"There is a reason that Donald Trump's outrageous statements and behavior feel familiar to many women.
It's not because they know his declarative style and trademark shrug from reality television or political debates. Nor is it because his outsized role in American business made an unforgettable impression on them.
The eerie familiarity is more personal than that. They know Trump because they've encountered a man like him at home, work, on social media or in a relationship.
This man extols the virtues of women, but has no problem reducing them to sex objects. He casts himself as unflappable, but blames a woman when his weaknesses are revealed. He insists on personal responsibility, but denies, deflects and perhaps even turns violent when accused of wrongdoing.
The psychological warfare of gaslighting, a subtle form of emotional abuse that puts the victim on the defensive, is his go-to strategy.
This is not how Trump sees himself or his actions, but it is arguably the image he projects to voters. On Tuesday, when Florida police charged his campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, with battery of a female reporter, Trump issued a series of tweets refuting the video evidence, discrediting the journalist and implying she could have been a dangerous or deadly threat.
Powerful women on the left and right forcefully criticized Trump's reaction to the charges.
“Too often victims of violence and abuse stay silent, and Donald Trump’s remarks today demonstrate one of the reasons why," Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, said in a statement. "His actions today underscore that it is a fiction that he has been or would be supportive of any woman in this country."
On Wednesday, a group of conservative female journalists and commentators called for Lewandowski's firing.
Trump has a track record of making his female targets — and their defenders — seem like the foolish ones.
Nichole Bauer, assistant professor in the political science department at the University of Alabama, says the response was classic Trump. He's practiced at denying previous statements even when incontrovertible evidence of them exists. While this isn't exclusive to his commentary about women, Trump has a track record of making his female targets — and their defenders — seem like the foolish ones.
Of course he wasn't making a reference to menstruation when he joked about Fox anchor Megyn Kelly having "blood coming out of her wherever" during a debate. And no, he most certainly did not use schlonged as a vulgar term when describing how badly Pres. Barack Obama beat Hillary Clinton in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary.
"There’s definitely an accepted belief among the Republican and Democratic mainstream that this sort of outmoded sexism that Donald Trump demonstrates has no real place in discourse," says Bauer.
Yet, instead of apologizing, or acknowledging how the woman in question — or any woman, for that matter — might find his remarks offensive, Trump doubled down and obfuscated reality.
Many women have been here before, whether it's with a coworker who denies the meaning of a sexist comment or a partner who is quick to end an argument by using the word emotional.
...he's telling women that they don't deserve the same respect and agency as men.
Trump's denials may make him appear unassailable to some, but to women they send an entirely different message, says Bauer. By denying the nature of his commentary and behavior, he's telling women that they don't deserve the same respect and agency as men.
While Republican women tend to support traditional roles, Bauer says, they do so believing that deference to a male authority figure or husband is their choice. Trump's faultless behavior effectively takes that autonomy away from them by creating a political climate in which the woman is always wrong.
This may explain why he performed so poorly with Republican women in one recent survey. That NBC/WSJ poll found that 47% of female Republican primary voters cannot see themselves voting for Trump. His favorability ratings were higher, at 59%, amongst registered Republican women in a CNN/ORC poll, though it did not ask whether they intended to vote for him.
These polls also don't fully reflect his recent, unseemly attacks on Heidi Cruz, wife of his opponent Sen. Ted Cruz, or his statement on Wednesday that if abortion is banned, women who have one illegally should "face some sort of punishment."
Though Trump immediately clarified that comment as a response to a hypothetical question and then reversed his position, it's clear that he's not only willing to publicly embarrass and degrade women, but also consider depriving them of physical freedom.
Such power dynamics aren't hypothetical to women in abusive workplaces or relationships, who cannot fathom a political reality that mirrors their private hell.
"People are doing it as a strategy to control others and elevate themselves and insulate themselves from attack."
Jackie White, emerita professor of psychology and a senior research scientist at the Center for Women’s Health and Wellness at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, says an approach that victimizes women and then blames them for playing a part in their degradation is about manipulation.
"People are doing it as a strategy to control others and elevate themselves and insulate themselves from attack," she says. "They’re going to present themselves as a very self-assured, knowledgable person."
Meanwhile, such behavior silences the victim. She may feel depressed, passive or paralyzed. Feelings of doubt and insecurity set in. Women know this experience well, says White.
She worries, however, that the tactics on display in the campaign could send just as powerful a message to men as to women.
Trump's behavior may consciously or subconsciously lead some men to endorse harmful stereotypes and engage in emotional manipulation, particularly if they feel threatened by social and demographic change and evolving gender roles.
"[Trump's] actions could inspire them to feel justified in clinging to what they see as their deserved elevated status," White says.
That's what makes Donald Trump so dangerous. Even if he's offering the public a performance, the fallout is unconscionable for both women and men".
Fuente: mashable.com
