The way Donald Trump talks about women has always been questionable, but it’s come under special scrutiny since the release of a 2005 Access Hollywood tape. In the tape, Trump graduates from chauvinistic comments about how it’s “dangerous” to let women work to a full-blown, graphic description of sexual assault.
But about a decade before his comments were recorded by Access Hollywood, Trump betrayed a similar mind-set in an interview with ABC’s Nancy Collins. In response to a question about his relationship with women, Trump said, “Psychologists will tell you that some women want to be treated with respect — others differently.”
Collins: Let’s talk about women. Your feelings toward them seem conflicted, even chauvinistic, confusing since you adore and respect your mother so much.
Trump: I have great relationships with women, my mother, Ivana, Marla, my female executives are better than the men: tougher, smarter.
So why in 1992 did you tell a writer for New York Magazine, Marie Brenner, that ‘You have to treat women like shit” — ultimately pouring a bottle of wine down her back?
I didn’t say that. The woman’s a liar, extremely unattractive, lots of problems because of her looks.
That statement is exactly why women think you’re a chauvinist pig.
They’re right — and not. People say, “How can you say such a thing?” but there’s a truth in it, in a modified form. Psychologists will tell you that some women want to be treated with respect, others differently. I tell friends who treat their wives magnificently, get treated like crap in return, “Be rougher and you’ll see a different relationship.” Unfortunately, with people in general, you get more with vinegar than honey.
This attitude pretty much echoes Jill Soloway’s theory, which she posited in response to the Access Hollywood tape. That theory? Men divide women into two groups: those who don’t deserve to be degraded because of their relationship to a man (wife, daughter, sister, mother), and those who do.
