Category: Misogyny

Trump Defends 2013 Tweet About Allowing Women to Serve in the Military

Donald Trump on Wednesday defended a tweet that he posted three years ago that stated the estimated number of unreported sexual assaults in the military and then mused: “What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?”

“Well, it is, it is a correct tweet,” Trump said when asked about the tweet during NBC News’ Commander-in-Chief Forum in New York on Wednesday night. “There are many people that think that that’s absolutely correct … Well, well, it’s happening, right? And, by the way, since then, it’s gotten worse.”

NBC’s Matt Lauer, who led the forum, pushed Trump to better explain himself and asked if the Republican nominee thinks that the only way to end sexual assault in the military is to kick women out. (Sexual assault in the military is not just a problem for women, as that Pentagon has said that many assault cases involve men attacking other men.)

“No, not to take them out, but something has to be happen[ing],” Trump said. “Right now part of the problem is nobody gets prosecuted. You have reported — and the gentleman can tell you — you have the report of rape, and nobody gets prosecuted. There are no consequence[s]. When you have somebody that does something so evil, so bad as that, there has to be consequence[s] for that person. You have to go after that person. Right now, nobody’s doing anything. Look at the small number of results. I mean, that’s part of the problem.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Reality

First, from Trump’s statements he was clearly under the impression that we are dealing with only men raping women, and may believe the rape myths that men cannot be raped, and that women cannot be perpetrators.

Donald Trump’s answer never addressed the blatantly sexist overtones of his tweet, and instead called for more prosecutions. However this response also calls into question Trump’s understanding of a very nuanced issue.

According to Human Rights Watch, military personnel who report a sexual assault frequently find that their military career is the biggest casualty. This gives most victims of sexual assault no incentive or protections to come forward or with any recourse once they’ve been booted out of the armed forces.

Trump, however, has said women should be in the military because, “they’re really into it.”

Media

CNN

Trump Offends Some With Comment That Clinton Lacks ‘Presidential Look’

Donald Trump’s comment that Hillary Clinton doesn’t have “a presidential look” is seen by some as the Republican presidential nominee’s latest knock on a woman’s appearance.

During an interview with ABC News in Ohio Monday, Trump said, “I really do believe that” Clinton doesn’t look the part.

“I just don’t believe she has a presidential look, and you need a presidential look,” he told ABC News anchor David Muir.

When pressed for specifics, Trump avoided giving any, saying, “I’m talking about general.”

(h/t ABC News)

Reality

This isn’t the only time that Trump has talked about other candidates’ appearance during this campaign. In one of the most notable cases, he talked about another female candidate, Carly Fiorina, before she dropped out of the Republican Party primaries.

During an interview last year for a September 2015 Rolling Stone cover story, he said, “Look at that face” when a camera zoomed in on Fiorina, according to the magazine. “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”

Trump followed up in other interviews, saying he was talking about her persona and not her appearance. But she made it clear at the next Republican prime-time debate that she wasn’t buying it.

“Women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said,” she said.

Trump Calls Female ‘Morning Joe’ Co-Host Mika Brzezinski ‘Crazy and Very Dumb

Donald Trump on Friday ratcheted up his attacks of the co-hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after the show devoted part of its panel discussion to criticizing the Republican nominee on the multitude of flip-flops on “softening” his immigration policy over the past 24 hours.

Trump tweeted, referring to Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough:

“Just heard that crazy and very dumb @morningmika had a mental breakdown while talking about me on the low ratings @Morning_Joe. Joe a mess!”

The Republican nominee has frequently targeted the show on Twitter, threatening last month to “tell the real story” about Scarborough and Brzezinski, who opened the Friday show by noting his comments to radio host Laura Ingraham that there would indeed be “softening” in his immigration plan, despite playing to his base during his hyped Wednesday night speech in Arizona.

