No part of the world is free from misogyny, and certainly not America. Not only is it a big and welcome surprise that Hillary Clinton won the Democratic nomination vote and cracked the proverbial glass ceiling in the United States of America, it is very heartening to think that a woman may occupy the Oval Office.
However liberated America may seem, a great deal of male chauvinism lurks behind its bright neon lights and astounding skyline. In this political campaign, the gloves are off as they always are when America goes to elections. But this time, it’s a mud fight.
Hillary has been ridiculed for the way she dresses, how she speaks, how she looks. She has been ridiculed for being a wife who was cheated on by her handsome, philandering husband. She has been ridiculed for being able to maintain her composure in the face of such personal humiliation and called “inhuman” for continuing to hold her family together. She has been pulled down in every which way. The jokes on Hillary have bordered on ribald, not surprising given who and how her prime opponent is. But, Hillary has a lifetime of public service behind her; she is backed by the best education the world has to offer, and she has her head fitted firmly on her shoulders.
Hillary may have flinched inwardly, but she has not let her discomfort, if any, be visible to the world. She is now poised and happily so to occupy the most powerful office in America and some might even say the world.
Trump’s relatively young and beautiful wife Melania was not spared either.
Photographs from her erstwhile modelling career were splashed across the country. These were aesthetically photographed nudes, clicked for a European magazine when she was earning her living as a top-notch model. But the jokes flew and are still doing the rounds.
“Is this how the First lady of the USA would be like?” A certain newspaper said the Oval Office would be rechristened the“Ogle Office.”
The writer, well, had to be a man.
My concern and everybody’s should not be about the honest work Melania did, whatever it was. It should be about the hard fact that she plagiarised with impunity, and from none other than the current First Lady’s older speech! I would be worried that she did not notice, that she did not know that the words she was spouting were stolen. And if she knew that speech was a direct lift from one Michelle Obama had made, then that makes the plagiarism far worse.
The thought that a person who maybe the FLOTUS can be so corrupt is far scarier than the fact that she posed for certain pictures and got paid for them. But, that pressing issue has been shelved for now since the latest source of ribald jokes is the fact that a certain portion of her body had to be edited out for print.
Earlier, Sarah Palin had been ridiculed not only for the fact that she was decidedly unsuitable in the cerebral department given the post she was contesting for, but also more for how she looked and what her vital stats were. Then, of course, there were the blonde jokes.
We are no better off in India.
Just the fact that Smriti Irani was given the portfolio of the Union minister of textiles was enough to make the misogynists go crazy cracking inane jokes on the size of her blouses.
It is a different matter that the good minister herself asked a woman politician to “leave the kitchen if the heat was too much” when the latter was being attacked by trolls on social media, trolls who not only sent her life threats, but also expressed inclinations to harm her child.
Misogyny knows no party lines or social boundaries. It is all-pervasive. Men spit out vicious expletives laced with derision when they see a woman driver on the roads. Their instant conclusion is that she wouldn’t be driving properly. Saheb, it is a lady driver,” the chauffeur of many a fancy limousine will curl his mouth and tell his well-heeled — male — boss. A joke shared between two men, who belong to opposite ends of the money spectrum, can obviously cover their common contempt for the female on the steering wheel.
Sunny Leone managed to come on tops in the face of acute misogyny directed at her by a famous TV journalist. In fact, the man inadvertently projected her as a hero because she was someone “who kept a stiff upper lip” and was therefore very brave.
If Trump does get trounced into victory, I will not be concerned about the fact that he has a wife who has bared every inch of her skin to the world. I will be far more concerned about any dishonesty Melania Trump may not have bared yet. I will be concerned if she will be able to do justice to her position in the White House. If powerful women like Hillary Clinton, Melania Trump and Smriti Irani are subject to misogyny is there any hope at all for the others?
(A version of this op-ed appeared online in Daily O on August 4, 2016)
The writer is a freelance columnist