Professor Pippa Catterall, Professor in History and Policy at the University of Westminster, has explained in an article for the Big Issue how the misogyny of Trump’s presidential campaign might affect British politics.
In the article, Professor Catterall suggests that while the election result cannot be reduced to gender alone, “Trump doubtless tapped into a deeply gendered resentment.”
Professor Catterall writes that Trump’s campaign played into the idea that “wokery has gone too far, that you need a restoration of the nuclear family”. The campaign successfully used social media to “narrowcast” to groups who are receptive to this message and might consequently overlook Trump’s legal issues, including charges of sexual abuse.
Catterall explains: “I think [voters] draw a distinction between what they see as the man and what they see as the values of his political project. And they see it as confronting a changing social order on their behalf, of restating what means to be American.”
Concluding the article, Professor Catterall discusses how Trump’s victory might affect British politics. While the US and UK are different, Catterall explains that “the right appeal more to men than women – in the UK too…politicians here will be looking at the Trump playbook.”
Professor Pippa Catterall, whose research areas include religion, politics, constitutional history and policy, is part of the History Research Group, the Centre for Law, Society and Popular Culture and Westminster Development Policy Network. She teaches on a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate courses at Westminster, including the History BA Honours programme and the Museums, Galleries and Contemporary Culture MA.
Read the full article at the Big Issue.
Find out more about History courses at the University of Westminster.
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