Media

Trump Ejects Mother and Child From Rally, ‘You Can Get the Baby Out of Here’

Most politicians kiss babies, Donald Trump ejects them about as fast as he would a protester

During a rally in Ashburn, Virginia, Trump tried to reassure a distressed mother with a crying baby that he loves hearing babies cry at his rallies and told her not to worry — only to change his mind just a moment later and had them removed.

“I love babies. I hear that baby cry, I like it,” Trump said at a campaign event as a baby could be heard crying in the audience. “What a baby. What a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry. The mom’s running around, like, don’t worry about it, you know. It’s young and beautiful and healthy and that’s what we want.”

But less than two minutes later, as the baby continued to wail, Trump took back his words.

“Actually I was only kidding, you can get the baby out of here,” he said to laughs. “I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking. That’s OK. People don’t understand. That’s OK.”

(h/t CNN)

Reality

CNN’s Jason Carroll described Trump supporters at the event loving Trump ejecting the mother and her baby.

“At one point there was a baby that was crying here in the audience, and he said, ‘Oh, we love babies, they’re beautiful, let him keep crying.’”

“He kept talking and then at another point, he said, ‘Okay, enough with the baby. I’m done with the baby.’”

“I’m paraphrasing but the crowd laughed,” Carroll continued. “They enjoyed it. Was it a bit off color? Yes. But this is what people like about this man.”

Update

Daniel Dale, a reporter from the Toronto Star, was sitting right behind her and wrote that the entire incident was mischaracterized.

The mother also corroberated Dale’s account, telling Fox News that after her baby started crying and Trump noticed it, she already had started making her way out the door.

So either this is a case of bad optics or poor humor. It is safe to give Donald Trump the benefit of the doubt here, but we will still file it under “bad humor” category.

Media

Full event, Trump’s comments are at the 1:08:30 mark.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zt-PsacsckQ

Trump Tells Female Reporter to Be Quiet

Donald Trump’s bullying, sexism, and misogyny was on full display when he told a reporter to “be quiet” on Wednesday after she pressed the Republican nominee over his assertion that he hopes the Russians have Hillary Clinton’s emails.

At a press conference in Doral, Fla., NBC News correspondent Katy Tur asked Trump whether this week’s leak of Democratic National Committee emails, which cybersecurity experts believe were obtained by Russian hackers, gave him pause.

“It gives me no pause,” Trump said. “If they have them, they have them.”

Tur, a London-based correspondent who has been following Trump on the campaign trail for NBC News, tried to ask a follow-up question, but Trump shut her down.

“You know what gives me more pause? That a person in our government, Crooked Hillary Clinton — be quiet, I know you want to save her,” he said. “That a person in our government, Katy, would get rid of 33,000 emails — that gives me a big problem.”

Moments earlier, Trump had delivered a message to the Kremlin.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

(h/t Yahoo)

Reality

It’s not the first time Trump has clashed with Tur.

Last July, he sat down with Tur for a one-on-one interview at Trump Tower during which he interrupted her several times. And at a rally in South Carolina in December, Trump referred to Tur as “Little Katy, third-rate journalist” during a rant about the “absolute scum” media that cover his campaign.

The brash real estate mogul then pointed out to the crowd where she stood on a riser near the back of the rally as his supporters turned and glared.

Media

How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private

The New York Times published a story with the headline “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private” where the authors conducted more than 50 interviews over the course of six weeks.

Their accounts, many relayed in their own words, revealed unwelcome romantic advances, unending commentary on the female form, a shrewd reliance on ambitious women, and unsettling workplace conduct, according to the interviews, as well as court records and written recollections. The interactions occurred in his offices at Trump Tower, at his homes, at construction sites and backstage at beauty pageants. They appeared to be fleeting, unimportant moments to him, but they left lasting impressions on the women who experienced them.

