Hey broads! Stop listening Taylor Swift for a minute and put down all your babies. John Kasich needs you to do a little cute door-knocking for his campaign. Try to look presentable, though. Maybe go on a diet.
So, yeah, John Kasich (governor of Ohio, and still running for president somehow) may have kind of a sexism problem. As you have probably heard by now, he was recently talking about his early campaigns in the ’70s, and he mentioned his support from “many women who left their kitchens to go out and go door-to-door and to put yard signs up for me.”
Uh sure okay. To be fair to Kasich, women in the 1970s did spend at least some of their time in kitchens, so it’s not strictly inaccurate. It’s just kind of hard to imagine him saying the same thing about men, particularly given his history of how he talks to women.
There was the time a few months ago when he was fielding questions from college students, and called on a woman with her hand up to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t have any Taylor Swift tickets.”
At another point, he looked a woman in the audience up and down and told her, “I’m sure you get invited to all of the parties.” Hey, what’s the problem, it’s a COMPLIMENT to tell women they’re hot, right? I’m sure he talks the same way to college boys: “Yes, I’ll take the next question from that hunky slab of beef in the back there. You look like you’re just poured into that football jersey, mister.”
And then when he was campaigning somewhere in the godforsaken wilds of Iowa, a woman (who had apparently managed to escape from her kitchen) asked him a question about lobbyists and conflicts of interest. Kasich explained ethical lapses in terms that any woman should be able to understand: “You ever been on a diet?” he asked her.
“Many times,” she said, and she did not say it with joy in her voice. Kasich went on to explain how goals, whether for ethics or diets, have a way of slipping. Meanwhile I can only imagine how flattered that woman must have felt to have been asked that question in front of all of her neighbors and television cameras.
Oh also he made that “left their kitchens” quip in response to a question about how he just defunded Planned Parenthood in Ohio, so obviously he has women’s best interests at heart.
None of this matters too much for his presidential ambitions, since he doesn’t have a chance of winning. Donald Trump is beating him in his own state, and the Republican establishment desperately wants him to drop out.
“We’ll be fine in Ohio,” Kasich says. Maybe he’s got a surprise army of lady voters hiding in a kitchen somewhere, or maybe they’re lurking inside of one of Mitt Romney’s binders.
For his part, Kasich backpedaled, kind of, on his kitchen comment.
“I’m more than happy to say I’m sorry, if I offended somebody out there, but it wasn’t intended to be offensive,” Kasich nonpologized later on CNN. (Please, everyone, stop allowing jerks to get away with “I’m sorry if.”) “Everybody’s just got to relax,” he added.
Yeah! Good advice! Relax! God, women are so emotional.
