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Nasty woman

By Nickunj Malik - Nov 02,2016 - Last updated at Nov 02,2016

Like all of us, even I have been watching this year’s American presidential elections with great interest. The three debates, between the two primary candidates, have livened up many of my dinner table conversations. Along with the endless entertainment it provided, I also got to learn some brand new phrases and terms that were bandied about. 

Soon the votes would be counted and a new entrant picked to occupy the White House but what will remain with me is the remark that was uttered almost as an aside during the final debate. It was as if Donald Trump could not help himself and less than an hour after telling American voters that no one had more respect for women than he did, Trump let loose a dig that seemed to suggest otherwise.

The Republican presidential nominee found his opponent’s sharing of her ideas about social security funding simply “nasty”. To quote him fully: “Such a nasty woman,” he said. With this singular sentence deriding Hillary Clinton, it was as if  Trump set himself up to be lampooned by the media and the general public.

Being nasty, if you went by the dictionary definition, meant a huge range of negative descriptions. Like: disgusting, offensive, mean, spiteful, unpleasant, repugnant, annoying, dangerous, filthy, vicious and so on.

But when Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman”, overnight the expression spread like wildfire all across the Internet and it took on a whole new meaning that he definitely did not intend. Quite contrary to Trump’s derogatory observation, it got switched to describing someone who was “a confident, poised woman who strikes fear in the hearts of men when she clearly articulates rational arguments and/or takes action”.

Watching it on television, for the first time in my life I wished I could somehow cast a vote for electing the president of the United States of America. Not being an American citizen, this was impossible but if I could, I would vote for the best nasty woman on the planet. 

Growing up in a patriarchal society like India, very early in life I got used to being talked down upon. It should not have happened, but it did. When I put forth my opinions, I was asked not to be argumentative. If I articulated a logical point of view, I was told not to be confrontational. For the short period that I worked full time in a newspaper office, whenever I aired my thoughts during editorial meetings, my ideas were discretely pinched by my male colleagues and passed off as their own. If I put my foot down and insisted that the concept was mine, I was called, yes, a nasty woman. These barbs hurt. 

Therefore, when an extremely well qualified and competent lady like Hillary Clinton, who was running for the highest office in America, was similarly ridiculed, I could not stop empathising with her. But what kept me riveted to the small screen was the manner in which she handled herself. Without batting an eyelid, she went on to complete what she was saying, and got her message across. 

“That’s what I want to become,” I told my husband after the debate. 

“The president of USA?” he was surprised. 

“Wrong guess,” I corrected him. 

“The president of India?” he tried again. 

“Absolutely not,” I answered. 

“I give up,” he said, giving up. 

“Like Hillary Clinton” I gave him a hint. 

“A smart but belligerent woman?” he asked. 

 

“A very smart nasty woman,” I assured. 

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