  • Rowanne Brewer Lane, Companion: Donald J. Trump had barely met her when he asked her to change out of her clothes. “He took me into a room and opened drawers and asked me to put on a swimsuit.” Trump then took Brewer Lane out to parade her in front of the rest of the party and asked the crowd if they thought she was a beautiful “Trump lady” which she was taken aback by it. It did not take long for him to solicit her view on the attractiveness of two of his previous romantic partners, Marla Maples and Ivana Trump. “He did ask me, on a scale of 1 to 10, what I thought of Marla. I thought that was very boyish of him. He asked me the same thing about Ivana. I said, obviously, she is your wife. (Trump was divorcing Ivana at the time.) A beautiful woman. What could you say but a 10? I am not going to judge your wife.”
  • Ivana Trump, Ex-Wife: An anecdote how, when she was his girlfriend at the time, Donald Trump defended his father Fred Trump when the elder Trump told her what she is having for dinner. Trump let her run Trump’s Castle, a major casino in Atlantic City, and the Plaza Hotel, the storied complex on Central Park South in Manhattan. She ran it well but he compensated her as a spouse, not a high-level employee, paying her an annual salary of $1 for the Trump’s Castle job, according to her tax documents.
  • Barbara A. Res, Executive for the Trump Organization: Donald Trump hired Ms. Res to manage the building of Trump Tower. He said: “I know you’re a woman in a man’s world. And while men tend to be better than women, a good woman is better than 10 good men.” … He thought he was really complimenting me. Fred Trump did not like the idea that Donald Trump had hired a woman for an executive position but Donald Trump defended her. However his misogyny would still be on display. Out of the blue Donald Trump evaluated the fitness of women in Marina del Rey, Calif. “They take care of their asses,” he said. Years later, after she had gained a significant amount of weight, Ms. Res endured a stinging workplace observation about her own body from Mr. Trump. “ ‘You like your candy,’ ” she recalled him telling her. “It was him reminding me that I was overweight.” Later when The New York Post feasted on his wife’s supposed satisfaction with him in bed, captured in the headline “Best Sex I’ve Ever Had,” Mr. Trump was unabashed. Trump loved it and would show the paper to everyone in the office, much to their horror. Trump also interacted with women with an unthinkable habit of making them feel small.  “At Trump Tower he called me Honey Bunch.”
  • Louise Sunshine, Executive Vice President for the Trump Organization: Experienced similar observations from Mr. Trump when she gained weight. But she saw it as friendly encouragement, not a cruel insult. “He thought I looked much better thin,” she said. “He would remind me of how beautiful I was.”
  • Temple Taggart, 1997 Miss Utah: Donald Trump, while married to Marla Maples, introduced himself to her as well as other contestants in the Miss Universe Pageant with a direct kiss on the lips. “Oh my God, gross.” He then kissed her again on the lips in Trump Tower. “ ‘We’re going to have to tell them you’re 17,’ ” Ms. Taggart recalled him telling her, “because in his mind, 21 is too old. I was like, ‘No, we’re not going to do that.’ ”
  • Carrie Prejean, 2009 Miss California: Mr. Trump personally would evaluate the women contestants at rehearsal. It became clear that the point of the whole exercise was for him to divide the room between girls he personally found attractive and those he did not. Many of the girls found the exercise humiliating. Some of the girls were sobbing backstage after he left, devastated to have failed even before the competition really began to impress “The Donald.”
  • Brook Antoinette Mahealani Lee, 1997 Miss Universe: During the 1997 Miss Teen USA pageant, he sat in the audience as his teenage daughter, Ivanka, helped to host the event from onstage. “ ‘Don’t you think my daughter’s hot? She’s hot, right?’ ” Ms. Lee recalled him saying. ‘I was like, ‘Really?’ That’s just weird. She was 16. That’s creepy.”
  • Barbara J. Fife, former New York City Deputy Mayor: Trump told her why he was in such a hurry one day as he sat in her office at City Hall. “I have this great date tonight with a model for Victoria’s Secret,” Ms. Fife recalled him telling her. “I saw it as immature, quite honestly,” she said.
  • Alair A. Townsend, former New York City Deputy Mayor: “[Trump] was dismissive. It was always, “Hon,” “Dear.” Things he wouldn’t have said to a man. It was designed to make you feel small. And he did that repeatedly.”
  • Jill Harth, former pageant promoter: Jill Harth and her boyfriend at the time, George Houraney, worked with Mr. Trump on a beauty pageant in Atlantic City, and later accused Mr. Trump of inappropriate behavior toward Ms. Harth during their business dealings. In a 1996 deposition, Ms. Harth described their initial meeting with Mr. Trump at Trump Tower.Donald Trump stared at me throughout that meeting. He stared at me even while George was giving his presentation. … In the middle of it he says to George, “Are you sleeping with her?” Meaning me. And George looked a little shocked and he said, “Well, yeah.” And he goes, “Well, for the weekend or what?” Mr. Houraney said in a recent interview that he was shocked by Mr. Trump’s response after he made clear that he and Ms. Harth were monogamous. “He said: ‘Well, there’s always a first time. I am going after her,’ ” Mr. Houraney recalled, adding: “I thought the man was joking. I laughed. He said, ‘I am serious.’ ” By the time the three of them were having dinner at the Oak Room of the Plaza Hotel the next night, Mr. Trump’s advances had turned physical, Ms. Harth said in the deposition. “Basically he name-dropped throughout that dinner, when he wasn’t groping me under the table,” she testified. “Let me just say, this was a very traumatic thing working for him.”
  • Alicia Machado, 1996 Miss Universe: During her time as Miss Universe she gained weight, and Donald Trump did not keep his critique of her changing body quiet and he publicly shamed her. When going to a gym to take the weight off Donald Trump surprised her by showing up with 90 media outlets to document it. Near tears Ms. Machado declined to be a part of the media circus, but Donald Trump refused her request saying, “I don’t care.” After her humiliation she spent the past years fighting anorexia and bulimia.

