Shree Paradkar
With this president, how do you dissect so many levels of wrong?
For men of a certain vintage, to be charming means to be flirtatious. To be flirtatious is to comment positively about a woman’s appearance in any circumstance. To comment flirtatiously is considered flattery based on the assumption that this singular quality matters most to women.
This is perhaps why some people don’t see what was offensive about U.S. President Donald Trump wiggling a finger at Irish journalist Caitriona Perry in the Oval Office this week to beckon her forward during his first conversation with the new prime minister of her country and say, “She has a nice smile on her face. So I bet she treats you well.”
How do you dissect so many levels of wrong?
Yet, for some online commenters the outrage is prudish, it’s Victorian, it’s over the top, it’s women not knowing how to take a compliment.
There is nothing wrong with women being complimented, but this! I call it the continuing Barbie-fication of women, when women cannot simply exist in their workplace without being rated for their desir- ability to males.
It was a truly cringeworthy moment in the Oval Office — I was half expecting Trump to ask the working journalist to pirouette for him, as that creepy Australian journalist did with tennis player Eugenie Bouchard during the 2015 Australian Open.
Perry would have had to slog her way to being assigned to cover the White House conversation with her prime minister, only to see all those years of effort reduced to her “nice smile.”
Let’s not even venture down the rabbit hole of what “I bet she treats you well” hints at in that context.
The Western male’s placement of sex appeal on a pedestal has historically fed into female ideas of attractiveness, putting the focus on desirability rather than, say, health.
In day-to-day life, this leads to girls still being primarily praised for their prettiness or being called princesses, while boys continue to be singled out for their efforts, their actions.
“People mean well when they say this, but ‘princess’ is loaded with assumptions, of a girl’s delicacy, of the prince who will come to save her, etc.,” writes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in Dear Ijeawele, or A Feminist Manifesto in Fifteen Suggestions.
A Toronto mother of a 7-year-old girl told me a friend once said to her, “At least your daughter is goodlooking, so you have nothing to worry about.”
How do you dissect so many levels of wrong?
A girl raised to believe her looks dominate all her other qualities will be hard-pressed not to grow up and see this workplace condescension as validation.
If we want to counter the eroding effects of Trump’s reign, it’s time to stop viewing his steady stream of offensiveness with incredulity and start using it as teachable moments.
Every day we could translate the news for our children like this:
“Here is why you should be more open to other cultures.”
“Here is what happens if you don’t believe in science.”
“This is what the word ‘facts’ means.”
“Here is how not to talk to women.”
On that last count, Trump took off again Thursday morning, this time lashing out at NBC’s Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski, calling her “low I.Q. Crazy Mika,” and saying that when she wanted to join him at Mar-a-Lago around New Year’s Eve. “She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!” Such grace. During their morning show, Brzezinski and co-host Joe Scarborough had both criticized Trump’s tweeting habit, but Trump went on the attack with Brzezinski, perceiving her to be the easier target.
Perhaps in Trump’s world of beauty pageants and fake magazines, facelifts are as common as apple pie. But while the alleged facelift is irrelevant, what is telling is that Trump, who prizes female attractiveness so much he once said the women who accused him of sexual assault were too unattractive for assault, also at the same time sneers at the efforts he thinks women are taking to look attractive. You can see how this man who thinks praising a woman’s looks is a compliment, would think insulting them would eviscerate her.
Brzezinski’s response showed she was anything but. She tweeted an image of a box of Cheerios with the words, “Made for little hands.”
See, the thing about those small hands is they just can’t handle balls. Shree Paradkar tackles issues of race and gender. You can follow her @shreeparadkar.