RFK Jr.'s Tylenol attack insults women's intelligence

RFK Jr.’s Tylenol attack insults women’s intelligence
Kennedy's tactics are straight out of the anti-abortion movement's playbook

By Amanda Marcotte
Senior Writer
Published September 29, 2025 6:45AM (EDT)


(Salon) Even for President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., it was a shocking press conference. Last week’s announcement was supposed to be about how these two science-haters had somehow discovered the cause of autism — spoiler: they didn’t — but really, the main theme of the day was that women are lazy, spoiled brats who need to be disciplined by two men who have faced accusations of chronic adultery and sexual assault. After falsely blaming autism on women who take Tylenol while pregnant, Trump insisted that women should “tough it out” rather than take the pills, which are the only over-the-counter pain relievers doctors believe are safe during pregnancy.

But as gross as that was, Kennedy still offered the most vile comment during the event, when he appeared to casually mock victims of sexual abuse. “Some of our friends like to say we should believe all women,” he said, before insisting that the “friends” he mentioned must be hypocrites because they don’t believe women who falsely claim vaccines cause autism.

Kennedy, of course, was referencing the slogan “believe women,” which advocates for victims of sexual violence crafted to reflect the studies that show over 90% of rape allegations are true. “Believe all women,” in contrast, is a sarcastic phrase typically deployed by rape apologists to falsely suggest that feminists want men to be imprisoned without evidence.

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But Kennedy did not invent this schtick of trying to rebrand misogyny as feminism through trolling and feigning “concern” for women and children’s safety. His tactics owe a lot to the anti-abortion movement, which spent decades repackaging their efforts to destroy women’s rights as a crusade to “protect” them from supposedly evil doctors eager to inflict abortions on them. The Christian right used fake science — and even faker “concern” for women — to restrict access to abortion, and then used those lies to end abortion rights altogether. Kennedy has now adopted the same techniques not only for his anti-vaccine crusade, but also to attack health care that is vital for pregnant women. ..................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/09/29/rfk-jr-s-tylenol-attack-insults-womens-intelligence/