The article does highlight how Mr. Trump did help women and how his office stood out for its diversity. For example Alan Lapidus, an influential architect who designed the Trump Plaza casino in Atlantic City is quoted:

He is a lot more complicated than the cartoon character. The top people in his company were women, like Barbara Res. For any company to hire a woman as chief of construction was actually startling. I don’t know of a single other developer who had a woman in that position. The respect for women was always there. That’s why, in spite of the comments he makes now — and God knows why he says these things — when he was building his empire, the backbone was women.

Reality

The New York Times reporters said there were “themes” that emerged, such as constant commentary on the female form, exploitation of ambitious women, unwanted advances, and physical aggression.

However one of the women featured in the article, Brewer Lane, appeared on Fox and Friends to dispute the Times’ framing of her account which opened up a whole can of worms. “Actually, it was very upsetting. I was not happy to read it at all,” Brewer Lane said. “Well, because The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across. They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not.”

But when asked what the reporters got wrong, Brewer Lane said they took her quotes and “put a negative connotation on it.”

Donald Trump then took to Twitter to claim that Rowanna Brewer Lane’s disagreement with the tone of how her story was presented now discounted the rest of the article.

The New York Times story is just not Rowanne Brewer Lane’s account of Trump in the 1990’s but the experience of 50 women who were interviewed for the article. If we can discount Brewer Lane’s story then that still leaves 49 women, 11 who were named, who had the same experience of misogyny from Donald Trump. Some of those women, such as Barbara Res, publicly supported the article and their portrayal in it.

Unless Donald Trump can prove that the remaining 49 subjects were also misrepresented, it is incorrect of him to declare the story was “proven false.”

This article does not cover the sexist comments made by Trump since announcing his campaign. Just a few examples include:

Trump on Warren: ‘You Mean Pocahontas?’

Donald Trump and Senator Elizabeth Warren

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is not reining in his attacks against Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.).

When New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd asked Trump if “he had been chided by any Republicans” for his Twitter war with the Democratic senator, the presumptive nominee said, “You mean Pocahontas?”

(h/t The Hill)

Reality

Senator Warren’s had accused Donald Trump that he is running a racist, sexist, and xenophobic campaign, Trump continues to respond with misogynist bullying. This is a logical fallacy known as ad hominem, or attack the attacker, and is about the lowest type of argument in a disagreement. It is used when a person has no real defense so instead they resort to name calling.

