Trump’s war on Tylenol is also very much a war on women | Arwa Mahdawi

Trust-fund-Trump wants women to “tough it out”

Donald Trump is a man with no medical training. However, that’s never stopped the very stable genius from inflicting his unhinged health views on the rest of us, has it? Back in 2020, for example, Trump memorably mused that injecting disinfectant could help fight the coronavirus – which forced the maker of Dettol and Lysol to put out an urgent statement explaining that this was a very bad idea.

Now the president, who once vowed to be a protector of women “whether they like it or not”, has turned his attention to prenatal care. “Taking Tylenol is, uhhhh, not good,” Trump said on Monday, with his trademark eloquence. He was flanked by health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, the guy who told Congress this year that “people shouldn’t take medical advice from me”.

Trump went on to link autism to prenatal exposure to acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol. If you’re feeling poorly while pregnant you should “fight like hell” not to take Tylenol to relieve your pain, the president instructed. Which basically means suffering instead: ibuprofen, for instance, is generally not recommended after week 20 of pregnancy.

“If you can’t tough it out, if you can’t do it, that’s what you’d have to do,” Trump continued. “You’ll take a Tylenol, but it’ll be very sparingly. Can be something that’s very dangerous to the woman’s health, in other words, a fever that’s very, very dangerous, and ideally, a doctor’s decision, because I think you shouldn’t take it and you shouldn’t take it during the entire pregnancy.”

Like everything Trump says, this incoherent quote makes zero sense. But the bottom line here is that the Trump administration is advancing wildly irresponsible guidance. There is no evidence for a causative link between acetaminophen and autism and many experts were aghast at Trump’s statements. Indeed, even the moral vacuum that is JD Vance balked at repeating Trump’s advice, instead urging women to lean on their doctors. And while Trump claimed that there is “no downside” in avoiding Tylenol, an untreated fever during pregnancy could cause problems for the baby.

Trump’s demand that pregnant women “tough it out” is also deeply misogynistic and a reminder of how women’s pain is often misunderstood or ignored. Numerous studies show that the medical establishment takes men’s pain more seriously. A 2022 study from the Journal of the American Heart Association, for example, found that women who visited emergency departments with chest pain waited 29% longer than men to be evaluated.

This sudden Tylenol scare is also yet another example of mom-shaming. “ We really have a long history of blaming mothers in this country, and we’re seeing that reinforced through the narratives around autism’s causes right now,” Martine Lappé, a sociology professor, told NPR.

Women are shamed for not getting pregnant or waiting “too long” to get pregnant. They’re shamed (and, increasingly, criminalized) for losing a pregnancy. They’re shamed for everything from the size of their baby bump to what they eat while they’re pregnant. They’re called out for exercising while expecting – or not exercising enough. And if they give birth to a baby that isn’t able-bodied or neurotypical, women are often told it’s probably because of something they did. It’s their fault.

While pregnant women are often treated like public property, expectant fathers are not treated with the same scrutiny. About 15% of couples in the US have trouble conceiving, and, by one count, over 50% of the time a male infertility issue contributes. Yet women are traditionally blamed. Indeed back in the 1940s researchers even posited that women’s unconscious hatred of their husbands was what stopped them from conceiving. We’ve moved on from that a bit, but infertility is still widely thought of as a woman’s problem.

Studies have also found a link between advanced paternal age and autism. But does society constantly shame men for having kids later in life? Of course not. When a 59-year-old Trump fathered Barron, he crowed to the press about his virility. “I continue to stay young, right? I produce children, I stay young,” said Trump at the time.

No doubt there are numerous things motivating this sudden Trump administration obsession with Tylenol, including a need to distract people from those pesky Epstein files. However, a concern for women’s health is absolutely not at the heart of it. Rather, this is yet another way to control women; another way to reduce us to walking wombs rather than multidimensional human beings. This war on Tylenol is also very much a war on women. Now, if only there was a pill we could take to help deal with this Maga-induced malaise. As it is, we are all just going to have to tough it out.

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What do you call a bear in winter? A brrrrr! OK, OK, I apologize profusely for that and offer this link to the Fat Bear Week tournament to make it up to you. The fur-midable challenge, run by a national park in Alaska, is meant to find the bear that “exemplifies fatness and success” best, as the animals ready themselves for hibernation. It’s a little bit of cuteness amid an unbearable news week.

• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist