Trump's Got a Problem With Women's Mouths

By Jessica Valenti, Medium

12 December 19

No matter how much the president curses and sneers, a woman like Elizabeth Warren who speaks her mind is the one who’s profane

onald Trump really likes talking about women’s mouths — specifically, how offensive he finds it when any words come out of them. At a rally in Pennsylvania this week, the president attacked Senator Elizabeth Warren, saying that she had “became strong” after his “Pocahontas” smear, “but then she opened that fresh mouth of hers.”

It’s not the first time Trump has opined on Warren’s mouth: In 2016, he called her a “big mouth” at a press conference in North Dakota; a month later, he tweeted that she had a “nasty mouth.”

Of course, Warren is just one among dozens of women Trump has maligned over the years; the president has a particular distaste for outspoken women or women who criticize him. He’s called Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Meghan Markle “nasty.” (Not to mention he’s also made comments about women’s periods, lied about a female critic having a sex tape, and mocked a woman who accused him of sexual misconduct as being too ugly to sexually assault.)

Earlier this year, he even made fun of teenage activist Greta Thunberg after she gave an impassioned speech about climate change, sarcastically tweeting that “she seems like a very happy young girl looking forward to a bright and wonderful future.”

What’s particularly ironic about his obsession with women’s “mouthiness,” though, is that Trump has one of the dirtiest mouths in U.S. politics. Apparently it’s fine for the president to curse and sneer, but a woman who speaks her mind is the one who’s profane.

Normally I’d be irritated about Trump’s attack against Warren’s outspokenness, but something else happened this week that cheered me. One of Trump’s “mouthy” female adversaries, Greta Thunberg, was named Time’s Person of the Year — an honor the president has long been obsessed with.

It turns out women’s fresh mouths get things done.