If Trump Were a Woman

Ruth Marcus on Apr 27, 2016

Hence his repeated references to Clinton's alleged low energy. "She doesn't have the strength, she doesn't have the stamina," Trump said again Tuesday night. This, again from a man whose public schedule is far less punishing than Clinton's. Trump's sly conflating of gender and age -- notwithstanding the inconvenient fact that she is younger -- plays on images of all women as weak and older women as shriveled in comparison to a still-virile man.

And hence, Trump's remarks about Clinton, on Wednesday's "Morning Joe," that "I haven't quite recovered -- it's early in the morning -- from her shouting that message. ... I guess I'll have to get used to a lot of that over the next four or five months."

The shouting issue is interesting because it is so subtle. Last fall, as she tangled with Sanders over gun control, Clinton seized on the Vermont senator's remarks that "all the shouting in the world" would not solve the gun problem. "I haven't been shouting, but sometimes when a woman speaks out, some people think it's shouting," Clinton said.

My instincts then were with Sanders; his references to shouting did not set off my sexism detector because they seemed to refer to the rancorous nature of the gun debate generally, not to Clinton's personal style.

Trump's comments evoke the stereotype of the beleaguered husband dealing with a shrewish wife, as when Trump tweeted last year, "I just realized that if you listen to Carly Fiorina for more than ten minutes straight, you develop a massive headache."

Trump, according to Gallup, is viewed unfavorably by 70 percent of women. Talk about a massive headache.

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Ruth Marcus' email address is ruthmarcus@washpost.com.