By Shruti Sunderraman

You don’t need more Donald Trump on your newsfeed. We hear you. But when he does something a lot of men get away with doing, its time we pirouette him as an example on the No-Nos. 

On his first state visit to the land of Simone de Beauvoir, Trump thought it appropriate to “compliment” the French first lady Brigitte Macron by telling her she’s ‘in great shape’. He then turns to the French president Emmanuel Macron and remarks how great a shape his wife is in, adding that she’s ‘beautiful’. Macron mutters a polite ‘yes’ and the first lady brushes this off while we bite down on the nausea in our mouths.

Trump doesn’t stop at that. In a video tweet, he is shown to pull his infamous bully-handshake shenanigans with the French first lady. She appears to be visibly uncomfortable, trying to pry her hand away, while he appears (as always) oblivious to her discomfort.

Trump did his yank-and-pull handshake on France’s first lady pic.twitter.com/11PHNXsEoq

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 13, 2017

Twitter users have since been lashing out at Trump for his horrendous remark and behaviour.

#Trump telling France’s First Lady “you’re in such good shape” epitomizes men towing the line between compliment & sexual harassment. 1/

— Alex Berg (@AlexfromPhilly) July 13, 2017

Out of habit, Trump seems to be using his woman masher move on France’s First Lady.

— StillLes4Hill (@StillLes4Hill) July 13, 2017

 

We’ve all seen and heard numerous examples of “well-intentioned” compliments on a woman’s shape, akin to our very own creepy uncles with their ‘beta, you look so great these days’. To the innocuously intended, is there nothing under the sky you can say to a woman that does not refer to her body? There’s nothing innocuous about reducing the identity of a woman to her body and it looks like Trump has some serious learning to do.