{"id":45677,"date":"2016-11-08T12:35:09","date_gmt":"2016-11-08T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=45677"},"modified":"2016-11-08T12:35:09","modified_gmt":"2016-11-08T18:35:09","slug":"2016-presidential-election-reveals-new-low-depths-in-how-we-talk-about-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/2016-presidential-election-reveals-new-low-depths-in-how-we-talk-about-women\/","title":{"rendered":"2016 presidential election reveals new, low depths in how we talk about women"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Anna Foley<\/strong><\/p>\n

There are a lot of reasons to wake up at 5 a.m. You can get an early start to your day, maybe go on a run, and be the first one in line to grab a cup of coffee. You can see the sunrise. Or, if you\u2019re like me, you can wake up at 5 to be catcalled.<\/p>\n

Let me be clear, I did not wake up at that early hour one Tuesday morning specifically aiming to be catcalled. Rather, I woke up with the intention of reporting on an anti-Trump rally called #GOPHandsOffMe. A colleague and I marched down to Trump Tower bright and early, ready to find a group of protesters bearing colorful signs with even more colorful messages upon them. <\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, we found a single man with stiff white hair. He stood at Trump Tower like a soldier waiting for orders. Instead of a rifle, the man bore a large Trump\/Pence flag, which caught the light of the sun as it began to rise. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRemember, ladies: Trump loves women,\u201d the man said as my colleague and I walked past him. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

We kept going, letting the comment roll off our backs as women often do. Yet I couldn\u2019t help but return to what that man said to me so very early that morning. It demonstrated how much of the 2016 election rhetoric has centered around gendered language. <\/span><\/p>\n

From \u201c<\/span>locker room talk<\/span><\/a>\u201d to \u201c<\/span>nasty woman,<\/span><\/a>\u201d the language being used in this election to describe women is atypical to say the least. Its implications are far more serious than comments about <\/span>\u201cbinders full of women\u201d<\/span><\/a> a la Mitt Romney in 2012 \u00a0or a vice presidential candidate\u2019s <\/span>pregnant daughter<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

Following the release of leaked \u201cAccess Hollywood\u201d tapes revealing Donald J. Trump\u2019s so-called \u201clocker room talk,\u201d University of Oxford English language and literature professor Deborah Cameron argued that the GOP candidate\u2019s behavior was lewd and inexcusable. <\/span><\/p>\n

In her blog <\/span>Language: A Feminist Guide<\/span><\/a>, Cameron wrote, \u201cBanter is not just what commentators on the Trump tape have mostly treated it as, a window into the mind of an individual sexist or misogynist. It\u2019s a ritualized social practice which contributes to the maintenance of structural sexual inequality.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Cameron said the leaked tapes shouldn\u2019t be analyzed in an isolated way. Instead, they should be used as a point of contextualization of societal sexism. She argued the slew of Republicans who <\/span>denounced Trump\u2019s comments<\/span><\/a> because of their daughters and wives was an example of \u201cbenevolent sexism.\u201d In other words, though those Republicans weren\u2019t explicitly misogynist, their comments still placed women in a different group. That form of \u201cothering\u201d can be dangerous, she said.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you objectify and demonize a class of people, it becomes easier to mistreat them without guilt,\u201d according to Cameron.<\/span><\/p>\n

That treatment is harder to identify in women in politics like Hillary Clinton. Because while comments like Trump\u2019s are easy to define as sexist, the gender bias Clinton has faced throughout the run up to Election Day, and perhaps beyond, \u00a0is far more complicated and nuanced. <\/span><\/p>\n

Gender bias can\u2019t be boiled down to simply not liking Clinton. After all, her <\/span>likability polling<\/span><\/a> numbers aren\u2019t entirely owed to Clinton\u2019s female sex. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just not liking Hillary Clinton; it\u2019s not liking her because she\u2019s a woman,\u201d said Monica Schneider, a Miami University political science professor. \u201cGender bias becomes difficult to tease out then because we don\u2019t always have equivalent men and women to compare.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

Gender bias toward Clinton becomes even more muddled because of the historic precedent she sets. As the first major party female presidential nominee, Clinton\u2019s situation can\u2019t be compared with any other candidate. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe only have Hillary Clinton as our candidate for president that we can compare to,\u201d said Laurel Harbridge Yong, a political scientist at Northwestern University. \u201cWith her as an individual, it\u2019s really hard to disentangle what is a partisan bias against her versus what is a gender bias.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you objectify and demonize a class of people, it becomes easier to mistreat them without guilt.\u201d \u2014 Deborah Cameron, University of Oxford<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Yet Clinton\u2019s gender has become a talking point in this election, and not only by Donald Trump. Clinton herself has focused on women\u2019s rights and issues during her campaign, making it a point to confess the bias and criticism she\u2019s faced in her career. <\/span><\/p>\n

That dialogue and its effects could last longer than any of the gendered comments from this election. That\u2019s at least what Becki Planchard, a University of Chicago public policy student, hopes. She said gendered rhetoric is damaging, particularly to women in male-dominated fields like public policy. But she\u2019s trying to change that. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen all over the country are taking terms like <\/span>\u2018nasty woman\u2019<\/span><\/a> back,\u201d Planchard said. \u201cThey take what was intended to be damaging and flip it on its head. We need to be intentional in how we use language, and further understand how that language affects the treatment of women.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

I saw for myself what Planchard was talking about. Only 20 minutes after that lone Trump\/Pence flagbearer catcalled my colleague and me, the sidewalk across the street was flooded with hundreds of female protesters. Their signs did not disappoint. Some said, \u201cThis pussy grabs back,\u201d while others told the GOP to take their hands off of this election. <\/span><\/p>\n

One sign that stuck out to me was one that told Trump to, \u201cExpect us on November 8.\u201d Election day, it seems, will also be a day to flip language on its head. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Image at top: Created by Anna Foley\/MEDILL<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Anna Foley There are a lot of reasons to wake up at 5 a.m. You can get an early start to your day, maybe go on a run, and be the first one in line to grab a cup of coffee. You can see the sunrise. 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