Donald Trump talks like a woman (and the moon is made of green cheese)

A couple of days ago, Politico magazine published a piece by Julie Sedivy claiming that Donald Trump talks like a woman:

He might be preoccupied with grading women’s looks, penis size and “locker room talk,” but the way he speaks and the actual words he uses make for a distinctly feminine style. In fact, his speaking style is more feminine by far than any other candidate in the 2016 cycle, more feminine than any other presidential candidate since 2004.

A number of people who read my last post, on Trump’s ‘locker room talk’, have asked me what I think of this claim. The answer is well summarised in the title of a response written by the linguist Tyler Schnoebelen, ‘Trump does NOT talk like a woman (BREAKING NEWS: gender continues to be complicated and confusing)‘. If you’re looking for a full explanation of why Sedivy’s analysis does not stand up, this excellent post should be your first port of call. (Some other relevant points are made by John McWhorter here.)  There’s no need for me to duplicate these more detailed critiques, but before I go, let me just highlight a few key points–points which aren’t just relevant to this piece about Donald Trump, but are equally applicable to many other discussions of the linguistic differences between men and women.

First point: the fact that a word is used more frequently by women than men, or vice versa, does not license the conclusion that the word in question is typical of women’s or men’s speech (let alone that the word itself is ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’). As Tyler Schnoebelen points out, a word can be strongly associated with one gender, but only used by a small minority of people of that gender. If that’s the case, you’re not looking at a marker of ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’ style: more likely it belongs to the style of a particular subset of men or women (e.g. ‘white suburban women under 25’), or maybe it’s typical of a group which is numerically female- or male-dominated, but is actually defined by something other than gender (e.g. being a sports fanatic, or the primary carer for small children). Women and men are not internally homogeneous groups, so we should always be sceptical about any claim which implies that each of them has a single, uniform style of speech.

Second point: statistical findings about language-use need to be interpreted in relation to the context–it makes a difference what people are talking about, to whom and in what situation. A case in point: the research Sedivy cites suggests that women use the pronoun ‘she’ more frequently than men do, and the analysis of Trump’s speech during the presidential debates shows that he also uses ‘she’ quite frequently. But there’s a good reason not to interpret that as evidence of his ‘feminine style’. Political campaigners tend to make repeated reference to their opponents, and Trump has a female opponent. In this context, his use of ‘she’ says precisely nothing about his style.

Third point (and please forgive me for stating the obvious here): communication style isn’t just about words. Even if we leave aside the question of content, what Trump says, the analysis of his ‘distinctly feminine style’ detaches the words he uses from a whole lot of other things that contribute to our perception of him. His aggressive attempts to dominate the floor, for instance, by interrupting and talking over other speakers. The tone and volume of his voice. His body language: gaze, facial expression, posture, the way he prowled around and loomed over his opponent in the second debate. All those aspects of his performance, I would suggest, are distinctly–indeed, cartoonishly–masculine.

When you look at Trump’s performance as a whole, it’s hard to buy the argument that his ‘feminine’ linguistic style is ‘helping to counter the opposition’s portrait of [him] as a domineering misogynist who lacks empathy and concern for others’. And I don’t think we need that argument to explain Trump’s appeal. His support isn’t coming from people who don’t believe or haven’t noticed he’s a domineering misogynist; it’s coming from people who either don’t care that he’s a domineering misogynist or who consider that a positive virtue. We can only hope their view will not prevail.

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