“If Hillary Clinton can’t satisfy her husband, what makes her think she can satisfy America?”

This recently came up on my Facebook timeline, posted by a Trump-supporting friend –Facebook friend, that is – of mine.

Similarly, recently an ad sponsored by a Conservative Anti-Trump PAC ran an ad with a picture of Donald Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, posing for a nude GQ photo shoot in 2000. The caption read “Meet Melania Trump. Your next First Lady. Or, you could support Ted Cruz on Tuesday.” This ad was run in Utah in an effort to persuade Mormons to vote for Cruz.

This is not the first election in which candidates’ spouses have been targeted, and it is certainly not the last. This is, however, the first time a woman has come this close to becoming a presidential nominee. Does this change the rhetoric? It shouldn’t, but it does.

Let’s first look at my Facebook friend’s criticism of Secretary Clinton. Interestingly, the shot here is not being fired against Bill Clinton, who committed adultery, but against Hillary, who was the victim of her adulterous husband.

Compare this to the ad run that condemned Melania Trump, which read “Meet Meliania Trump. Your next First Lady.” This ad targets Melania Trump, herself. It does not criticize Donald Trump for having a wife who posed nude or for allowing his wife to pose nude. It is a direct blast at Melania Trump, herself.

There is profuse, blatant sexism in both of these statements. In the post about Secretary Clinton, she is being criticized for not satisfying her husband sexually. The implication is that if a woman is not a quality sexual partner, she is not qualified to be president of the United States. There is a reason people do not have a “sexual skills” section on their resumes.

Now, my Trump-supporting Facebook friend does not actually believe that Hillary’s sexual ability, or lack thereof, makes her unqualified to be president. He is simply using rhetoric to advance his anti-Hillary argument.

In case anyone believes that if a candidate’s wife was accused of adultery, that her husband would be criticized in the same way as Hillary — that is, as having not satisfied his wife — let’s take a look at some historical examples, which will show that when a man is the candidate, his wife’s affairs are her own fault, according to the media.

In the 1828 election, the media discovered that Andrew Jackson’s wife, Rachel, married Andrew Jackson before she divorced her first husband. Newspapers attacked Rachel Jackson, not Andrew, calling her fat and uneducated. This is the first instance in which the public began to consider the background of the First Lady and what kind of background was ideal. The public focused on how this would hinder the First Lady from performing her duties, not on how this would hinder the president, himself.

There is clear evidence that historically male political figures have not been blamed for not satisfying their adulterous wives. Secretary Clinton, however, is continuously blamed for not being able to satisfy her husband. This is not relevant. This is not a coincidence. This is sexism.