British actor Hugh Laurie said recently about the presidential election that, for an outsider, it's like coming into a movie half an hour late and not being able to really get what's going on. Everyone is so angry at Hillary Clinton. Why? She's not perfect by any means, but, compared to Donald Trump, why would you even give it a second thought?
Donald Trump says Hillary is a nasty woman, and I think he is on to something there, not because he's right, but because this is the modern myth that has grown up around her.
What he is trying to appeal to by his term "nasty," has to do with an ingrained suspicion, particularly in America, and most particularly among men, about any woman in a position of power. In fact, if you follow Trump's ranking of women on a 1-10 scale, the "10's" of his world are the least threatening.
Let's take a look at a very few of history's "nasty" women. But I should warn you, some of them have been downright rabble rousers:
Cleopatra (69-30 BC) who inspired her fellow Egyptians to rise up against the Roman invasion.
Boudicca (1st C AD) who led Britons in revolt against the Romans.
Joan of Arc (1412-1431) who roused her countrymen against the British invasion
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) who was an advocate for women's rights in an age when they were still burning such women at the stake.
Margaret Fuller (1810-1850), another advocate for women's rights.
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), campaigner against slavery.
Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928), British suffragette.
Rosa Parks (1913-2005), civil rights activist.
Oprah Winfrey (1954- ), rights activist, named most influential woman in the world
Malala Yousafzai (1997- ) women's rights activist.
Nasty women, all.
But women are beginning to catch on. Below is an electoral map drawn up by FiveThirtyEight that shows how the election would look if only women voted.
The same site shows that if only men voted, the map would be overwhelmingly red. Women are defeating Donald Trump, and about time. My dearest hope is that Melania Trump will seize her right as a nasty woman to go into the voting booth and place her X next to Hillary's name. I am hoping that women under the thumbs of their husbands all over this country will secretly seize the day and vote like nasty women.
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