5 times Donald Trump spoke like a true desi misogynist

Back in July, as Trump was officially announced the Republican nominee, New York congressman Chris Collins said something none of us – not even Collins himself – quite realised the ironic truth of. He remarked, “Donald Trump is not merely a candidate. Donald Trump is a movement.”



Trump, till that point, was relatively still more a figure of wry entertainment, than sheer revulsion. These were the good ole days when Trump's most dangerous conviction that we knew of was to do with the need for a practically improbable border wall, which, xenophobia and racism aside, was dismissible for its impracticality, and amusing for its irrationality.

In the beginning, as a largely uninvested outsider/observer, it was almost humorous seeing how even in a country like USA, where the election process is supposedly rigorous and transparent in comparison to less politically-stable countries, such a character was being given serious consideration as a presidential candidate. In all honesty, it didn't seem too far from home election campaigning trends, which see candidates present exaggerated solutions to national problems and pull them off by employing the "big lie" technique, and then forget their promises halfway through their inaugural addresses.

But, as the campaign kicked off, Trump's thinly veiled general hate for anyone who was not a white, cis-male billionaire, started broiling down to downright structural misogyny. Coincidentally, and even though he has less than a shiny past track record in the area, this skyrocketing happened as it became clear he was going to be running after - God forbid - a woman.



Media and public response has although admirably and perseveringly maintained sight of the key issues of feminism that Trump called into discussion, criticism has been problematic in one regard. Often, coverage has tended to single out and pick apart Trump's words merely as those of one man's. While that is obviously important, we must not forget to consider, understand and present the problem as being to do with a single man, rather than one of uncountable others.

This has been especially true of the detached Eastern media representation of the candidate; reporting habitually reduced Trump into a bizarre caricature of a rich, white man saying unimaginably disrespectful things to and about women. But unfortunately, sexism is universal, and Trump is as relevant a tool for examining the underbelly of desi culture, as of the Western.

Indeed, Trump's ridiculously misogynistic comments have many a times nailed the South Asian patriarchal culture on its head. To prove the point, here is a self-explanatory list of five of numerous instances in which Donald Trump served as a mirror:

1. In a 1994 interview with ABC News' Primetime Live, gently reminding us that this is not commonplace only in TV serials, but our own homes:

“I don't want to sound too much like a chauvinist, but when I come home and dinner's not ready, I go through the roof.”

2. In the same interview as above, when he embodied every insecure man:

“I think that putting a wife to work is a very dangerous thing.”

3. In a tweet on May 7, 2013, when he pinned down the single leading cause of rape to be co-habitation:

“26,000 unreported sexual assaults in the military, only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men and women together?”

4. In a 1992 New York magazine interview, on the natural code of conduct for a husband:

"Women, you have to treat them like shit."

Reiterated in the above-mentioned ABC interview:

“I tell friends who treat their wives magnificently, get treated like crap in return, ‘Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship’.”

And in case he hadn't been vile enough, in his memoir, Trump: The Art of the Comeback: "For a man to be successful he needs support at home [...] not someone who is always griping and bitching. When a man has to endure a woman who is not supportive and complains constantly about his not being home enough or not being attentive enough, he will not be very successful unless he is able to cut the cord.”

5. In November 2005, on the Opie and Anthony show, and emphasised on The Howard Stern Show, on how civility and love are emasculating:

“I like kids. I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of ’em. I’ll supply funds, and she’ll take care of the kids. [...] There's a lot of women out there that demand that the husband act like the wife."

If any of the above sounded vaguely familiar, let it be to remind us that Trump-flavoured sexism is not very different from the one women in all parts of the world experience on-the-go. The most crucial thing to take from all the discussion of the past six months is the recognition that there are parallels in our own plight, and the concern is larger than one that will be (hopefully) over tomorrow, November 8.