If you’re as disgruntled at this election as I am, you probably saw the word Trump and groaned over how tired you are of hearing about ‘what he did now.’ We are just a little less than a month away from the election and now is the time that we must inform ourselves, friends and families on what these candidates stand for and how that can reflect on our nation.
So, let’s talk about what Trump could possibly reflect onto our nation.
In 2007 Donald Trump stood in front of a large crowd in San Francisco. A woman in the audience asks Trump through a microphone, “How many jets do you have? And can I work on one?” Trump then asks her to come up onto the stage saying, “I think she’s hired.” Once she has come close to him, he pulls her in for an embrace and states that she is hired.
Trump stands next to the woman with his arm on her back, while he dives into an imprudent personal narrative.
“A beautiful girl who was 17 or 18 and applied to be a waitress. So beautiful. She’s like a world-class beauty. She’s so beautiful. And my people came and she said, ‘Mr. Trump, she has no experience.’ So, I interviewed her anyway because she was so pretty. And I said, ‘let me ask you, do you have any experience?’ She goes, ‘no, sir.’ I say, when can you start?”
After his anecdote, he then says his farewell to the woman and watches her as she exits and says, “See now, if she worked on my plane, that’s like a death wish for me, right? That’s like an alcoholic. I have a few friends, they’re wonderful people, they’re alcoholics. You put Scotch in front of them, it’s like—this would be my form of alcoholism.”
In Trump’s own words he is comparing his relationship with women to an indulgent abuse of alcohol, really then objectifying women into an inhuman substance that he feels he has no self control around.
As a woman, I find Trump’s words incredibly degrading and insulting. This is not equality; this is perpetuating sexism.
Trump and other people may think him valuing women off of their looks is harmless, I mean after all he is giving them a job… That’s empowering, right? I don’t think so.
Today, it is amazing that women are consistently given more and more opportunities, we are pushing the glass ceiling further and working harder every day, but in order for this to progress we have to take women seriously.
If sexism is depleting, this means women are getting the opportunity to attend and finish school of varying years with the intention of a career in their preferred field, as opposed to marrying and becoming a mother.
With every degree awarded to a woman, they have completed similar work and achievements to a man. Females are receiving the same diplomas that men are and there was a time not too long ago, when people would find that comical.
So we’ve come to this point where women are flourishing in education and ambition, but it seems to me we still hit a bump in the road that remind women, that with its exceptions, history has always written our gender to be beautiful, gentle, caring, sexual, but not too sexual and honestly – quite incompetent.
This is where Trump is not helping, he is hurting. To me it seems as if he is bragging about his criteria for hiring women being whether or not he sees them as attractive enough or not. Turning a woman’s job search into a pageant, rather than a legitimate intellectual evaluation.
Women shouldn’t have to go into a job interview being concerned with how desirable their hair, clothes and body appear. While men do face discrimination based off of their physical appearance, women seem to face discrimination for their intellectual capability and their physical appeal to a more consistent degree.
I would like to think that my exterior shell is not weighed as relevant as my skill set.
When Trump hires these women based off of how beautiful he thinks they are, he is disenfranchising them from their independent achievements and skills. Turning them into a glamorized item versus an intellectually valued human being.
He is also denying women who could be more than qualified for a position, if he does not find their exterior appealing.
So how do we stop this kind of sexist behavior? While this a very complex issue, it certainly will not stop by electing a man who has shown this kind of perverted childish behavior numerous times.
Imagine how the White House and our entire nation’s population and government would be affected if Trump’s sexist behavior in the workplace would follow him to the Oval Office.
Presidents have a lot of responsibilities and one of those is increasing gender equality. How can Trump increase our nation’s equality when he has played a consistent role in digging that gap back open?
Hannah Hamlin
Reporter