Source: Time
If 2016 was going to be a Battle of the Sexes, everyone thought Hillary Clinton would be the main combatant. She’s the first woman to win a major-party presidential nomination, after all.
But nothing has gone as expected in 2016: Trump, not Clinton, has made this cycle the most gendered presidential election in history. For all the historical significance of a woman taking a shot at the White House, the Republican nominee has made more headlines running as a man than Hillary Clinton has running has a woman.
The leak of a tape Friday in which Trump boasts in vulgar language about sexually assaulting women and attempting to have sex with a married woman were just the latest and most extreme examples of Trump’s alpha male campaign.
After Fox News journalist Megyn Kelly asked him a tough question at a primary debate about his treatment of women, Trump said he had “no respect for her as a journalist” and said she had “blood coming out of her nose, blood coming out of her wherever.” He also called her a “bimbo” on Twitter and alluded to an old interview in which she discussed her sex life. He called Hillary Clinton “disgusting” for taking a bathroom break (the same word he once used to describe a female lawyer who once requested a break to pump milk) and said she“got schlonged” by Barack Obama in the 2008 primary race. He slammed GOP primary opponent Carly Fiorina for her appearance, saying “look at that face, would anybody vote for that?” He retweeted a crude meme that suggested Ted Cruz’s wife Heidi Cruz was less attractive than Melania and also retweeted an insinuation that Jeb Bush is sympathetic to illegal immigrants because his wife is of Mexican ancestry (he later deleted this tweet.)
He defended his then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he was charged with simple battery assaulting a female reporter at a rally, and said he was not going to “destroy a man for that.” (The charges were later dropped.) He has demeaned several major female political figure in the U.S. today, from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (who he has called “Pocahontas”) to Fed Chair Janet Yellen (who he has said is keeping interest rates low at the behest of President Obama) to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (who he called “dumb” after she criticized him) to Attorney General Loretta Lynch (who he said musthave been bribed by Clinton). He tried to discredit vocal critic Alicia Machado (the former Miss Universe he called “Miss Piggy”) by calling attention to a nonexistent sex tape. He accused Hillary Clinton of “playing the ‘woman card’” and has said she doesn’t have “a presidential look” or the “stamina” to be Commander in Chief, and questioned her sexual fidelity to her husband, with zero evidence. He interrupted her at least 55 times during the first presidential debate, often rudely.
Categories: America, gender, The Muslim Times, USA