Trump earlier this week fired off insults on Twitter, calling the senator “Goofy Elizabeth Warren.”

In March, Trump attacked Warren for saying she was part Native American while a professor at Harvard.

“You mean the Indian?” Trump said then when asked about Warren.

Donald Trump’s Lawyers Argue Calling Strategist a ‘Dummy’ is Not Defamatory

Calling a person a “loser” and a “major dummy” with “zero credibility” is not defamatory, Donald Trump’s lawyers say.

In papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, lawyers for Trump, his campaign and his ousted campaign manager say Cheryl Jacobus‘ defamation suit against them should be tossed because their statements that she’s a “dummy” and opportunist who begged for a job with his campaign “are protected opinion speech” — and “hyperbole” should be expected from a presidential candidate.

Jacobus’ $4 million lawsuit says it was the Trump campaign that approached her to work as its political director, and she turned the job down because she feared the now-canned campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, was a “powder keg.”

But, her suit notes, that didn’t stop Lewandowski from going on MSNBC in January and smearing her after she criticized the campaign on TV, saying she “came to the office on multiple occasions trying to get a job from the Trump Campaign, and when she wasn’t hired clearly she went off and was upset by that.”

And Lewandowski’s boss, the now presumptive GOP presidential nominee, went after Jacobus soon after, tweeting to his millions of followers that “@cherijacobus begged us for a job. We said no and she went hostile. A real dummy!”

In a later tweet, Trump again said she’d “begged” for work and they “turned her down twice.”

The strategist’s suit says she was defamed by their phony insistence she’d begged them for work and then turned on them when she didn’t get it.

In their late Monday filing, lawyers for team Trump said they didn’t do anything wrong.

Because Jacobus, a GOP political strategist, had said negative things about them in TV interviews, “any responsive opinions expressed by the defendants” about her motivations “are protected opinion speech in the heated national public debate that accompanies a presidential campaign, where the listening public anticipates fiery opinions, up-and-back-rhetoric, and hyperbole.”

And she might indeed have had a bias against the campaign, they claimed.

“It is indisputable that plaintiff’s motivations for criticizing the Trump campaign (and even labelling the campaign as liars) are uniquely within her own head. Any reflexive and responsive statements by defendants speculating about her motivations or biases can, therefore, only be opinion as well,” their filing says.

There “could have been an infinite array of possible motivations for plaintiff’s criticism of Mr. Trump and the Trump campaign.”

It also argues the statements were not defamation because of where they were made.

“Furthermore, the alleged defamatory statements were made via Twitter and on a morning talk show, which are both known as mediums for parties’ expressing their opinions,” their filing says.

Jacobus’ suit says the allegations harmed her personally and professionally — leading to fewer TV bookings and an onslaught of vicious online threats from Trump supporters.

Jacobus’ lawyer, Jay R. Butterman, said the focus by Trump’s attorneys on the “loser” and “major dummy” slams were a smokescreen designed to distract from what Trump and Lewandowski actually did to his client — falsely portray her as an unprofessional and vindictive spurned job applicant.

“It’s absolutely a red herring,” Butterman said. “They’re emphasizing these blunt attacks while ignoring the damaging statements regarding her professional ability — that she begged for a job.”

He noted one of the Trump tweets came after the campaign had been sent a cease and desist letter about the bogus claims.

“It is our opinion that Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss is a cowardly act of a man who, in repeating his libels against Ms. Jacobus after he received a cease and desist clearly explaining the falsity of his statements, dared her to sue him. Now, as Ms. Jacobus has bravely confronted Donald Trump and his smears, he hides behind technical arguments and claims that anything he says must be deemed merely his ‘opinion,’” Butterman said.

“He asks the courts to grant him the unique ability to intentionally and recklessly disregard the truth or falsity of his statements. Donald Trump, a shrill critic of our nation’s First Amendment rights, now cowers behind those very rights,” the lawyer said, adding that Trump’s “statements smearing Ms. Jacobus are clear and unquestionable claims of facts, which are just as clearly false and defamatory.”

