Around the water cooler at my day job we were talking about Donald Trump’s statement that Bill Clinton’s history of extramarital affairs demonstrates a “penchant for sexism.”
The consensus, among both men and women, was that, whatever one may think of the morality of serial philandering, it is not sexist unless there is some aspect to what is going on that is specifically sexist.
Dean Obeidallah at CNN, discussing the issue, cites the dictionary definition of sexism as “behaviour, conditions, or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex.”
Obeidallah goes on to describe sexism by pointing to several statements by Donald Trump that are fairly clearly sexist. These include telling a female reportor she only got her job because she’s pretty, commenting negatively on Carla Fiorina’s appearance, and Tweeting that Hillary Clinton bears some responsibility for Bill’s infidelities because she couldn’t “satisfy her man.”
And of course there was the Megyn Kelly incident in which she
challenged Trump’s history of sexist remarks by noting that he had called women, “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” Trump went on CNN and attacked Kelly with the statement: “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes…Blood coming out of her wherever.”
So, thank you Mr. Trump for helping us better understand what sexism is.
Might there be sexist elements in extramarital affairs? Yes, of course. Using a power differential to coerce someone into an unwanted sexual relationship would certainly fall into this category. And if that is what Trump means and he has proof of such a thing occurring in Bill Clinton’s indiscretions, that would be fodder for a legitimate discussion.
But I don’t think that is what Donald Trump means. I suspect he views extramarital affairs as sexist because of the way he views women. Using his statements above as proof, it seems hard to believe Trump could conceive of a man and a woman having an extramarital sexual relationship as equal partners, since he doesn’t view women as equal to men.
If Donald Trump wants to go after Bill Clinton and his history of affairs, as Bill steps out to campaign for Hillary, that’s fair game in a moral sense, though Trump should say the name Marla Maples over in his head a few times before going too hard in that direction.
As for claims of sexism, perhaps a case can be made, but there is nothing sexist about an affair or two unless there is something specifically sexist going on.
To nail the point, the more interesting question is, what is it about Donald Trump that would categorically lead him to view extramarital affairs as sexist?
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