Being a journalist working and reporting on the White House and the United States presidency is supposed to be one of the greatest honors of any media professional’s career. Attending press conferences with the current administration, living and working in the political capital of the United States, and using your voice to inform the masses is a dream job for many.
But under current President Donald Trump, for women- that dream is dying.
Trump is no stranger to attacks on journalists, from popularizing the term “fake news” in 2016 during his first term as President, to personal social-media attacks on the looks, intelligence, and competence of journalists reporting on the White House. It has become unsurprising to see blatant disrespect towards journalists during press conferences, in interviews with the President, and across social media. However, over the first year of his second term, the attacks have become more frequent, more damaging, and more targeted.
In the month of November, nearly every jab Trump has made towards journalists have been aimed at women, and Trump’s comments have disproportionately targeted women of color, as reported by The Independent. The repeated attacks on female journalists began making headlines on November 14th, where President Trump responded to a question from Bloomberg reporter Catherine Lucey by saying “quiet, quiet piggy” whilst pointing at Lucey. The following month continued to have a number of similar incidents, with Trump telling female reporters that they were “stupid [people]”, “terrible reporters”, and “ugly, inside and out”, among other criticisms.
Other officials that serve as part of Trump’s staff have also begun to defend, and even mimic, his actions. Steven Cheung, director of communications for the White House and staunch supporter of the Republican party, took to X, telling New Yorker writer Jane Meyer to “respectfully, shut the f*** up” after she posted her thoughts about a recent shooting of National Guard officers in D.C.. White House officials have brushed off this behavior from both Trump and his associates, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claiming that Trump is “the most transparent person in the [press conference] room” and is simply annoyed with the spreading of misinformation. White House Spokeswoman Abigail Johnson echoed this point, saying that Trump’s honesty is the reason he was elected and that his recent comments have “nothing to do with gender”.
This pattern of blatant disrespect followed by coddling of the president closely follows how Trump’s comments were treated during his first term. CNN reporter Abby Phillip first commented on this phenomenon in 2018 after her press conference questions were repeatedly called “stupid” by the President. During an appearance on CNN after the initial incident, Phillip remarked that “he seems to not be tolerant of taking difficult questions, particularly from women… The president making assumptions about reporters based on their ethnicity is [also] definitely a pattern.”
The real issue, though, runs far deeper than negative comments and stereotypes. According to the International Women’s Media Foundation, journalists are concerned that these frequent attacks will dissuade individuals from pursuing political journalism and media communications as a broader field. Additionally, according to The Guardian writer Arwa Mahdawi, Trump’s frequent public criticisms of female journalists has opened the door to harassment from supporters of the president and other working professionals alike. Having a public figure like Trump make such frequent, unabashed negative comments will inevitably have repercussions in the social and professional lives of these reporters, and regardless of how you feel about the current administration, these comments are setting back the role of women in media decades.
For generations, female journalists were relegated to stories on fashion, cooking, and other topics perceived as feminine enough for women to cover, despite many women’s capability and desire to work on bigger, more serious pieces. As a society, the dismissal of female journalists in the professional spaces they’ve worked so hard to enter isn’t just an issue of feminism or gender equality, but one about the protection of free speech of the press and the American public for all. In the words of world-renowned feminist, activist, and journalist Gloria Steinem – “The future depends entirely on what each of us does every day; a movement is only people moving.”
