Donald Trump likes to say he "cherishes" women, but as with plenty of things he says, it’s a load of hot air. He has said pregnant women are an "inconvenience"; he told a nursing mother she’s “disgusting”; he recently called for a mother and her baby to be ejected from his rally because he does not "love having a baby crying" while he's speaking; and he has repeatedly launched sexist attacks on women who don’t agree with him, calling them names like “fat pigs” and “dogs.”
When it comes to how he would run the government if elected, it's clear Trump doesn't think women have any role to play in his administration. Asked to name women he would appoint to his cabinet, Trump couldn't think of any — except for his daughter Ivanka.
SAVAGE: … I wanna know … who you would actually put into office as one of your first female in your cabinet?”
TRUMP: Well, we have so many different ones to choose. I can tell you everybody would say, “Put Ivanka in, put Ivanka in.” You know that, right? She’s very popular, she’s done very well, and you know Ivanka very well.
And as for Trump’s newly formed economic advisory panel? It has 13 men and zero women. Zero. Does Trump really believe there are no women in America with "unparalleled experience and success" who can advise him on economic policies?
Maybe he thinks all women should be at home making dinner. He once said that “putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing” because it’s such an inconvenience for husbands like Trump.
“And then I have days where, if I come home — and I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist — but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof."
It’s clear Trump doesn’t know or care about women’s lives and their experiences. Trump’s stubborn ignorance and blatant sexism is dangerous and would have real consequences for women and their families if Trump were elected. He wouldn’t be fighting for policies that would make women’s lives better — like protected and expanded access to health care, equal pay for equal work, and stronger protection against sexual harassment.
No wonder Trump said women who are sexually harassed can look for “a better alternative,” but if they can’t find one — as is often the case — they should just stay where they are. Which is not a solution to the problem of sexual harassment. Even his own daughter wrote about being sexually harassed on the job when she was younger, but Trump recently stated that if Ivanka ever experienced sexual harassment, he “would like to think she would find another career or find another company.” That’s a luxury many women who face sexual harassment do not have.
It’s clear Trump doesn’t take the very real issue of sexual harassment very seriously. When former Fox News head Roger Ailes was accused of sexual harassment by more than 20 women, Trump suggested that they’re not telling the truth because he knows “how much [Ailes] helped them … And now all of a sudden they're saying these horrible things about him.” So according to Trump, if a woman succeeds at her job and does not leave the company, there is no way allegations of sexual harassment can be true. Does that mean Trump thinks his own daughter lied about the harassment she experienced too?
The Trump campaign said, before he had chosen Mike Pence, that Trump’s vice president “would be in charge” of domestic policy, and we know the kinds of anti-woman policies Pence has fought for as a member of Congress and as Indiana’s governor: blocking access to basic health care like cancer screening, STI testing and treatment, and birth control at Planned Parenthood; trying to ban safe, legal abortions; and pushing through abortion restrictions that are so cruel and extreme even Pence’s fellow Republicans in Indiana objected to them.
Trump doesn’t want to hear from women. He doesn’t even want to hear their babies. He doesn’t think women’s voices are important, and he doesn’t understand or care about their experiences.
If there’s no place for mothers and babies at Donald Trump’s rallies, and in his cabinet, and in the workplace, what kind of place would there be for women in Donald Trump’s America?
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Tags: Donald Trump, Election 2016
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