(h/t New York Daily News)

Trump Doubles Down on Sexist Woman Card Comment Toward Hillary

Mr. Trump seemed to relish injecting gender politics into the race as he looks ahead to a potential general election matchup with Mrs. Clinton. In an interview with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” he claimed that women do not like Mrs. Clinton and that he has every right to attack her if she plays up the fact that she would be the first female United States president.

It’s not sexist. It’s true. It’s just a very, very true statement. If she were a man, she’d get 5 percent. She’s a bad candidate. She’s a flawed candidate. She’s not going to do very well in the election, and I look forward to showing that.

And again on Morning Joe on MSNBC he repeated the claim. Remarking that he was still “recovering” from Clinton’s “shouting,” an increasingly high-energy Trump remarked:

I know a lot of people would say you can’t say that about a woman, because of course a woman doesn’t shout. The way she shouted that message was not — that’s the way she said it, and I guess I’ll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months.

Mrs. Clinton addressed Mr. Trump’s new line of attack during her victory speech on Tuesday night, telling voters to “deal me in” when it comes to Mr. Trump’s suggestions that he is trying to capitalize on her gender and argued that she would be the best candidate to defend women’s rights on health and in the workplace.

Reality

The statement that Hillary Clinton plays the woman card is one that Trump has repeated many times over the course of his campaign.

A USA Today-Suffolk University poll released this week found that 66 percent of likely female voters nationwide have an unfavorable view of Trump, compared with 48 percent who have a negative opinion of Clinton. And women are far more likely to have intensely negative views of Trump. A Washington Post-ABC News poll earlier this month found that 64 percent of women feel “strongly unfavorable” toward Trump, compared with 41 percent of men.

Media

Good Morning America

Morning Joe

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqS8StrvhRk

Donald Trump, Part-Time Abortion Foe, Eyes ‘Punishment’ for Women, Then Recants

Donald Trump discusses arresting women who get an abortion.

Donald J. Trump said that women who seek abortions should be subject to “some form of punishment” if the procedure is banned in the United States, further elevating Republican concerns that his explosive remarks about women could doom the party in the fall.

The comment, which Mr. Trump later recanted, attracted instant, bipartisan criticism — the latest in a series of high-profile episodes that have shined a light on Mr. Trump’s feeble approval ratings among women nationally.

In this case, Mr. Trump also ran afoul of conservative doctrine, with opponents of abortion rights immediately castigating him for suggesting that those who receive abortions — and not merely those who perform them — should be punished if the practice is outlawed.

The statement came as Mr. Trump appeared at a town-hall-style forum with Chris Matthews of MSNBC, recorded for broadcast on Wednesday night. Mr. Matthews pressed Mr. Trump, who once supported abortion rights, on his calls to ban the procedure, asking how he might enforce such a restriction.

“You go back to a position like they had where they would perhaps go to illegal places,” Mr. Trump said, after initially deflecting questions. “But you have to ban it.”

He added, after a bit more prodding, “There has to be some form of punishment.”

Hours later, Mr. Trump recanted his remarks, essentially in full, a rare and remarkable shift for a candidate who proudly extols his unwillingness to apologize or bow to “political correctness.”

If abortion were disallowed, he said in a statement, “the doctor or any other person performing this illegal act upon a woman would be held legally responsible, not the woman.”
“The woman is a victim in this case, as is the life in her womb,” he continued.

Reality

Donald Trump manged to anger literally every single person in the abortion debate. He upset the pro-choicers by being pro-life and his misogynistic stance to blame the woman, he upset some pro-lifers for going too far, and finally he upset the other pro-lifers for not going far enough.

Bravo, sir. Bravo.

This isn’t the first time Donald Trump flip-flopped on the abortion issue. For example in 1999 he told Meet the Press he was “very pro-choice“.

Media

Links

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/us/politics/donald-trump-abortion.html?_r=0

https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-statement-regarding-abortion

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