Are You Really Surprised Some Leftist Men Hate AOC?

It was just a matter of time before a subset of the men in the online left turned on the progressive movement’s most visible woman

Andrea González-Ramírez
GEN

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez campaigns on June 23, 2020 in the Bronx borough of New York City. Photo: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez doesn’t owe anyone her story, and yet she talked on an Instagram Live on Monday about her experience as a sexual assault survivor, explaining how the trauma resurfaced during the U.S. Capitol insurrection. Her honesty and vulnerability when discussing her own trauma and how she feared for her life resonated with colleagues and constituents alike — unless you belong to a mostly male-dominated subsection of the online left.

To certain leftists, Ocasio-Cortez’s Instagram Live was evidence that she’s in fact a “sociopathic imperialist politician” with “shitty politics,” someone who had just given a “masterclass in emotional manipulation” and who seemed to think she was “special” because she received death threats. The venomous backlash is hardly surprising, given the growing chorus of voices that began turning on her shortly after she entered Congress. To her detractors on the left, AOC was the supposed socialist savior, a woman who was somehow going to upend the whole system; they now view her as a sellout and con artist, the latest in a long line of female tricksters who seduced their way…

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Andrea González-Ramírez
GEN
Writer for

Award-winning Puerto Rican journalist. Senior Writer at New York Magazine’s The Cut. Formerly GEN, Refinery29, and more. Read my work: https://www.thecut.com/