The October 10 edition of The New Yorker features a cover illustration of Donald Trump portrayed as a pageant queen. The cover is a response to Trump's comments towards the 1996 winner of the Miss Universe pageant, Alicia Machado, whom he called "Miss Piggy" and belittled for her weight gain, driving her to try weight loss through eating disorders. Now an American citizen, the Venezuelan woman has vowed to vote for Hillary Clinton and has gone public with her story as a part of the Clinton campaign.
While the cover could simply be seen as a clever use of rhetoric--a way of throwing Trump's hate speech back in his face--it is reflective of a much larger and much more damaging issue plaguing our society today. The cover, as well as many of Trump's sexist claims, reinforce the idea that to be a woman means to be a lesser member of society than a man. This mentality is damaging to everyone as it teaches girls that they will never be seen as "good enough" and it teaches boys that women are inferior beings and that it's okay to treat them as such. This line of thinking is what allows boys to call each other "pussies" and "fags." It lets them use "You throw like a girl" as an insult. It lets people get away with brushing off a woman's emotions by claiming that she's just on her period or suggesting that women are emotional creatures anyway so what they have to say becomes invalidated.
The idea that an overweight woman is the worst thing that Trump could ever be portrayed as is an insult to women everywhere. Trump is the scum of the earth. He's a liar and he is by all standards unfit to be president of the United States. Call him whatever you want but to insult him, but calling him a woman is the epitome of bad journalism. Gendered insults are inherently sexist because they suggest that being a woman or being gay or being anything less than a stereotypical macho man means that your existence is a joke.
The cover is insulting, but not to Trump. It's insulting to women everywhere, to anyone who's ever struggled with their weight, to anyone who's been told that they need to act a different way based on their biological sex. It is an issue that our country is facing from the halls of middle schools to the desks of professional journalists and until we mutually decide that being a woman is not a crime, a joke, and a slur, these sorts of immature behaviors will continue. But if we put our foot down and refuse to give into this demeaning portrayal of half the population, we may be able to spark systemic change and create a society in which people are not shamed for simply being themselves.
