I just spent twenty minutes researching the background of Zohran Mamdani (very likely the next mayor of New York City)’s wife, artist Rama Duwaji. I saw a comic that was either by a conservative or someone making fun of conservative (too hard to discern the difference) that was a concentration camp run by dominatrices, and the caption read, “this is the future liberals want.” The person who posted the comic wrote: “These are the camps that Zohran’s wife is going to run in NYC now.”

I’m not going to share either the tweet or the image because I’m not going to try to sort out that shit. Here’s what interested me, though. How did anyone get to Duwaji as a dominatrix, joking or no? Here are the facts:

• Duwaji has not been particularly involved in Mamdani’s campaign, leading some folks to wonder whether she was real or not.
• Mamdani posted some pics of their wedding, I guess to prove that she’s real.
• Duwaji is an artist, who has depicted work around the children starving in Gaza, the deaths of Yemeni women, and American imperialism.
• I can’t find any information connecting her to BDSM or being a dominatrix.

Duwaji is not a Lady Macbeth-style political wife… and considering the beating Hilary Clinton took for exactly that mien, this seems like a good thing. (By the way, I’m not talking about Clinton today; her politics are basically conservative, and I am not fan, though I despise the misogyny that was leveled at her during her campaign.) Duwaji and Mamdani seem politically aligned, a great sign for their partnership, but she doesn’t seem to be in charge of anything, campaign-wise. How did she get to be in charge of liberal-desired BDSM concentration camps?

My theory: she wore boots to her wedding. I think it’s that simple. But culturally, it’s a bit more than that, of course. It’s a complicated and ultimately tragic kind of misogyny, too. Duwaji is exactly the kind of feminist most disconnected from conservatism; she’s not involved in or controlling her partner’s work. She’s out there doing her own work. And for many men, that’s a nightmare.

Now, I’m just getting to my personal life experience, so there will be no citations here. Based on my anecdotal evidence, I think many straight cis-men want women (generally wives) to tell them what to do. They want to be told what the chores are and exactly what needs to be done at home, so they don’t have to figure anything out themselves but do get to feel like an excellent husband and provider. They want to be told what to do socially as well; there is a reason men struggle to form their own friendships and relationships outside of their partners and the male loneliness epidemic.

So, seeing Duwaji focus on her own art and NOT tell Mamdani what to do is disconcerting. I mean, he’s having to do this whole political campaign, even the social parts, on his own. Dang.

So yeah, dominatrices running some kind of “work” camp for poor men IS the future liberals AND conservatives want; our current American neoliberals are much more conservative than they are progressive (I’ll not be taking questions). They imagine women as so centered around the lives of men that it is both their personal and professional calling. Do they find that titillating? Probably. And sure, many men might think they want the women to do all of this management while barefoot and pregnant, rather than shod in dominatrix boots, but it’s not terribly different, is it?

For those of us who imagine a more progressive future, women certainly might be dominatrices. Cool. Great. Get paid, friend! Also, if it’s your thing, have a great time, friend! But also, women can be quiet artists with their own thoughts, feelings, and internal lives. Women can live whole lives without telling a single man what to do with his evening.

And that’s the future I want.