If you follow the happenings of the Trump administration as closely as I do, you’ve experienced the barrage of headlines and op-eds that resulted from the revelation that Vice President Mike Pence retains a personal policy for working with women: not working with them at all.

Apparently, the Vice President of the United States decided, in an effort to supposedly respect his wife, that he should never be alone with a woman, for fear that sexual attraction will come into play in the relationship.

Before we start analyzing the complexities of this idea, it’s important that I make one thing clear. Yes, I understand, and know, that many conservative politicians follow this same standard. To the question I keep seeing asked of the dissenters, that question of “what did you expect?” I say a lot more. I refuse to stop expecting better of this administration. Accepting that Pence will never hold women as persons of value outside their childbearing capabilities is to accept his beliefs as a manifestation of the norm, which is something I refuse to do. Mike Pence is not the Governor of Indiana. He is not a small town politician. He is not a political operative. While I would hope that in all of these positions he would value women, we simply know this wasn’t true. He is Vice President of the United States. Not of conservatives. Not of Christians. Not of men, but of the entirety of the United States and all of the people it holds within it. I will continue to hold him to the standards that I as an American expect of the office, and though I expect he will continue to fail, I will do so anyway.

First of all, this idea that he would never interact privately with a woman because of respect to his wife means that the relationship is supposedly inherently rooted in sexual attraction. Of course, I as an individual who knows that heterosexual relationships are not the only relationships to be had, recognize that this idea is so heteronormative that it simply does not hold true. As Mike Pence has a long history of opposing the LGBTQ community and actively working against its interests, we can come to the conclusion that Mike Pence knows gay people exist. At the very least, this we know to be true. Which means that Pence operates his life in such a way that encountering an actual gay person is unimaginable. Pence doesn’t have to extend this policy to gay men because it simply wouldn’t happen. The Vice President of the United States doesn’t even have the capability to be social with or ever expect to be social with a gay person. The Vice President of the United States. The Vice President of the United States. While I never thought this administration would be at the forefront of LGBTQ representation within its employment, it’s still significant to note that Pence doesn’t even consider the employment of a gay man to be a possibility within his understanding of his job and office. It is also cisnormative, but I can’t even wrap my head around the levels of thought process I would have to walk Mike Pence through to get to that point of understanding, but I think we can all agree that most of Pence’s ideas on gender are transphobic.

Now moving onto professional women, Pence’s argument also speaks to the way that women operate professionally around him. Pence has the option to never be alone with or work alone with a woman. He has the choice not to. And he doesn’t foresee a circumstance where he wouldn’t be able to make that choice. This is because Pence never considers or has to consider the idea that a woman could have a position of power over him. He has the option to opt out of these conversations and meetings because he holds the position of power within the workplace as a man and doesn’t see that changing. Let’s flip his idea on its head. There’s a reason you don’t see female politicians walking around saying they don’t hold meetings with men out of respect for their husbands. Why? Because that would destroy their careers. It’s simply not possible. On principle, Pence would still carry out this personal doctrine were he not a politician. In an average office, the idea of a woman being able to opt out of meetings with men would be opting out of meetings with her superiors or considering the already precarious position of a woman in the workplace, render her unhireable rather than a good wife. This distinction means that Mike Pence has never experienced this dynamic of being under the supervision or power of a woman in the workplace, evidenced by his ability to unequivocally practice this doctrine.

Now, this story sprouted from an article written about Pence’s wife, Karen Sue Pence, in which the Washington Post described her as her husband’s “gut check and shield.” The entire article paints a picture of the couple’s intensely close relationship. Even though the Second Lady has remarked in the past that she does not weigh in on policy, her friends and family have also described her as instrumental to her husband’s fundamental Christian values and “moral questions,” which I would argue are pretty central to policy, especially his problematic social conservatism. This profile, along with similar ones written in the last year or so about President Trump’s daughter Ivanka, seem to follow this line of thinking: This administration really values the input of women. Which, of course, is a false one. The trend seems to be not that the POTUS and VPOTUS value the input of a woman, but bringing a woman they are related to and therefore experiences a position of power through them, not through her own right. It is not inherently wrong that Trump and Pence value the insights of their wives and daughters, it’s that they value only theirs. The idea of seeking the insight of women who have experience, training, and qualification is not possible when you do not hire women, which as we’ve seen, this administration does not consider a necessity. It’s not an advancement for women to have Karen Pence and Ivanka Trump in the room where it all happens, it’s just further proof that for women opportunity is reserved for white women with a birthright.

Beyond this, why would Pence ever hire a woman? Per his own policy, he would never be able to have lunch with that woman or have a close working relationship with that woman. He would never be able to mentor that woman. He would never be able to venture beyond the bare minimum of interaction between two colleagues, which I would argue isn’t even possible within the dictates of Pence’s policy. This is Washington. If we ordinary schmucks understand anything about the political sphere, it’s that wheeling and dealing does not happen on the floor of the House but at bars, restaurants, and social settings. Following his policy means that women would invariably excluded from this sphere, how would Pence ever hire a chief of staff or senior adviser who was a woman? This policy shows that Pence is not uniquely worried about this situation, because as I asserted before, it’s simply not an idea that Pence entertains.

And at the heart of this very complex political and social problem, Pence simply couldn’t be friends with a woman. While this may seem like the most trivial of arguments, I think it’s enormously important. His policy reinforces the idea that women are only good for men in the ways they can be attractive wives and mothers. Their intellectual capabilities are not considered. The only thing Mike Pence considers relevant about a woman is his sexual attraction to said woman and the subsequent problems that could present within his own marriage, which I think any average middle schooler could discern as a lack of trust rather than an exhibition of his supposedly exemplary husbandly qualities. Pence would not be able to have a conversation with a woman about anything, which as a representative of the people of the United States, is not only unfair to the women who might have to work with him but also glaringly unfair to half the population of the country he governs.

I’m inevitably going to get pushback along the lines of “this distracts us from the real issues.” But this is a real issue. Pence is already well on his way to his goal of anti-choice legislation and separation of gender spheres. While he’s doing all of these things that will inevitably hurt women, it’s important to understand that he is doing this not only without the consultation of women, but with the understanding that he doesn’t care about the intellectual and economic worth of women, in fact he doesn’t believe it exists. The empowerment of women scares him because it resists the very structure that put him into power.

He is doing everything in his power to take away the agency of woman because it is in his self-interest to do so. To which I say, bring it on.