Many attribute Donald Trump’s success to his enormous appeal to white working class voters, sometimes characterized as “angry white men.” When considering Trump’s rhetoric of the working class, however, this is only half the story – it doesn’t account for female members of the working class, which constitute half of the working class. He is known to have trouble appealing to women, and has tried to combat this difficulty by vocalizing his proposal to fund a childcare plan that includes paid maternity leave. By using the term “maternity leave” rather than “parental leave,” he is more specifically targeting female working class voters, particularly mothers. He even went so far as to claim that his opponent “does not have a childcare plan,” attempting to establish himself as the candidate in support of policies that would benefit mothers.
Trump also has attempted to appeal to working class women by doing a rare full apology and correction for his comments on abortion. He previously said that women who have abortions should be punished, and hours later commented that the woman should NOT be punished, that women who receive abortions are victims, and that the doctors performing them should be subject to punishment. In the third and final debate with Clinton, he tried to frame abortion not as evil entirely, but rather depicted a gruesome and upsetting scenario where a late-term abortion resulted in the killing of a developed fetus. This is a much more effective rhetorical strategy for appealing to female voters – rather than criticize women for receiving any sort of abortion, he depicts an extreme case that evokes disgusting imagery.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/13/trump-childcare-proposal-paid-maternity-leave
I have thought often about the female side of the working class and I just don’t think he has been as successful. While maternity leave is appealing and probably a smart way to attract voters, it was never mentioned enough to make as many headlines. And with abortion, I feel like he has just been all over the place by talking about punishment and then taking that back. I feel like the positive rhetoric he has used to attract the female vote has been overlooked by all the negative comments that have come out, like the tape.