Speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized President Trump for telling women voters he is “getting your husbands back to work.” She said Thursday that the thinking was outdated and “removed from the realities of life.”
“What decade is he living in? What century is he living in? So completely removed from the realties of life. And that has caused death,” Pelosi said during her weekly press conference.
During a rally in Michigan on Tuesday, Mr. Trump tried to appeal to women in the audience, saying he was “saving suburbia.” He said he was the best candidate for women because he was “getting your kids back to school” and “getting your husbands back to work.”
Mr. Trump’s comments come as job losses due to the pandemic have disproportionately affected women. In September, 865,000 women over 20 dropped out of the workforce compared to 216,000 men, according to data from the Labor Department. Women are overrepresented in some of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, such as leisure, hospitality and health care.
Moreover, the burden of child care generally falls to women, meaning some women may choose to leave the workforce so they can take care of children unable to go to school in person. A September analysis by Stateline, an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that mothers of small children have lost work at three times the rate of fathers during the pandemic.
Mr. Trump has sought to broaden his appeal to women, and tweeted over the summer he believed he would get support from the “suburban housewife.” In a rally in Ohio earlier this month, he openly asked for support from this demographic, saying, “Suburban women, will you please like me?”
Mr. Trump’s pleas to suburban women also have racial undertones, as he has argued Joe Biden would bring low income housing to the suburbs under a plan by Senator Cory Booker.