Sex, Power, and Control: Then and Now

While speaking with an academic friend the other day, they gave me a new book to read called Sex, Freedom, and Power in Imperial Germany 1880 -1914 by Edward Ross Dickinson.

I have been researching history to try to identify some of this current regime's motives and endgame. What do 19th-century German debates about prostitution have to do with Donald Trump’s political agenda today? More than you’d think. In both Imperial Germany and MAGA-era America, political power has been exercised through the regulation of sexuality and gender roles—particularly women’s bodies.

In Dickinson’s book, he talks about how the government in Germany at the time said it was regulating prostitution to protect public health. But really, it was about keeping men in control. Men were allowed to do what they wanted, while women were watched, judged, and punished. Feminists and socialists saw right through it—they knew it was unfair. It wasn’t just about what was “moral” or “immoral.” It was a way to keep women in their place and support a system where men and the state had all the power.

Today, we’re seeing something similar to what’s being planned in Project 2025. It’s a push to bring big changes to the U.S. government that would give people with strict religious views more power. They want to bring back old-fashioned ideas about how men and women should live, take away rights from LGBTQ+ people, and make it harder for women to make their own choices about their bodies. Just like in Imperial Germany, they’re using morality as a tool to control people and hold on to power. Once again, women’s freedom is at the center of the fight.

“It’s not just a story. It’s a warning.
From Imperial Germany to Trump’s America,
the same old playbook has been dusted off—
control women, punish freedom, call it morality.”

In both books, Sex, Freedom, and Power in Imperial Germany and The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, we’re looking at time periods when women had almost no rights. They couldn’t vote, hold power, or decide about their lives. In Imperial Germany, rules around sexuality and morality were used to keep women in their place. Prostitution was regulated not to help women but to protect male privilege. Feminists and socialists saw how unfair it was—men were allowed to misbehave, but women were punished for surviving. The message was clear: morality was not about ethics. It was about control and power.

We’re seeing echoes of that same thinking today. Project 2025, driven by Christian nationalist ideas, pushes for strict gender roles, limits on LGBTQ+ rights, and more control over women’s bodies. It uses the language of "family values" to disguise something much deeper—an attempt to bring back a time when women and minorities were silent, obedient, and invisible. Just like over a century ago, morality is being used as a tool of power. And once again, women’s freedom is on the front lines.

What makes this even more concerning is how well it lines up with the early days of the Nazi regime. In The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, we see how the Nazis used similar tactics: praising motherhood, pushing women out of public life, and targeting anyone who didn’t fit their narrow moral code. It didn’t start with violence—it started with ideas. Ideas about purity, order, and tradition. The danger wasn’t just the policies. It was how ordinary people accepted less freedom as long as it was framed as "the right thing to do."

That’s why this history matters. These aren’t just old stories. They’re warnings. When we look back, we see a pattern: when people in power talk about morality, they’re often talking about control. And when they start controlling women, the rest of society is never far behind. Knowing this gives us the tools to speak up, push back, and protect the freedom that so many before us never had.

Because the fight for women’s rights has never just been about women—it’s been about whether any of us get to live free.

We promised ourselves we’d never repeat the mistakes of the past, yet here we are, watching them unfold in plain sight. The question isn’t whether history is repeating itself—it’s whether we have the courage to stop it this time. The warning signs are flashing, just like they did before. If we don’t act now, the loss won’t just belong to women—it will belong to all of us.

While Germany is often the focus of these kinds of warnings, it’s not the only place where morality has been used to control people. Britain, the United States, and many other countries have followed the same patterns—using laws and social pressure to silence women, punish the vulnerable, and protect power. Germany stands out because the steps were so well documented and the consequences so extreme, but the truth is, this is a global pattern. And we’re still living in it.