Sarah Posner, religion writer, on why this really hurts Trump with evangelical women

[muriel_volestrangler]

It's not the language, but the abuse of power for sex, which they're familiar with.

It's a series of tweets, 19 in all - click 'see more' where necessary: https://twitter.com/sarahposner/status/784541212934082561

What she says is that a lot of evangelical women either know someone, or have themselves been abused by someone in power - not a 'star', but a man who used his position in a church to get away with sexual assault like Trump does.

"A lot of evangelical women, then, are familiar with this behavior--the powerful man, using his power to perpetrate and ignore abuse.
...
Will this come across to pollsters? In church? In bible study? In casual conversation? Hard to say. But in the polling booth...?"

It's a demographic Trump desperately has to hold on to.

[Hortensis]

1. I've lived in conservative areas for 50 years, and

I believe the effect of Trump's obscene language is being vastly underestimated. Many conservative women are very conflicted about complex issues of female-male interactions, and many, even those who consider themselves modern and "liberated," are still very reactionary, tending to blame women for provoking male behaviors.

What virtually none are conflicted about is the pernicious influence on society of vulgar language. That's taken as a given, no need to think about it. When gossiping brings it up, fuck is referred to as "the F word" with a properly distancing intonation, and "pussy" is generally too disgusting and forbidden even to be referred to as "the P word."

That's not to say that the audio of Trump discussing grabbing women's private parts and similar behaviors would not have an effect if he'd kept the language clean, only that it would not have had this explosive effect. After all, this stuff has been out there for a long time. Many books have been written about him, and Howard Stern's show didn't take place 10,000 years ago in strange incomprehensible grunts. It just wasn't being talked about because, for various reasons, people wanted to ignore it.

[Silver Gaia]

2. Good points. I agree.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. These women must be comatose or numbed by the life they lead

All the vitriol that Trump Campaign has thrown out there, all the damaging
policies to women and God's environment, and it took this to wake them up.

Better late than never, and just in a nick of time.

[Volaris]

4. This may as well be 'binders full of pussy', an nothing more.

The sentiment is the same (women are a useful object), the language is just less shiny, and therefore, in some ways, much more accurate in terms of the attitudes of the Deplorables who believe such things.

[yellowcanine]

5. This pisses me off. What, men aren't equally offended?

That is a "boys will be boys" attitude. I am just as offended by this as anybody and it is NOT because I have daughters. It is because I am HUMAN.

[mdbl]

8. Any man with a daughter who doesn't get it

Is part of the basket of deplorables.

[spooky3]

9. Good point

It's like saying only blacks, and whites who are married to them, should be concerned about racism directed against blacks.

[randome]

6. "A lot of evangelical women" is a meaningless phrase.

[hr][font color="blue"][center]Precision and concision. That's the game.[/center][/font][hr]

[vlyons]

7. the P-word is particularly offensive

and off-putting. I'm a Buddhist and find all name calling with slang slurs for human genetalia to be offensive and vulgar. I hate hearing women being referred to as the B-word and C-word, just as I hate men being referred to as the P-word and D-word. There's something leftover from our Puritanical past that finds sex so sinful and dirty that we use vulgar slang words for genitalia to insult people. Such vulgarity is the hallmark of thoughtless and inconsiderate people. my 2 cents

[spooky3]

10. Shouldn't they be offended that a newly married man

Wants to break his marital vows by pressuring a married woman to commit adultery?