that there are a lot of Lauren Boeberts out there.

It's not just about abortion, however. asTessa Stewart, from Rolling Stone, relates, "Republicans across the country are now reconsidering no-fault divorce", even though it has been legal in most states for decades. State Republicans are adding no-fault annulment to their programs, and even the National Party took up the issue in 2016. (If their candidate, Donald Trump, hadn't been twice-divorced.) The reason is no secret:70% of US divorces are initiated by women.

withwrites journalist Lyz Lenz in her newsletter"Perhaps 70% of women file for divorce becauseHusband does seven extra hours of housework, the woman must do the work. Maybe it's because, despite working full time, women still take care of children and keep house. “A lot of women are fed up with it – even women who say they disagree with feminism. They don't let all the free work leave them so easily.”

Many of the issues in the culture wars that ended Republicans are mostly abstract to them: drag shows they don't go to, "woke up" pop culture they don't consume, books about racism they don't read, internationalizing the way life in big cities, they don't go away. But when it comes to gender and power, the struggle is palpable even in Republican households. Right-wing women can talk about feminism, but as Republican men often learn the hard way, even conservative women have their own limits on how much bullshit they can take from men. It's about controlling your own wife and daughter, not just controlling a strange woman who lives far away. Boebert and Taylor Greene may insist their divorce was just "personal," but as any feminist will tell you, the personal is the political, baby.