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What woman problem? Trump loves women who look good and work harder for less pay
Donald Trump
Supporters and even some detractors of Donald Trump say if elected president he’ll be better for the U.S. economy than Hillary Clinton, who’s too cozy with Wall Street bankers and a champion of the financial status quo. But Trump’s questionable business credentials aside, he’s clearly a misogynist who only values women for sex and because they work harder and cheaper than men.
As the nation’s first female president, Clinton will actually have a much more positive impact on the economy if she stands by previous statements expressing support for the equal pay movement. In 2015, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 38 percent of American women in heterosexual marriages earned more than their husbands in 2015.
Given that American women, who represent a majority of the electorate, earn 79 cents for every dollar that an American man makes for the same work, the income equality gap is a major economic drag. That’s especially true in areas of the country with a high cost of living like the Vail Valley, where multi-income households, unless you have a trust fund, are a fact of life.
A New York Times story over the weekend painstakingly detailed Trump’s borderline harassing and definitely degrading treatment of women over the years, including those who’ve worked directly for him or were contestants in his Miss USA beauty pageants.
While Trump took to Twitter to say “everyone is laughing at the New York Times”, the article really only scratched the surface of the reality TV star’s very public disdain for strong, intelligent women. Instead, he’s seriously considering Sarah Palin as his running mate.
What I found most disturbing in The Times piece was Trump’s insistence that he values women in his companies because they work harder than men. That’s an outright acknowledgement that they’re willing to put in more hours for less pay. Predictably, the super-slippery Trump has flip-flopped on pay inequality, but a campaign staffer sued him for it earlier this year.
I’ve only half-jokingly said to several women friends that Trump would actually be more liberal in the White House than Hillary on some issues, including her hawkish tendency to embroil the nation in armed quagmires like Iraq and Libya. But the looks I’ve received for even making such a suggestion in jest tell me that most sane women don’t think Trump is a laughing matter.
The mainstream Republican Party is slowly coming over to the Trump camp, with GOP party and elected officials telling us people don’t really care about Trump’s woman problem. Really? Or are we just talking about the uneducated angry white males who make up Trump’s primary base of support and respond well to his bigotry, sexism and fear-mongering?
North of the border – the one Trump is not threatening to wall off – the wife of recently elected liberal Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, is being skewered by conservatives for the having the temerity to suggest she could use a little more staff to help her perform her unofficial and official duties as the wife of a head of state.
Likely backers of Trudeau’s conservative predecessor Stephen Harper, her critics clearly feel the way Trump feels – that women are meant to look good in the background behind their strong and assertive alpha-male hubbies. But that’s simply not reality anymore and hasn’t been since Eisenhower was in the White House.
My own household, and the households of several good friends of ours, are in fact partnerships between spouses who share in raising children and making money, and increasingly wives are in the primary breadwinner role. Trump’s attitudes will cost us all money if he’s elected, and that’s something even conservatives can understand.
As Hillary Clinton said on Equal Pay Day in April, according to Time Magazine, “the stubborn wage gap is an issue that affects the ‘broader economy,’ noting that ‘last time I checked, there’s no discount for being a woman. Groceries don’t cost us less.’”
David O. Williams
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