President Donald Trump has created, along with other male leaders, a wave of misogyny around the world, one of the co-chairs at the World Economic Forum (WEF) told CNBC on Friday morning.
Sharan Burrow, the general secretary of International Trade Union Confederation and one of the seven female co-chairs of this year’s event in Davos, called on joint action to ensure the world becomes a more egalitarian place.
“He (Trump) has managed to, with the rise of other alpha male leaders, to unleash a wave of misogyny around the world as if it is legitimate in 2018, he has actually promised something American workers that he can’t and won’t deliver,” Burrow told CNBC.
Trump has been criticized in the past for making controversial comments about women. In December, the White House defended a tweet by Trump attacking Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y. The episode landed against a backdrop of renewed public focus on the allegations of sexual misconduct against the president made by multiple women during the 2016 campaign. Trump has denied all the claims, which come from more than a dozen women and date back to the 1980s. A spokesperson for the White House wasn’t immediately available for comment when contacted by CNBC.
Burrow also told CNBC that “Justin Trudeau (the Canadian Prime Minister) is fantastic and so are the other people you mentioned in terms of all admitting that globalization hasn’t worked for working people and it’s certainly not working to include women.”
“But you can’t deny that if you have people who think it’s OK to talk about women, to disregard the rights of workers, we are in trouble as an inclusive world,” she warned.
For the first time in 48 years, WEF was chaired entirely by women — a decision made following criticism about the prominence of men at the discussions in Davos and to promote women’s rights.
— CNBC’s Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.
