JD Vance Rebuked for Remarks About Professional Women

Ohio Senator and former President Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance is facing new backlash on social media over remarks he made on a podcast in 2021 when he said that professional women “choose a path to misery” when they prioritize careers over having children.
During a podcast recording with American Moment, a conservative nonprofit, Vance was asked what he saw inside elite institutions, such as Yale Law School where he attended, that made him view them as corrupt.
“You have women who think that truly the liberationist path is to spend 90 hours a week working in a cubicle…instead of starting a family and having children,” Vance told American Moment’s president and founder Saurabh Sharma and its COO Nick Solheim. “…What they don’t realize—and I think some of them do eventually realize that, thank God—is that that is actually a path to misery. And the path to happiness and to fulfillment is something that these institutions are telling people not to do.”
He continued: “The corruption is it puts people on a career pipeline that causes them to chase things that will make them miserable and unhappy. And so, they get in positions of power and then they project that misery and happiness on the rest of society.”
Shortly after Trump announced Vance as his running mate, clips have resurfaced of the senator referring to Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democratic figures as “a bunch of childless cat ladies” and saying that parents should have more electoral power. Since then, the senator has continued to defend his comments.
Earlier this week, Vance came under fire after suggesting Harris’ performance in Thursday’s CNN interview would be similar to that of former Miss Teen USA contestant Caitlin Upton who went viral in 2007 after giving an incoherent answer when asked why some Americans couldn’t locate their country on a map.
The South Carolina Miss Teen USA 2007 contestant, who reportedly went on to sign for Trump’s modeling agency, had previously said she was overwhelmed during the incident and that the response to it left her feeling suicidal.
Trump’s team previously told Newsweek: “Sen. Vance said, in an interview with CNN: ‘I was not aware that clip made Caitlin consider suicide, my heart goes out to her, and I hope that she’s doing well… sometimes when you’re in the public eye, you make mistakes, I think the best way to deal with it is to laugh at ourselves.'”
Newsweek has emailed Vance’s office and the Harris campaign for comment.
His latest resurfaced remarks, first reported on by The Guardian, were met with ire on social media.
In response to conservative attorney and vocal Trump critic George Conway’s post on X, formerly Twitter, about the remarks, J. Dakota Powell, founder of Time Wave Studio, an arts and entertainment studio with immersive technology, posted, “Reverse it. Professional men ‘choose a path to misery’ when they prioritize family over career. Women are ‘suppressed’ period. Is only a bigoted man’s POV valid? Vance, the bottom line in a free America: what a woman or man chooses to do or not IS NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS.”
“Hard to not listen to this man and understand that he’s not just against women serving in combat roles in the military, he’s against women being in uniform in any capacity at all,” Eric L. Robinson, an industrial base investor, wrote on X.
Some on social media made a point to mention Vance’s own wife, Usha, who had a thriving law career as a working mother for many years, including when the 2021 interview was recorded. Usha Vance only recently left her law firm following her husband being announced as Trump’s running mate. Born Usha Chilukuri, JD and Usha met during their time at Yale Law School.
Meghan McCarthy, who writes a daily newsletter on women’s health, wrote under Conway’s X post, “My first thought when any of these insane retrograde @JDVance comments come out is: what in the world does Usha think? And her post-menopausal female/college professor mom?”
Former Democratic National Committee chairwoman Donna Brazile wrote on X, “Women will remember in November who stands with us and will protect our fundamental freedom to decide our future. We don’t need anyone, including #JDVance to denigrate women who may decide not to have any kids. My life has value and meaning because I am free to choose.”
In the nearly one-hour interview with American Moment in 2021, Vance also blasted Representative Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat. Vance said Omar, a one-time Somali refugee, had shown “ingratitude” to America, and that she “would be living in a craphole” had she not moved to the United States.
In an emailed response to The Guardian, Omar said the “ignorant and xenophobic rhetoric spewed by Mr. Vance” was “dangerous and un-American.”
Newsweek has also emailed Omar’s office Saturday afternoon for comment.
Update: 8/31/24, 5:14 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with more information.