It's Not About Clinton's Health, It's a Sexist Dog Whistle

[JCMach1]

The modern version of this in America has its roots in the Puritan (protestant) history of this country. Oddly enough, Darwinian theorists in the 19th and 20th Century as pointed the 'evolutionary' function of women being weak (i.e. natural selection for this).

So yes, it is both religious and has its origin in creepy eugenics movement thinking. So yeah Trump should stop. IT's also the reason why he won't stop talking about it.

[dawg]

1. I don't think it's any of that.

I just think it's just "assholery" in general. (And maybe a little projection.)

[AllTooEasy]

8. Exactly! Don't women outlive men?

Is anybody on tv asking that?

[ffr]

10. No. It's too obvious.

[MoonRiver]

2. A new pundit on CNN pointed this out, and I think she was spot on.

And another sign of the right's misogyny is characterizing Hillary as a granny, despite the fact that Rump is a grandad. Somehow Hillary having grandkids is a sign that she's old and frail, while Rump is presented as strong and tough.

[Jade Fox]

3. Exactly......

She can't handle being President because she's a.... girl.

As soon as I heard Trump saying Clinton didn't have the "stamina" to be President, I knew it was code for sexism.

[Hortensis]

7. Oh, yes. That one leaped off the screen at me too.

JCMach1, I think more people would agree if the socioreligious underpinnings were presented more completely. Some leaps of thought are required and are easier for those who already know what's on the other side.

Of course, those who still believe, for instance, that wives should hold themselves in subjection to their husbands and are not suited to public office (a very substantial number) live on the other side. They have no trouble understanding what merely echoes their own beliefs.

[NewJeffCT]

4. I posted this in another thread this morning

Clinton sat through 11 hours of grueling questioning and made it through with flying colors while making the House Republicans look like idiots in the process. Trump got whiny and pissy when the debate went over 2 hours, and he was only getting questioned part of the time, and by reasonably friendly moderators.

[GeorgeGist]

5. Another tool in the politics of personal destruction.

[niyad]

6. k and r

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Nah. It's Republicans taking any port they can find in the Trump shit storm. . . nt

[nolabear]

11. Older women were incredibly powerful at one time so had to be disempowered. It stuck.

There's some godawful history of course. Older women were midwives, nurses and washed and prepared the dead, so were in peoples' households at length for births, illnesses and death, times of great stress. They saw what went on behind typically closed doors, a fact that made those who didn't want those things revealed to portray them as either incapable or evil. "Old Wives' Tales" came from the smears that you couldn't believe a word they said.

Witch trials were often held in response to women having power and property rather than just being allowed to be consorts and mothers of the real property holders, husbands and sons. The idea that we lose our minds during menses and at menopause (note the contradiction there...as if we're too frail to deal with physical changes that are frankly real and a pain but hardly as debilitating as things men go through without that onus attached) was a construct that remains to this day.

It's disgusting. We women need to rise up for one another and stop this outrage.

[hamsterjill]

12. It is a sexist dog whistle

It's playing to the good ole boy network with Trump implying that Hillary is "the weaker sex". Trump is trying to portray Hillary as incapable of handling the pressure, too sickly to be at work every day (as in times when women were considered sick during menstruation) and unable to keep up with the demanding physical components of being President of the United States.

It's Trump's "wink, wink" to the good, ole boys network and they all understand completely what it is that Trump is saying.

It's disgusting that this tactic is being used and even more disgusting that so many of Trump's supporters are jumping on the bandwagon and perpetuating out-right lies.

[JCMach1]

13. The media is also complicit for not calling it what it is...

but spreading the message

[hamsterjill]

14. Yes, you're absolutely right.

n/t