This monster
President Trump referred to California Sen. Kamala Harris as “this monster” in an interview on Thursday, a continuation of his pattern of attacking Black women with demeaning insults. The president has previously reserved the term “monster” for terrorists, murders and major natural disasters.
…In a telephone interview on Thursday morning on the Fox Business Channel, Trump referred to Harris as “this monster that was onstage with Mike Pence, who destroyed her last night, by the way.”
“I thought that wasn’t even a contest last night. She was terrible. I don’t think you could get worse,” he added. “And totally unlikeable. And she is.”
Uh huh. And what is “unlikeable” code for? Ball-busting bitch, aka woman who talks and acts like an adult rather than a simpering seductive fantasy-girl.
Speaking to reporters in Arizona, Harris declined to comment, other than to call Trump’s remarks “childish.” But Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden did respond, calling the comments “despicable” and “so beneath the office of the presidency.”
“It’s obvious he has great difficulty dealing with strong women, great difficulty,” Biden added, as he praised Harris’ debate performance.
No kidding. He’s so unnerved by Angela Merkel that he threw candies at her.
The president has a history of ridiculing and denigrating political opponents, often by the use of nicknames. But when speaking about women and particularly women of color, Trump’s comments take on a different tone.
…
Last year, the president said that Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts should “go back” to the countries they came from. He has called Rep. Maxine Waters of California a “low-IQ individual.” He has clashed with female reporters of color and called a former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman “that dog” and a “crazed, crying lowlife.”
Mister Likability knows what he likes.
Amanda Hunter, research and communications director at the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, said these types of gendered attacks are often directed toward female candidates because it calls their likeability into question.
“We know from our research that likeability is a non-negotiable for women candidates — voters say they will not vote for a woman they do not like, but they will vote for a man they do not like,” Hunter said.
The challenge there, though, is that voters often have trouble explaining what being “likeable” means to them. And the notion itself is ri[f]e with gendered expectations.
Tell me about it.
Women mustn’t be decisive, argumentative, knowledgeable, assertive. That’s not Womany, therefore it’s not Nice. Women are supposed to be deferential, hesitant, warm, supportive. Hillary Clinton comes across as knowing what she’s talking about, which is good in a man but terrifying in a woman.
“She’s not allowed to do what Joe Biden did on the debate stage and tell Donald Trump to shut up,” Shropshire said.
…
“Imagine if she had,” Shropshire said of Harris. “The ridiculousness that we would have seen, not only from the Republican Party, but others as well. They would have declared that she was hysterical, that she was rude. It would have come from all sectors.”
Damned if you do damned if you don’t.
Yep. The strait-jacket of femininity. We’re to blame for being paid less, too, apparently. Because we don’t ask for a pay rise. Never mind that any woman who does ask has just gained the reputation of a greedy, grasping witch who doesn’t deserve a pay rise. Women can now be anything we want to be! Provided we remain subservient and purely decorative, that is.
tigger, the women where I work got that reputation just for asking that they be paid for the hours they are required to work during their unpaid summer. Our salaries are for 9 months; we do not get paid for our “vacation”. Yet all of us were working, sometimes full-time shifts, this summer because of things the administration did in such a way that they could only be done during the summer. And refused to consider paying us. So we are “money-hungry”.
Women who are feminine, who do the gender performance perfectly, will be told they are too “soft” to be president. They get us either way.
But but but she… made faces. And a few times she even smirked.
Damn, iknklast, that’s slavery!
Any time a woman dares to raise her head and show that she’s an individual, and not just an indistinguishable part of the half of humanity which isn’t really human, she gets stamped on pour encourager les autres.
Yeah, tigger, exactly. What I can’t figure out is – where is the union in all this? What happened to them?