The impact of the Arizona government’s authoritarian neoliberal policies is being felt across all areas of society. The planned and already implemented attacks on social rights will structurally reinforce patriarchal and heteronormative power relations. By dismantling social protection and weakening collective services, the government is making material autonomy more difficult for a large part of the population – and disproportionately more difficult for women, queer people and LGBTQI+ people.
When social rights are eroded, dependency becomes the norm. Due to reduced access to affordable housing, childcare, healthcare, income security and public services, more and more people are reliant on their families as a ‘safety net’. In a society organised along strongly patriarchal lines, this means in practice greater economic and social dependence on men, and thus a restriction on the real freedom to leave relationships characterised by violence, abuse or control.
Economic dependence is a power dynamic. European figures show that many thousands of women suffer from economic control: partners who forbid them from working, confiscate their earnings or monitor every expenditure. This is not a ‘relationship conflict’, but economic blackmail. Anyone without their own income, without access to savings, without the right to a proper social safety net, is trapped in a violent power structure.
The fact that only a small minority of victims report the abuse is not a matter of individual courage, but of material chances of survival. Filing a complaint means taking a risk: losing one’s home, losing one’s income, ending up in poverty. Victims ask themselves: can I afford to be safe? When the answer is ‘no’, the perpetrator wins. Economic insecurity is therefore a tool that perpetuates violence.
In Belgium, 3 in 10 women experience partner violence at some point in their lives. We are therefore not talking about an exception but about a structural problem. Those who, like the Arizona government, limit the duration of benefits, reduce access to social housing, increase labour market flexibility and erode pension rights, are not pursuing a neutral or responsible budgetary policy. It is a question of class politics that replicates patriarchal power relations.
The return of care work to the private sphere
All social sectors – care, education, social services and healthcare – sectors with a high proportion of female workers – are facing cutbacks and a deterioration in working conditions. More is being demanded, with fewer resources, whilst this work, which is essential to society, is being devalued socially and economically.
The dismantling of the welfare state is leading to a massive shift of care work from the public to the private sphere. Tasks that used to be organised collectively – caring for children, the sick, the elderly or those in need – are increasingly being taken on within the family. In practice, these care responsibilities fall overwhelmingly on women’s shoulders. This reinforces a deeply patriarchal division of labour: men as breadwinners, women as carers. This dynamic traps women in fragmented careers, lower incomes and ongoing economic dependence.
The heteronormative model as an ideological anchor
In parallel to this anti-social offensive, we are seeing a reinforcement of heteronormative standards in political discourse and policy choices. The implicit model of the ‘normal family’ – cisgender, heterosexual, often dual-income – serves as a tacit reference point for government policy. Anything that deviates from this is rendered invisible, marginalised or made more vulnerable.
For LGBTQIA+ people, this development is a particularly dangerous one. They are more frequently faced with family breakdowns, discrimination in the labour market, social isolation and mental health problems resulting from minority stress and violence. When public protection diminishes, these vulnerabilities quickly lead to material dependency or increased exposure to violence.
In Belgium, too, transphobia and queerphobia are permeating political and media debate, with concrete consequences for the lives of those concerned. In August 2024, Deputy Prime Minister David Clarinval (MR) caused controversy by recommending the book Transmania on social media, a book labelled as transphobic by numerous LGBTQIA+ organisations and which portrays gender identity as a problematic “ideology”. Dominiek Sneppe of Vlaams Belang stated in 2019: “I think LGBT people getting married and having children is a bridge too far”. Vlaams Belang politician Filip Brusselmans described the media coverage of gender transition as a “surrender to the absurd”.
Trans and queer people report social contexts of rejection, insecurity and intimidation that are reinforced by public discourse. According to a recent study by the Institute for the Equality of Women and Men, trans and non-binary people still experience significant discrimination in daily life, and many feel that their right to exist and be recognised is increasingly being called into question. More than 80% of respondents reported having had negative experiences of discrimination. We are therefore talking about a structural problem — not an issue of identity sensitivity.
A government that cuts social protection, puts pressure on resources for equal opportunities policy and, at the same time, allows anti-gender rhetoric to become normalised in public debate, objectively reinforces the climate in which this discrimination thrives. Arizona is opting for a society in which vulnerable groups bear a greater risk. In a country where the vast majority of trans people already experience discrimination, less protection means increased exposure to violence, exclusion and self-censorship.
