Once again Donald Trump has made the headlines for remarks he has made in regards to women. Except these remarks take the cake as some of the most vulgar, most concerning remarks he has made about women ever. While I am not surprised that he said these things, my belief that Trump is terrible has only been further confirmed. The Washington Post published a hot mic conversation from 2005 with "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush in which Trump can be seen and heard discussing women. Foul language runs amok in the video as Donald J. Trump brags to Billy Bush about how he can grope, kiss, and have sex with women with no consequences and without consent because of how famous he is.
While the language and what he is describing is incredibly vulgar and upsetting I find this quote to be incredibly concerning “You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful -- I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait." That last part is what really gets to me. “I don’t even wait.” Not waiting, not asking for consent, is what sexual assault is. Trump is admitting to sexually assaulting women. The first statement that was released in response to the hot mic conversation was that it was a private conversation, “locker room banter.” Now, you may have heard this quote by John Wooden before, “The true test of a man’s character is what he does when no one is watching.” I don’t care if this was supposed to be a private conversation, the fact that he said these things and did these things at any point in time is deplorable. “Locker room banter” is no excuse either. This kind of discussion should not be commonplace. Normalizing these remarks, excusing these remarks, creates rape culture. Sure, Donald Trump has since released an apology video claiming that he was wrong and is sorry. However, how Trump has talked about women throughout his campaign makes me think that he has not really changed since that 2005 conversation. From hitting on his own daughter to continuing to insult Alicia Machado (and ask his Twitter followers to check out her sex tape) Trump has been nothing but disgusting to women.
Many Republicans have condemned Trump for the vulgar 2005 conversation, including his own running mate Mike Pence who says he was offended. However, a lot of Trump’s condemners have expressed their offense by saying, for example, “As a father of two daughters, I am offended….” I do not think that it should take having a daughter, grand-daughter, niece, sister, mother, or some distant female relative to be offended, upset, or concerned about what Trump has said about women in the 2005 hot mic conversation or his campaign. I am not voting for Trump, but that is not because I am female. Gender is a moot point. What isn’t a moot point is being respectful to others no matter their gender, race, sexual orientation, age, socioeconomic class, etc. Donald Trump has continued to attack people based on these things and the vulgar 2005 hot mic conversation simply pulls back the curtains even further to expose how disgusting he really is. As a decent human being, who respects the bodies of other’s, as well as their boundaries, I will not be voting for Donald Trump. Join me, decent Americans, in not making America a disgusting, unsafe place. I'm with her.
