A Modest Proposal for a 28th Amendment

By Prof. David Eller | 18 July 2026
Shuddhashar

(Image Credit: United States Women’s Suffrage Map, c. 1919. Public domain.)

If we want to see the republic survive for another 250 years, perhaps it’s time to consider a 28th Amendment—denying men the right to vote.

The year 2026 has been an opportunity to reflect on the 250 years of the United States (although, of course, the colonies only declared their independence in 1776; they won it in 1781, secured it by treaty in 1783, and founded it on the Constitution in 1788). What kind of country was it envisioned as, what is it today, and what will it become in the future?

As we all know, although the Declaration of Independence stated that all men are created equal and endowed with rights, women were not allocated those same rights for many years. It was only with the ratification of the 19th Amendment in 1920 that women were granted the right to vote, having been denied that right in every state’s Constitution by 1807. This little history reminds us of two things: the Constitution can be amended (it has been amended 27 times, most recently in 1992), and the right to vote is precarious and can be formally denied.

Given the country’s current condition and direction, I have a modest proposal. Perhaps it is time for a 28th Amendment, one that officially denies men the right to vote. Why would I suggest this? For those who rightly fear and loathe the conservative lurch of the U.S., the elimination of the male vote augurs a much more liberal and progressive society. This prediction is supported by robust, consistent evidence on the gender gap in American politics. Political scientist Rebecca Kreitzer (2025) summarizes some of the most salient points. These include:

  • Women are “8 to 12 percentage points more likely to support Democratic candidates” than are men.
  • Women are “15-20 percentage points more likely to support expanded government healthcare programs, including Medicare for All proposals and enhanced reproductive health services”
  • Women are “more likely to support progressive taxation and increased government spending on social programs, while men more frequently favor lower taxes and reduced government spending”
  • Women express “greater concern about climate change and stronger support for environmental regulations. Polling data from 2024 indicates women are 12-15 percentage points more likely to view climate change as an urgent threat requiring immediate government action”
  • Women are more supportive of abortion rights and gun control policies
  • Women state “stronger support for international cooperation and multilateral approaches to global challenges. They are more likely to favor increased foreign aid, participation in international climate agreements, and diplomatic engagement with adversaries,” while men favor American sovereignty and anti-internationalism.

It does seem that if women voted and men did not, the country would elect more Democratic, liberal, or progressive leaders and would enjoy better healthcare, fairer taxes, fewer gun deaths, a cleaner environment, more international cooperation, and an improved global climate. The government would protect people rather than abandon or torment them. But “Unfair!” you cry; “Everyone deserves to vote.” I humbly remind you that this was not the policy of the United States for most of its history. It was, as we just saw, only 106 years ago that women gained the national right to vote; this means that for most of the country’s history, depriving half of the citizens of the right to vote was perfectly acceptable and, in fact, the law of the land.

In a study published in the sexist-named Mankind Quarterly, Gerhard Meisenberg examined data from the General Social Survey of the U.S., finding interestingly that women are simultaneously more religious and more liberal than men—disproving the assumption that religion is necessarily conservative—and explaining this unexpected result in terms of the fundamental value differences between the sexes. Men, he reckoned, are obsessed with “freedom,” including the freedom to exploit and hurt others and to be as bad as they want to be. In contrast, women are driven by “protection”: “women more than men are concerned about protecting people from economic hardship…and from the darker side of their own nature” (2021: 555), although unfortunately also from “‘non-standard’ beliefs and worldviews” such as those of “atheists, communists, and racists” (570). Oh well, no one’s perfect.

It does seem that if women voted and men did not, the country would elect more Democratic, liberal, or progressive leaders and would enjoy better healthcare, fairer taxes, fewer gun deaths, a cleaner environment, more international cooperation, and an improved global climate. The government would protect people rather than abandon or torment them. But “Unfair!” you cry; “Everyone deserves to vote.” I humbly remind you that this was not the policy of the United States for most of its history. It was, as we just saw, only 106 years ago that women gained the national right to vote; this means that for most of the country’s history, depriving half of the citizens of the right to vote was perfectly acceptable and, in fact, the law of the land.

Moreover, it is far from true that Americans are firmly committed to honoring the 19th Amendment and respecting women’s suffrage. Some conservatives today overtly insist that women should not vote because they cast their votes “emotionally” compared to the oh-so-rational way that men choose their candidates and their political positions. And certainly, conservatives and Republicans are well aware of the political gender gap, realizing that if women were removed from the equation, conservative/Republican candidates would have much better electoral chances.

