Watch out Donald Trump, the 'nasty' women are coming – so you'd better get used to it

Our research proves that women no longer aspire to be sugar and spice. The alpha female is now a global phenomenon

In hands down the most memorable moment from last night’s US presidential debate, Donald Trump referred to Hillary Clinton as a "nasty woman".To quote Chris Cillizza, writer for the Washington Post blog “The Fix”: “What’s the Trump dictionary definition of a woman who is prepared, earnest, ambitious and ready to move past mistakes? Oh yes, nasty.”

Women around the world have jumped to respond, creating the Twitter hashtag #nastywoman and giving their own definitions of the label, transforming this pejorative into a badge of honour. If we take these assertions as the new cultural definition of femininity, then brace yourselves – there “nasty women” are everywhere.

This is more than just an instinctive reaction to Trump’s criticism of Clinton or his well publicised views on women. In our global study of women, the JWT Women’s Index, we surveyed women across more than 19 countries around the world from Singapore and Thailand to Brazil and Russia. One factor stood out: women no longer aspire to be “sugar and spice”. The alpha female is now a global phenomenon.

As part of the study, we asked women what qualities they felt contemporary women should stand for and the sentiment of the feedback surprised us – first and foremost, women aspired to the qualities of leadership, confidence, independence and fearlessness. They even identified the terms “alpha" and “aggressive” as among the most aspirational traits.

Some readers might balk at the idea that being “aggressive” is seen as desirable, but then consider for a moment what it takes for a woman to progress, to move forward in this world, in any country in the world. Wherever you are, passivity won’t get you what you want. It’s some 46 years since the Equal Pay Act was passed in the UK but we have a long way to go before equal pay for equal work becomes a reality. Little surprise that 62 per cent of women in our survey said that “street smarts” get you further in life than “book smarts”. Being nice and playing by the rules doesn’t always win.

We also witness a rise in female activism, especially prevalent among teen girls and millennials. Thanks to technology and social media, it’s harder and harder for the world to tune out the voices of young women. Some 72 per cent of women worldwide said that technology had given them a voice, and 80 per cent felt that women should have a louder voice in terms of cultural influence, despite our apparent silence in the film world. (Analysis by the Geena Davis Institute revealed that, across all movie genres for those films with a male lead, women have only 27 per cent of the dialogue. The “silent era” is alive and well for women in film.

However, technology has given us a voice, it’s also afforded much more transparency in how the world works for women and a level of scrutiny which is hard to conceal from the “nasty woman” anymore. We’re noticing that actresses, female athletes and female CEOs are paid less and we don’t like it. What’s more, our study suggests it’s bad for business too. Some 82 per cent of women across the UK and US said that, when they discover a female athlete or actress is paid less than her male counterparts, “it makes me feel those organisations don’t value me as a customer”.

Given the global consumer spending power of women – the largest “emerging market” is female consumers – are there any more chilling words than half of your consumer base, and maybe 70% of the purchase decision makers, saying “you don’t value me”? Shouldn’t that be keeping us all awake at night?

Watch out, world. The nasty women are coming. To paraphrase Hillary, deal me in.

Rachel Pashley is Global Planning Director of J Walter Thompson London