Carly Fiorina on Friday addressed Donald Trump’s remarks about her face, defiantly declaring she is “proud of every year and every wrinkle.”
“Ladies, look at this face!” the Republican presidential hopeful said at the National Federation of Republican Women’s annual conference, according to the Washington Post.
{mosads}Fiorina’s rejoinder came in response to a comment her White House rival made in a Rolling Stone interview published Wednesday.
“Look at that face,” said Trump, the GOP front-runner. “Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!”
Despite Trump’s insistence Thursday that he was “talking about persona,” many accused the real estate magnate of misogyny.
The mostly-female audience laughed and cheered as Fiorina brushed aside Trump’s remarks.
“This is the face of a 61-year-old woman,” she said. “I am proud of every year and every wrinkle.”
Fiorina, the former Hewlett-Packard executive who has been gaining ground in the polls since the first GOP presidential debate, also went after Trump’s braggadocio.
“Leadership is not about position,” she said. “It is not about title. It is not about how big your office is or how big your plane or your helicopter or your ego.”
According to Fox News, Fiorina continued her comebacks after her speech, telling the news outlet, “I know when someone’s flirting with me.”
Fiorina didn’t simply focus her speech on Trump, though.
She discussed the double standards women face in the workplace, and recounted a time she was called a “token bimbo” at work.
Women should not be marginalized, she argued.
“I personally am so tired of hearing about women’s issues,” Fiorina told the crowd. “All issues are women’s issues.”
It’s a message that has increasingly resonated with in recent weeks.
Fiorina’s surge put pressure on CNN to rely on more recent polls to determine who would make the cut for a Sept. 16 GOP presidential debate. The network ultimately changed its criteria, giving Fiorina a spot in the prime-time debate.