One of the first acts Trump signed after his inauguration on 20 January 2025 was an executive order instructing the federal government to define gender as an immutable biological binary classification (male and female). Federal agencies must henceforth use ‘sex’ instead of ‘gender’, and gender identity is no longer recognised as a basis for policy. All forms of self-determination allowing trans people to freely change their gender marker on official documents such as passports and visas have been discontinued. Access to government-funded facilities (such as single-sex prisons) based on gender identity has been prohibited.
In doing so, Trump is paving the way to roll back the limited but significant rights that had previously been secured. The Arizona government is following suit.
The right to abortion on ice: control over the body as an instrument of power
This government has made courses on war traumatology compulsory in medical schools and healthcare programmes. Yet it is unable to ensure that abortion techniques are taught on a large scale to increase access to abortion. Between war and women’s rights to control their own bodies, this government has made its choice.
The right to abortion is being put ‘on ice’ in Arizona. Although abortion was legalized within a strict framework, despite the important work of many activists and medical professionals, access in practice remains limited, unequal, and uncertain. The refusal to expand legislation, the partial enforcement of criminalization (for example, outside the 12 weeks following conception), and the lack of structural investment in accessible care demonstrate that reproductive autonomy is not a political priority.
Control over reproduction has always been a pillar of patriarchal power. By failing to fully recognise abortion as a legitimate form of healthcare and by maintaining moral, legal and material barriers to it, the state is effectively restricting the autonomy of women and people capable of becoming pregnant.
The consequences of this policy disproportionately affects working-class women, young people, undocumented migrants and those living in poverty. Those with financial means can turn to private clinics or seek care abroad. Others face waiting times, medical risks, stigmatisation or unwanted pregnancies.
From a welfare state to a racist and disciplinary state
To increase the wealth of a small elite, this government wants to drastically extend the total time people spend at work. Work is reduced to a mere means of value creation for employers, rather than a source of self-fulfilment or a contribution to a liveable society. Students and young people are being drawn into the paid labour market earlier and earlier: the normalisation of student jobs under poor conditions, often combined with studies and work placements, places enormous pressure on their free time and development.
Those on long-term sick leave or with a disability status are subjected to a constant obligation to return to work, regardless of their health. Those who ‘do not cooperate’ risk sanctions, loss of income or even exclusion from social support. At the same time, the working life of employees is being extended: retirement ages are being pushed back, careers extended and pensioners encouraged or obliged to work (part-time).
The result is a society in which people are exploited throughout their lives for the enrichment of a small elite, where personal development, well-being and independence are systematically subordinated to the production of surplus value.
As the welfare state is dismantled, the function of the state itself is also changing. The unemployed, people with long-term illness and those on benefits are no longer regarded as citizens with rights, but as individuals who must be corrected, activated or punished.
Social problems are redefined as individual failings. Poverty becomes a personal failure. Unemployment is portrayed as abuse of the system. Solidarity is replaced by control and sanctions. This is classic neoliberal rhetoric, but applied with increasingly authoritarian methods.
Repression does not always require truncheons. It operates through forms, administrative checks, sanctions, exclusions and constant uncertainty. It ensures a diffuse yet effective discipline, which encourages everyone towards self-discipline and submission.
Across all parties in Arizona, there is a growing fixation on migration and identity. Social problems are regularly presented as the result of a ‘cultural derailment’. This culture war is no coincidence: it is a deliberate strategy to divert attention from economic power relations.
Decades of racist propaganda – waged by the far right, but also by the so-called traditional parties – have deeply entrenched racist prejudices within society. This ideological foundation makes it possible to justify increasingly harsh policies towards the most vulnerable.
As the state increasingly becomes the bureaucratic and repressive arm of the capitalist class, it grows less and less tolerant of protest. Trade unions, social movements and critical media are regarded as obstacles. The government wants to weaken the role of trade unions and mutual societies and withdraw subsidies from critical NGOs.
In the United States, the violence of ICE is being used to normalise a generalised form of repression without democratic accountability. In the long run, this violence will be deployed against any form of opposition. Similarly, the brutal policies towards the sick and unemployed in Belgium – through the abolition of fundamental rights – are intended to normalise and trivialise bureaucratic and social violence.
As inequality increases and solidarity diminishes, social tensions rise. Arizona’s response is the normalisation of the security state. This is not a slip-up, but a systemic logic. Historically, repression has always been the flip side of social dismantling.