The morning after the results came in, I sat at my kitchen table for a long time before I got up. My phone was buzzing with messages from friends — a mix of shock, sadness, and the kind of flat resignation that comes when something you feared actually happens. I’m not going to pretend this is a neutral piece. It isn’t. This is six things that have genuinely been running through my mind as a woman — things I suspect many of us are quietly carrying right now.
We deserve to say these things out loud, without apology.
Every election cycle brings a particular kind of anxiety for many women — not just about politics in the abstract, but about what the results mean for their daily lives, their healthcare, their safety, and the world their daughters will inherit. The most recent U.S. election outcome has surfaced those fears with renewed urgency, and I don’t think it’s useful to pretend otherwise.
This is not a political piece. It is an honest account of what sits at the back of my mind — and, based on conversations with friends, sits at the back of many women’s minds — in the aftermath of an election that felt significant for women in ways that go beyond party affiliation.
1. Reproductive Rights and Healthcare Access
The rollback of Roe v. Wade in 2022 was a watershed moment that demonstrated reproductive rights are not permanently protected. Post-election, the question of what further restrictions might follow — on contraception, IVF, emergency medical care during pregnancy — is not abstract fear. It’s a reasonable question based on what is already law in multiple states. The worry is not hypothetical. It’s about real women navigating real healthcare decisions in a landscape that has demonstrably narrowed.
2. The Safety of Women in Public and Private Spaces
Political rhetoric shapes culture. When language that dismisses, sexualises, or demeans women becomes normalised at the highest levels, the downstream effect on how women are treated — at work, in relationships, on the street — is real. Women notice this. The conversations happen in private spaces where we admit what we’ve started to watch for more carefully, what we’ve started to explain to our daughters about navigating the world.
3. Economic Security and the Pay Gap
Women earn less than men on average across virtually every sector, and women of colour earn less than white women. Progress on pay equity legislation, childcare affordability, and parental leave policies moves at the pace of political will. When that will appears to shift against these priorities, the economic implications for women — particularly single mothers, women returning to work after caregiving, and women in low-wage sectors — are concrete.
If you’re thinking about financial resilience as a woman, 7 Money Habits Every Woman in Her 30s Needs to Build Before It’s Too Late is a practical starting point for protecting yourself regardless of the political climate.
4. The Mental Load of Political Anxiety
There is a particular exhaustion in carrying concern not just for yourself but for your children, your friends, your community. The mental load women already carry — the invisible labour of keeping households, relationships, and families functioning — is compounded by the weight of watching political forces that feel personally threatening. This is not catastrophising. It is the lived experience of women who are paying attention.
For support with managing that weight, our piece on The Emotional Weight Women Carry: How to Manage Stress Without Burning Out offers some grounded tools.
5. What Kind of World My Daughter Will Grow Up In
For women who are mothers — or who hope to be — there’s a dimension to political anxiety that is specifically about the next generation. What will my daughter understand about her own rights and worth? What will she encounter when she enters the workforce, navigates healthcare, or tries to build a life on her own terms? These questions don’t have reassuring answers right now, and sitting with that uncertainty is difficult.
6. Whether My Worry Is Even Worth Expressing
There is something quietly exhausting about the ongoing cultural pressure to not be “too political,” not be “too emotional,” not make people uncomfortable with concerns that are often dismissed as partisan rather than personal. Women learn early that our fears are frequently framed as overreactions. And so there is a meta-worry: whether saying any of this out loud will be dismissed, minimised, or used against us.
It won’t here. These worries are legitimate. And expressing them — with other women, in our own spaces — is part of how we hold each other up through periods of political uncertainty. The importance of community and mutual support, explored in The 5 Types of Friends Every Woman Needs in Her Life, has never felt more relevant.
Written by Cassandra Simpson, Relationships & Connection Writer at Rubie Rubie.
You Might Also Like
- The Emotional Weight Women Carry: How to Manage Stress Without Burning Out
- The Silent Pressure of Being “Strong”: Why Women Struggle to Ask for Help
- 7 Money Habits Every Woman in Her 30s Needs to Build Before It’s Too Late
If you’re feeling the weight of the world right now, you’re not alone. On Rubie Rubie, The Silent Pressure of Being Strong explores why women often carry fear and anxiety alone — and how to start breaking that pattern. Managing Anxiety in Your 20s and 30s offers tools that actually help when the news cycle feels relentless and exhausting.
Your feelings are valid. Your concerns are valid. And your voice — now more than ever — matters. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Sources & further reading: APA: Managing Political Anxiety | WHO: Gender Equality and Rights | Psychology Today: Coping With Uncertainty.
Cassandra Simpson is a wellbeing and relationship writer with a BSc in Psychology and five years of experience working in community mental health support. She writes about love, friendship, boundaries, and the emotional work of belonging — drawing on both academic grounding and the hard-won perspective that comes from navigating her own relationship patterns, friendships, and personal growth in real time. Cassandra trained as a peer support facilitator and has spent years exploring attachment theory, interpersonal dynamics, and the psychology of connection. Her writing is shaped by a deep belief that most relationship struggles come not from failure, but from the absence of honest, accessible information about how human connection actually works.
