As this post is going live, a protest moving from the US Embassy and marching towards 10 Downing Street, is taking place in London against U.S. President Donald Trump's travelling ban.
Yet, just a few days after the ban, Trump managed to indirectly cause a new firestorm. Derision erupted indeed on Twitter in the last few hours after a report on news website Axios stated that, according to insiders who worked on the presidential campaign, Trump prefers female staffers "to dress like women", while male employees should only "have a certain look", and preferably wear a tie (note: these words weren't directly spoken by Trump, but by a source who worked on his campaign).
Since the piece was published people took to the social media and started celebrating influential women and posting their own interpretations of this statement accompanied by the hashtag #DressLikeAWoman.
As you may guess, all sorts of images started flooding Twitter, from politicians to astronauts, from police officers and soldiers to doctors, surgeons and healthcare professionals, scientists, Nobel Prizes, firefighters, pastors, racing drivers, athletes and a US Navy ship commander.
While this is another embarrassing chapter in Donald Trump's presidency, his language reminds a lot of former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's immoral, unfortunate, archaic and idiotic attitude and comments about women (the seeds of the current surge in violence against women in Italy were sown when Berlusconi was in power, so beware of the consequences of Trump's attitude and irresponsible behaviour...).
But if Trump, obsessed with his own image and blinded by the glamour of plastic and bizarre fake hair, likes the women in his office and in his life to look in a certain way (like plastic dolls maybe?) and opt for more stereotypical feminine outfits, most women out there should raise their voice and take inspiration from their own lives or from the lives of great icons to fight him back.
The 1920s can be pretty inspiring as they generated the flappers, free and rebellious spirits who represented social openness. Among them there was also journalist, editor, publisher, translator, avant-garde muse, political activist, poet and African jewelry collector Nancy Cunard.
Pictures portraying her show Cunard dressed like a mysterious woman or a man: in 1924 she was photographed by Man Ray at a ball, wearing men's clothes with Dadaist Tristan Tzara kneeling to kiss her hand. She often wore bangles all over her arms, a form of body adornment, but also of defence since, if she needed, she would use the pieces as weapons against men to batter them.
So, the final suggestion is to find your icon, make yourself your own icon, and get prepared since International Women's Day is coming (8th March), and who knows what the enemy N. 1 of global feminists will be doing/saying before then.
As for you, Donald, you may be the previous owner of the Miss Universe pageant, but most of us do not aspire to be Miss Universes. We are indeed too busy standing at the door of Trumpland as Dulle Griet at the mouth of Hell, though maybe this reference is too arty, educated and clever for you to understand it.
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