As Moira Donegan (2025) commented last year on the right-wing effort “to destroy women’s right to vote,” “More and more, influential voices in the MAGA movement and the far-right Republican party are calling to strip women of the franchise. It’s not that this is strictly a new development. Opposition to women’s voting rights has long been a fringe, but persistent, feature of the American right. It’s been a favorite hobby horse of extremist preachers; it trended among Trump supporters on social media in the lead-up to the 2016 election, when polls showed that Trump would win if only men voted.”

This is one (though mostly unspoken) motivation for Trump’s beloved “SAVE America Act,” a voter suppression bill that is ostensibly about preventing non-citizen voting (which virtually never happens anyhow) but, according to critics, would have the effect of disenfranchising many women who do not have citizenship documents (birth certificates, passports, military IDs, etc.) in a current name that matches their birth name.

For natural-born female citizens who changed their names at marriage but never changed their documents, for example, voting could be prevented or seriously complicated. According to Democratic Representative Lauren Underwood, “Nearly 69 million women in America have a birth certificate that does not match their current name, and therefore 69 million American women would no longer be eligible to vote” (Sherman 2026). Never mind that conservative women are more likely to change their names at marriage than liberal ones, thereby threatening their own vote and undermining their own power.

Indeed, many conservative women are ready and willing to surrender their individual right to vote, in favor of the principle of “household voting,” which Tess Bonn (2026) defines as “the idea that families—rather than individuals—should serve as the basic political unit in society, with a husband, father, or some kind of male figure casting a single vote on their behalf.” To be sure, any woman who wants to forgo her vote is welcome to do so; voting is a right but not a legal requirement, and for those who would like to see fewer conservatives and Republicans elected, the Republican Party and MAGA denying itself potentially half of its voter base is a deliciously perverse course of action.

And not surprisingly, the policy of household voting is advocated by Christian nationalists as a plank in their dream of “biblical patriarchy,” as represented by Pastor Doug Wilson of Christ Church in Idaho, who believes that “women have too many rights in the United States” and has explicitly called for the repeal of the 19th Amendment: “I don’t want women voting as individuals,” he flatly asserted (Bloom 2026). We might ignore this as a crackpot position if not for the fact that Pastor Wilson is closely associated with our Christian nationalist Secretary of Defense/War, Pete Hegseth, who retweeted and praised Wilson’s comments.

Therefore, since many American men (including men in high office) and more than a few women have no qualms about ripping the right to vote away from women, I see no reason why we should be squeamish about taking the polar opposite stand. Or maybe this would be the fairest: women were without the vote from at least 1807 to 1920, a total of 103 years, so how about we cancel male suffrage for the next 103 years, then in 2129 take stock and see if the country is better or worse for the modest experiment?

References

Bloom, Allison. 2026. “Pete Hegseth’s Pastor Calls for Repealing Women’s Right to Vote.” https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/pete-hegseth-s-pastor-calls-for-repealing-women-s-right-to-vote/ar-AA27KdxN?ocid=BingNewsSerp, accessed July 12, 2026.

Bonn, Tess. 2026. “Why Some Women Want to Give Up Their Right to Vote.” https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/why-women-want-vote-204403699.html, accessed July 12, 2026.

Donegan, Moira. 2025. “Rightwingers are Trying to Destroy Women’s Right to Vote.” https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/04/women-right-to-vote-disenfranchisement, accessed July 12, 2026.

Kreitzer, Rebecca. 2025. “The Gender Gap in American Politics.” https://rebeccakreitzer.com/blog/how-gender-influences-political-opinions-in-america-2025, accessed July 12, 2026.

Meisenberg, Gerhard. 2021. “Gender Differences in Social and Political Attitudes: It’s Protection versus Freedom, not Liberalism versus Conservatism.” Mankind Quarterly 61: 555-77.

Sherman, Amy. 2026. “Voter Suppression or Little Step? How the SAVE American Act Affects Married Women Who Change Names.” https://www.politifact.com/article/2026/mar/19/SAVE-America-Act-women-vote-citizenship-Trump, accessed July 13, 2026.

Reprinted with permission from the author.

Jack David Eller is a cultural anthropologist and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology with Woxsen University in Hyderabad, India. He is the author of numerous books and articles on anthropology, religion, ethnic and religious violence, and contemporary populism, including Trump and Political Theology: Unmaking Truth and Democracy and (as editor) The Anthropology of Donald Trump: Culture and the Exceptional Moment.

“The Truth Hurts: An Anthropological Perspective on Religion and Suffering” (Eller)

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