There is something about his swagger, his unabashed embodiment of a time when women were eye candy and arm candy. And there is something about the way he strikes back at women who anger him that seems to resonate for some men — and which, at least so far, has not cost him the support of the women who backed him. The uncomfortable larger question is whether this president’s behavior is encouraging and unmasking resentments about women’s place in society.
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The women’s movement spent decades attempting to change attitudes among Americans so that tweets like Mr. Trump’s would be out of bounds. Even a year ago, the conventional wisdom was that comments like Mr. Trump’s taped boasts about forcing himself on women were political suicide. That no longer appears to be true. And the fear is that much as President Barack Obama’s election seemed to ignite resentments about race that most people had been shy about expressing publicly, Mr. Trump’s election may be unleashing latent anger toward women.
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Social media offers another lens. It’s a medium Mr. Trump exploits brilliantly, and one that has fostered and amplified a toxic subculture of misogyny. Today on Twitter, there was glee about Mr. Trump’s tweet alongside the denunciations. Some piled on with more insults about women. Others were overjoyed that Mr. Trump was upsetting “snowflakes,” that derisive term of art for oversensitive liberals. Still others believed that the president was justifiably striking back against attacks on him from Ms. Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough. Some insisted there was no sexism involved, that women aren’t exempt from criticism and have to learn to take it, just as men do.
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Of course, this is not to imply that everyone who voted for Mr. Trump or continues to support him endorses his behavior toward women. Many women who voted for him told pollsters, academics and reporters, including in interviews I conducted, that they were disgusted by such remarks. But their anger about the economy, abortion rights or foreign policy outweighed their discomfort. And others dismissed the outcry as manufactured for partisan purposes, or shrugged it off as “locker room talk.” The torrent of criticism from many Republican public figures, including a tweet by the journalist Bill Kristol calling Mr. Trump a “pig,” shows that he offends many Republican men as well.
