From T-Shirts to Gaetz:
How the President Elect Sees Women

Minnie Bardenhagen

Staff Writer

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On Oct. 25, The White Pine Press team arrived at a rally for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. The event, which lasted until about midnight, featured a plethora of MAGA fashion, from shirts that said “Jesus is my savior, and Trump is my president” to pictures of him pumping his fist in the air after the assassination attempt on him earlier this year in Pennsylvania.

 

Exiting the rally, there was a man outside with a pile of T-shirts with Vice President Kamala Harris’s face on them that read “Say no to the hoe,” and the man was shouting, “Get your Joe and the hoe have got to go T-shirts!”

 

The derogatory term is an alternative way to say another highly problematic term, “whore.” At its core, it is an offensive way to refer to someone who engages in prostitution or has multiple sexual partners.

 

During his campaign, Trump had made and promoted several vulgar online comments attacking Harris sexually, such as when he reposted a video where a parody singer said Harris had “spent her whole life down on her knees,” while a picture of Willie Brown, former San Francisco mayor and romantic partner of Harris, is shown on the screen.

 

Trump also reposted an image of Harris and his former opponent in the 2016 election, Hillary Clinton, that contained the caption, “Funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers differently.” The posts tried to push a narrative that Harris had worked her way up politically by providing other politicians sexual favors.

 

Now, and as of Nov. 6 when the Associated Press called the pivotal swing state of Pennsylvania, Donald J. Trump is the president elect of the United States.

 

Since the victory, Trump has wasted no time appointing his presidential cabinet. Though no longer the nominee for attorney general, it’s hard to get past the significance of Matt Gaetz as pick. Gaetz, who has been investigated by both the Department of Justice and the House Ethics Committee during his time as a Florida representative, was Trump’s first choice to be the head of the DOJ.

 

Gaetz had been investigated for sex trafficking involving an underage girl by the DOJ, and while he has denied the allegations, a lawyer for two of the women involved claimed one of his clients witnessed Gaetz with the 17-year-old girl. The New York Times also obtained a document that detailed all of the payments Gaetz had made to different women so that they would have sex with him.

 

Despite his withdrawal from attorney general consideration, there is a tone the new Trump administration has already begun to set with the initial pick. Here we have Gaetz, a man who used his power and money to sexually exploit women, and allegedly, a minor. Rather than considering that a hard line that shouldn’t be crossed, the Trump Team decided he should be granted more power.

 

Trump, who has been investigated by the DOJ, has criticized the department for being too politicized, and has accused the Biden Administration of using the DOJ to go after their political opponents. Gaetz as a pick was a clear message from Trump that he will continue to erase accountability for people in power, specifically the people in power who don’t defy him, even if people use their power to treat women like objects, or sexual services.

 

Let’s not forget that Trump has been found liable for sexual abuse. In May of 2023, Trump was found guilty of sexually abusing Jean E. Caroll in 1996, a columnist known for her work on Elle Magazine. It was also ruled that Trump had defamed her, as he mocked her and claimed her allegations were false.

 

There is an important assumption to consider, and that is the assumption that the way Trump and his allies see women in their own lives, and women running directly against them politically, like Kamala Harris, reflects the way that they see women in general.

 

Rather than confronting these allegations, and how the actions of those such as Trump and Gaetz contribute to the wider problem of sexual exploitation and abuse, Trump and his team have claimed the system is out to get him, and out to get people who also argue against the validity of the justice system like Matt Gaetz. The voices of the women involved, and the voices of women who have been victims in similar situations, have been nothing but an inconvenience to the political careers of Trump and his allies who have taken every measure to brush any accusations under the rug, framing them as the product of a corrupt media and justice system.

 

After an election so central to the question of reproductive healthcare and the rights of women to have bodily autonomy, we will now prepare to enter an administration that for many women, comes with the discomfort of not knowing what will happen next.