Trump Says Clinton Does Not Have ‘Presidential Look’ Needed to ‘Get Things Done’
On Monday night, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump told ABC World News Tonight’s David Muir that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, does not have “a presidential look and you need a presidential look. You have to get things done.”
So what is it about Clinton’s “look” that the reality television personality think is preventing the former Secretary of State from being able to get things done?
Could it be her blonde hair? No, that doesn’t seem likely as America has elected five blonde presidents in its history. (That would be Martin van Buren, Rutherford B. Hayes, Benjamin Harrison, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Gerald Ford for those of you looking to score big at your favorite local trivia night.)
Her blue eyes? That seems improbable, as the overwhelming majority of all U.S. presidents have been blue-eyed. And her Caucasian ethnicity also seems to be an unlikely source of Trump’s chagrin, as all but our current president have been, like Clinton and Trump alike, white, non-Hispanic with a penchant for pantsuits.
Which leads me to think that maybe what Trump was really trying to say — gasp — is that Clinton is unqualified to be president, and to “get things done,” because she is a woman.
Now, Trump seems to have no problem with women’s bodies when it comes to objectifying them or using them as a source of personal financial gain (see: his past ownership of the Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, his ownership stake in Trump Model Management, and his generally abhorrent treatment of women throughout his lifetime).
And this year alone, he has had plenty to say about women’s appearances and the way it qualifies — or disqualifies — them from holding certain positions, from insisting that no one would vote for a “face” like former Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina to commenting that Fox News’ Megyn Kelly had “blood coming out of her whatever” in describing her appearance while she questioned him about the way he had spoken about women in the past while moderating the first Republican presidential debate.
Trump’s track record on talking about women doesn’t end there, with him infamously having described a breastfeeding woman as “disgusting” and basically listing “unattractive” as a quality to discredit and diminish a whole slew of women, including those who may have publicly spoken about him and those whom he has no personal relationship with whatsoever.
And of course let’s not forget when Trump claimed earlier this year that any success that Clinton had achieved could be credited solely to her having played “the woman card.”
It’s nothing new for women to be told that they’re unable to achieve something solely because they are women. Just last week, the cover of Girls Life magazine went viral when held up in a side-by-side with its counterpart Boys Life magazine. The Boys Life cover instructed its readers to “Explore Your Future,” while the Girls Life cover instead said, “Your Dream Hair,” “Fall Fashion You’ll Love,” and “Wake Up Pretty.” From the youngest of ages, girls are told to manage their expectations for themselves based solely on their gender identity and that their goals should be limited to self-monitoring their own appearances.
Does identifying as female or even liking the color pink disqualify anyone from the presidency? Hardly, and even less so when women — like Clinton — choose to speak out against being denounced and diminished because of their gender (a behavior that usually leads to even more insults from the men attacking them in the first place).
After all, as Clinton herself famously said at the United Nations’ Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 in Beijing, “Human rights are women’s rights, and women’s rights are human rights….Women must enjoy the right to participate fully in the social and political lives of their countries if we want freedom and democracy to thrive and endure.”
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