Analysis of the Impact of Negative Gender Comments From Influential Politicians

I have chosen to write my Language and Literature task 1 as a speech from the perspective of a male politician intending to achieve gender equality. Additionally, I will also be highlighting the effects of negative gender comments from influential politicians on women trying to apply in the political field. Reasons for my preferred text type include the freedom of opinion, lack of emotions etc. I have chosen this topic as I find politicians like Donald Trump to be very sexist, especially on social media like Twitter and I feel like their behaviour should be addressed. Donald Trump is a huge aspect of this speech as he is the most sexist politician and I will be using a lot of his tweets as sources. This speech will also focus on language as the vocabulary and phrases that Donald Trump uses to address such a controversial topic are highly unpleasant and will be analyzed in this piece.

To attain a successful speech I have provided a clear idea and perception of what I will be writing, the speech is intriguing and supported by evidence. I have also made the speech concise, emotions are controlled and if used, only to a certain extent as they should be avoided in a good speech. The speech you will be reading next will be unique as I chose to write it from a male perspective taking in mind that due to the inappropriate behaviour of some extreme feminists, most of them are now stereotyped pretty heavily as unreasonably aggressive, these individuals are categorized in a term called ‘Radical Feminism’ which aims to eliminate any male supremacy. To avoid that factor influencing my speech, I have decided to defend women’s rights from a masculine perspective. The target audience I have taken in consideration before writing the speech are both male and female, specifically females who are aiming to apply to work in the political field and my aim is to hopefully make it less frightening for them and outline the problems they will have to go through.

First draft

I am honoured to be given a chance today to present a topic which is really intriguing and fascinating to me. My motive for today’s speech will be to get all of you, even the men, to support gender equality. Sadly, I could go on forever about this broad topic so I have narrowed it down to an area which is classified as a very “man-like work” by the general population of the US and Mr. Trump. Therefore, the barriers to entry for women in this field are unreasonably high. The area we will be focusing on is the field of politics. A significant person we will be looking at in this speech is Donald Trump, the current president of the United States. Now as we all know, Donald Trump is a very successful CEO, a businessman, and the 45th president of the US. However, what you might not know is that he is an extremely sexist person as represented by his arguable tweets over the years. Although there are quite a few controversial sexist tweets from the President, there's one that caught my eye. The tweet states "Can you imagine that, the face of our next President? I mean, she's a woman, and I'm not supposed to say bad things, but really, folks, come on. Are we serious?” - Donald Trump, late 2015”. There’s so much to say about this quote, the tone, the language, and the topic itself. The use of unprofessional language and rhetorical questions in his tweet is highly unbefitting. The purpose of the rhetorical question is to give the audience a choice of answers while stating the right and obvious one in his opinion. In his tweet, not only does he disrespect Hillary Clinton, but all women in general. He talks as if women are incapable of governing the country, as if it’s a job meant just for men. This is the 21st century, we should be ashamed that people still believe in this ideology, especially the president of the United States.

Thanks to these tweets and the unacceptable behaviour of these crucial politicians, women all around the world feel scared to even step in their desired jobs. According to the NPR (National Public Radio), “Women make up around 19 percent of all members of Congress and less than 25 per cent of all state legislators. ” They also make up six of the nation's 50 governors or 12 percent”. As a matter of fact, all of the official presidents of the USA have been men. This shows how homogenous the presidency has remained and it's the most oppressive example of how women aren't remotely as dominant as men in this field. Sadly, Donald Trump made the same mistake once again, therefore, we will be analyzing another one of his sexist tweets as, honestly, there are quite a few. This tweet quotes” If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband what makes her think she can satisfy America?”. This tweet is extremely disrespectful. It refers to the women’s personal life and compares it to her life as a politician. To bring her private life in the matter and use it against her to weaken her status politically is absurd. This signifies that the only job that women have or can have is to satisfy the needs of their husbands and families.

I am here today to convey the fact that women are just as good in politics or in any job as anyone else. Some examples of great female politicians adapted by other countries include Theresa May (The current Prime Minister of the UK), Julia Gillard (Former prime minister of Australia). In 1920, Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the US was sick and his wife had to take over for 17 months. She handled the country just as good as any of the other leaders and is not very popular enough for her efforts compared to her husband and other politicians. Americans have loved the idea of a female president for years. In 1960 a study conducted by “Gallup” showed that just over fifty percent of Americans said they could vote for a “well-qualified” women for president and that number rose quickly to 92% in 2015. This study begs the question, What’s keeping women out of the office?

In a report conducted in 2012, American University professor of government Jennifer Lawless and Loyola Marymount University professor Richard Fox came up with some main barriers why they think women are not willing to run for office. To summarize the 7 points, their explanations included the following:They might find it more competitive than it is for men. Women saw how Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were treated in the 2008 election.

They are not confident in their political abilities, on the other hand, men mostly are even if they have the same skills set. Women are still stereotypically more responsible for the majority of childcare and household tasks and therefore are less likely to revive the suggestion to run for office. In the US there isn’t only sexism in high tier politics there are also signs of racism as statistically only 17 percent of members of Congress are non-white. But that's another subject as a whole.

Before writing my speech I kept contradicting myself, “Is this really important?” but my research has convinced me that having a women point-of-view on every crucial political issue is very important and beneficial for the country. Men sometimes just don't see the way women see things and having more women would be a great addition to our political status. Women have told the NPR that they need that extra motivation before they finally run for office and I feel like there should be more campaigns or events to make them comfortable about joining these so-called “men jobs” according to the NPR.