‘He Thinks I Should Cook the Bacon’ – Women Explain Disconnect with Donald Trump
Editor’s Note: The following article was co-written by Tim Kelly and Angela Marchese, students in Professor Koslosky’s Journalism Workshop class. You can find this article, along with other election coverage at HuskiesVote2016.wordpress.com.
Bloomsburg University junior Caroline Ferreri says her family normally votes Republican, but she’s bucking the trend in the first presidential election that she’s able to vote in.
The reason: She thinks Donald Trump isn’t supportive of women.
“Trump thinks I should cook the bacon instead of bringing it home,” Ferreri said.
Ferreri is not alone. Polls show Hillary Clinton beating Trump among women voters by a margin as high as 33 percentage points.
Voting, traditionally, is different for men and women. According to researchers, men tend to vote more Republican, while women tend to vote more Democratic, but the contrasts of this election cycle are significantly sharper.
While FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver estimated earlier in October that Donald Trump would win the electoral college vote 350-188 if only men voted, the results would actually be more drastic in Clinton’s favor – to the tune of 458-80 – if only women voted.
That estimate did come three days after Trump’s now infamous “hot mic” tape leaked, where he seemed to brag about performing sexual acts on women without their consent, but an NBC News poll conducted after the first presidential debate showed that nearly 80 percent of independent female voters didn’t think Trump had the “temperament” to be president, suggesting that the “hot mic” video only worsened Trump’s stance among women.
“Incredibly Sexist”
Kaytie Zangari, also a junior at BU, noted that while she supported Bernie Sanders in the primary and considered supporting Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in the general election, a Trump presidency is not something she believes we can risk.
“He is incredibly sexist,” Zangari said. “I already deal with men my age being sexist, I don’t need the president being that way, too.”
Along the lines of what Zangari said, the Telegraph has a tracker in their women’s lifestyle section that keeps track of comments that they deem to have been offensive toward women that Trump has said since the beginning of his campaign.
Voting Trump, staying anonymous
One female graduate student, who wished to remain anonymous, explained why she, unlike many other women, is choosing to support Trump.
“Mr. Trump wants to change the immigration process so that people are able to come into our country easier, but legally,” the female student noted. “He says, ‘Our big beautiful wall will have a big beautiful door,’ however that is rarely brought up when Trump is being discussed.”
She also feels that we need Trump because of the mere fact that he’s not a politician. She believes that a presidency under Trump would be less corrupt.
Majority of women stand against Trump
That anonymous student remains very much in the minority, however. The general election, by just about all polls, has increased the favorability of Clinton among women, like Ferreri and Zangari.
As Ferreri went on to note, she believes that Clinton’s continued efforts to become president are inspiring to young women like her. “She is a great role model to women who want to chase their dreams,” Ferreri said.
Clinton is statistically the second most disliked presidential candidate since polls have been tracking such sentiments. The most disliked, however, is Trump, with a large majority of women leading that charge and potentially pushing her into becoming the nation’s first female president.
