WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential contenders scrapped over the economy, national security and guns in Thursday night's main stage debate in South Carolina. But women, and issues that particularly affect them, did not come up.
The seven male GOP-ers in the prime-time debate did not discuss family leave, equal pay, child care, working moms, contraception, abortion, violence against women, LGBT protections, the treatment of female migrants, or education in any depth. Watching the event, a viewer might have gotten the impression that, unlike the candidates' proposals for combatting terrorism, these are not policies that affect Americans. But an international delegation of human rights experts recently determined that women in the United States are "missing rights" compared to the rest of the world.
The only woman invoked regularly was Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton, who was the target of some gender-based criticism. At one point, debate moderator Maria Bartiromo asked if Clinton was an "enabler of sexual misconduct." In the undercard debate, former Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina joked that, "unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband."
The other woman who received a shout-out was South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley (R), who earlier this week warned against "the angriest voices" when she responded to President Barack Obama's State of the Union address. One of the people she was referring to was real-estate mogul Donald Trump. At the debate, Trump said, "Wherever you are sitting Nikki, I'm a friend." Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush also recognized her leadership in the aftermath of the Emanuel AME church killings.
Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) warned that the Islamic State group "enslaves women" and "sells them as brides." But he did not expand upon his views about women's rights and gender-based violence.
In the section of the debate that focused on police reform, the contenders did not bring up discrimination faced by women of color and trans people. "The shame, humiliation and powerlessness we feel as women and minorities in front of authority figures overstepping their boundaries is real," Marie Myung-Ok Lee wrote in The Nation.
Planned Parenthood, the women's health care provider that has been the subject of Republican attacks in recent months, also did not come up. The exception was when New Jersey Governor Chris Christie remarked, "I never wrote a check to Planned Parenthood."
At previous GOP presidential debates, women have also been absent, although candidates have routinely made references to their wives. Last October, Rubio said that he had to explain to his wife "why someone named Sallie Mae was taking $1,000 out of our bank account every month." (Jeanette Rubio once worked as a bank teller.) At that same debate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee joked that his wife could speak at length about his weaknesses.
In September, Bush asked Trump to apologize to his wife, who is Mexican-American, for comments he had previously made about her. Bush later said that "she wants a secure border, but she wants to embrace the traditional American values that make us special."
But the wives got few references on Thursday.
Ben Carson's mom did make an appearance: "If my mother were Secretary of the Treasury, we wouldn't be in a deficit situation," he said.
At the debate, Trump made only one clear reference to women, when he spoke about the alleged dangers of refugees. He described seeing a line of migrants.
"Where are the women? It looked like very few women," he said.