“Get this, Donald. Nasty women are tough, nasty women are smart and nasty women vote.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren declared this powerful statement in a rally on Monday with Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Warren was responding to a comment made by Donald Trump during the final presidential debate, in which he murmured under his breath that Clinton was, “such a nasty woman.”
In an election in which so many statements from both candidates have been turned into memes or hashtags, this instance was no different. Twitter users responded with fervor, tweeting things like, “A nasty woman’s place is in the White House.” Users also noticed the correlations between the comment and Janet Jackson’s 1986 song, “Nasty.” Spotify even tweeted that streams of the song went up 250 percent after the debate.
Popular political figures like former Texas Sen. Wendy Davis tweeted her support for all the nasty women out there, wearing a shirt that said, “this ‘nasty woman’ votes,” as did celebrities like Lena Dunham, who urged women to express pride about being “nasty.”
I don’t think anyone who’s paid even just a little bit of attention to this presidential election can deny that it has been a spiteful one. It seems we’re hearing about new comments or allegations about the candidates almost every week at this point. When I heard Trump mutter his “nasty woman” comment, I expected it to blow up on social media, just not in such a joyful way.
At first, I was pessimistic. October has been a long, tiring month in this campaign and I was prepared to log onto Twitter and see users backing Trump’s comment, forcing women to defend themselves. Instead, I saw women of all different backgrounds — some politicians, some celebrities, some activists and some just average people — turn Trump’s comment into a method of empowerment. It was inspiring.
Businesses no doubt capitalized on the positive response about being a nasty woman. Almost instantaneously, I saw ads for T-shirts with “nasty woman” written proudly across the chest. Those shirts were followed by mugs, pins, pillows and even cross stitches.
The sheer amount of merchandise combined with how quickly it appeared is a bit overwhelming. On “Saturday Night Live” last weekend, Kate McKinnon and Alec Baldwin, posing as Clinton and Trump, joked about the phenomenon in their parody of the debate. But while wearing a T-shirt or drinking out of a mug may seem silly or even excessive to some, I actually find it incredibly important.
Although women have made great strides in this country, it’s important to remember how significant it is that a woman may become president-elect in less than a month. Sometimes it feels that this wild campaign has made us forget that. It’s also important that we recognize that even when a woman is performing at her best and has accomplished innumerable feats in her career, she is still subject to sexism.
Similarly to the ways women have reclaimed words like “slut,” women have turned the phrase “nasty woman” — which was originally used by a notoriously misogynistic man to scold a highly qualified woman — into a personal motto. Reclaiming these words and statements that have oppressed women is a way for us to escape that oppression. It proves that old tactics like hurling insults at women is no longer effective at silencing us.
Women are proudly adorning themselves in “nasty woman” merchandise to ensure that they will not be held down by sexism and inequality. And as a proud nasty woman myself, I can attest to Elizabeth Warren’s rousing statement in New Hampshire. Nasty women are making our voices heard, and nasty women vote.
