As election day looms, I know I'm not the only American woman biting her fingernails. We all care about who the next president will be, but for women the race is particularly anxiety-inducing. The difference between President Barack Obama and governor Mitt Romney on issues of gender can be measured in decades, the latter candidate barely masking his desire to take women back to the 1950s.

We already know what an Obama presidency will look like for gender issues. Women appointed at the highest levels of office, from the supreme court to the state department, expanded access to birth control and healthcare and protections against workplace inequities.

Unfortunately, we have a pretty good idea of what a Romney presidency will be like for us as well. The former governor of Massachusetts has said he would remove Planned Parenthood's funding and overturn the supreme court case that legalised abortion. His stance on pay equity – make sure women can get home in time to cook dinner for their families. This is to say nothing of marriage equality, help for low-income Americans, or gender roles (Romney says one parent should stay at home with children – not hard to imagine which one he means).

It's not hyperbole to say that women's lives hang in the balance. Romney has promised to reinstate the "global gag rule" – a ban on federal funds to foreign family planning organisations that either offer abortions or provide information or counselling about abortion. Global health experts have cited it contributing to maternal mortality across the world. If abortion is made illegal – a very real possibility under a Romney administration – women will seek out the procedure through unsafe means. And if Obamacare is repealed, that means we're stuck with a president who thinks no American has died for lack of insurance (a Harvard study says 45,000 people a year do).

But it's more than women's current rights and lives that are on the line – the future of feminism is also at stake. Thanks to a never-ending Republican backlash against women's political and cultural gains – from workplace strides to reproductive health – American feminists have had their hands full. We're so busy trying to hold on to the rights we already have that any sort of push for forward-thinking policy and change has been out of the question.

How can we even think about what a feminist future might look like when we have male legislators who believe women can't get pregnant if they are "legitimately" raped, or if they do become pregnant that it was the will of God? We're still dealing with Biology 101 over here. Our lawmakers believe birth control turns women into sluts, that invasive transvaginal ultrasounds are no big deal – "Just close your eyes," Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett said – and that women's lives matter so little that it's alright to tell hospitals to let us die rather than provide abortions.That's not to say that Romney hasn't been working hard to woo women's votes anyway. But the Republican "pro-woman" rhetoric has largely comprised damage control and obfuscation. His campaign keeps repeating that women don't care about birth control, abortion rights, and reproductive health – that women are concerned about the "real" issues, like the economy. The fact that women's financial security is intimately connected to the ability to decide if and when to have children seems to be lost on them. They also don't seem to realise that American women don't like men telling us what we do and don't believe in – we can decide for ourselves.

How women are actually likely to vote has been widely projected. An Associated Press poll showed that the gender gap had disappeared, but later numbers – like an ABC News/Washington Post daily poll – showed Obama at a comfortable lead among women. The first polls showing the narrowing gender gap was probably a result of Obama's lukewarm performance in the first debate, yet Michael Dimock, the associate director of the Pew Research Centre, told the Huffington Post: "The entirety of polling over the course of this year suggests … that the gender gap is likely to look very similar to the last few election cycles, with women [likely] somewhere between six and eight points to favour Obama."

Obama has not been the perfect feminist president. When he stopped the Food and Drug Administration making Plan B – also known as the morning-after pil or emergency contraceptionl – available for young women under 17 without a prescription, I was livid. I don't always agree with his decisions and policies. But when it comes to who will be better for women – when I think about my two-year-old daughter and the world I want for her – the choice is clear.

I want women to be able to stop worrying about whether or not their hard-won rights will be stripped away. I want to know that my daughter will have the ability to control her body and reproductive future. And I want to know that feminists, who have been tirelessly holding on to our gains, will have some space to think about progressive change rather than just reactionary activism.

We should now be able to stop desperately fighting to hold ground and think about what American women need to move forward.