Opinion | JD Vance tried to mansplain his way into the good graces of women. It didn’t work.

Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance arguably had one job going into Tuesday night’s debate: convince the American public that he, and his party, don’t hate women.

Even with that painfully low bar, I’d say he failed to do the job. The once anti-Trump senator did wear a pink tie, but did not face up to his past comments about menopausal women, “childless cat ladies” and a historically low favorability rate. Instead, he used most of his allotted speaking time to mansplain his views to the two women who were moderating, women who vote, and even his own wife.

During a question on immigration, Vance tried to talk over CBS moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, after he regurgitated dangerous lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio. To Vance’s dismay, Brennan reminded the audience that the immigrants in Springfield are there legally. 

“The rules that you were not going to fact-check,” Vance quipped, referring to CBS’ statement that it would leave it to Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to fact check each other during the debate. “And since you’re fact checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.” 

Vance talked over and interrupted both O’Donnell and Brennan as they tried to move forward with the debate.

“Thank you, senator, for describing the legal process,” Brennan said, before the network then muted Vance’s mic. 

“The audience can’t hear you because your mics are cut,” Brennan said. “We have so much we want to get into. Thank you for explaining the legal process,” she added, in a tone every woman sitting in a cubicle, boardroom or classroom knows deep in her bones.

Unlike his windmill-, shark– and Hannibal Lecter-obsessed running mate, Vance deftly wields a very specific type of misogyny that, while far less obvious, is just as insidious — one that can come off as empathic, but is undeniably condescending as it normalizes the most draconian right-wing policies. 

One example of this was Vance consistently referring to Brennan — a woman he does not personally know — by her first name rather than addressing her appropriately. The slight-of-hand misogynistic move may have been Vance’s attempt to appear likable and down-to-earth, but many viewers saw it differently: condescending, patronizing and rude. 

Vance himself admitted that the Republican Party has a problem when it comes to women’s trust. He reminded women watching Tuesday that they do not trust Republicans when it comes to abortion and the human right to bodily autonomy — yet failed to explain how he, his running mate and his fellow party members plan to address the problem.

“We’ve got to do so much better of a job at earning the American people’s trust back on this issue where they, frankly, just don’t trust us,” Vance said, before claiming that is “one of the things that Donald Trump and I are endeavoring to do.” 

To demonstrate his party’s commitment to earning that end, Vance lied about not supporting a nationwide abortion ban, the realities of abortion care later in pregnancy, and Minnesota’s PRO Act, signed by his opponent, Gov. Tim Walz. Because nothing says “trust me, I know what’s best for you” like holding an impromptu masterclass on gaslighting. 

While Vance was able to appear far more level-headed than Trump in his fateful debate performance against Vice President Kamala Harris last month, it was Vance’s faux praise of his wife while discussing the necessity of child care that truly embodied his very specific type of mansplaining and misogyny. 

“I speak from this very personally because I’m married to a beautiful woman who is an incredible mother to our three beautiful kids, but is also a very, very brilliant corporate litigator, and I’m so proud of her,” Vance began. “But being a working mom, even for somebody with all of the advantages of my wife, is extraordinarily difficult.” 

It’s telling, when a man publicly laments the challenges his working wife faces, yet doesn’t seem to face those same challenges as a working father. While appearing to appreciate all his wife does, Vance still chose to mansplain how hard it is to work outside the home while managing the majority of child care and household responsibilities without structural support — the exact structural support Republicans have historically opposed. 

For his bropropriating coup de grâce, Vance then pontificated on the importance of giving a “family care model that makes choice possible.” 

“The cultural pressure on young families, and especially young women, I think, makes it really hard for people to choose the family model they want,” Vance said, ignoring how anti-abortion laws make it difficult, dangerous and in some cases impossible for women to choose when and how to start creating a “family model” in the first place. 

Overall, it’s true that during Tuesday’s debate Vance succeeded in portraying himself as a level-headed, somewhat ordinary politician (if the definition of “ordinary” is calmly discussing the largest mass deportation effort in U.S. history). But that is perhaps what makes Vance far more Machiavellian than Trump even. And it’s what should put us all on high alert as we prepare to head to the polls in November.