‘Locker room talk’ or rape culture – why Trump cannot be president
The ‘boys will be boys’ excuse has gotten pretty old at this point
The debate actually began promisingly. You may not have noticed, but the candidates did not shake hands at the beginning. Then Donald Trump was, to my surprise, able to answer the first question with composure. He even listed off some statistics that seemed reasonable. But the debate soon went down hill for Mr. Trump.
Anderson Cooper asked the second question, in which he referenced the recently released tape of Donald Trump seemingly bragging about sexually assaulting women to Billy Bush. In my opinion, there really is no defense for the, to put it lightly, “lewd” and “sexist” comments made by Donald Trump. And yet, Mr. Trump actually tried to defend these comments.
His response? “That was locker room talk.” Is this not the same thing as saying “boys will be boys” after a male college student is found guilty of raping a young woman?
Why does our culture think that brushing off such serious issues as sexual assault (by a presidential candidate nonetheless) is okay?
What I hear when Mr. Trump says “it was just locker room talk” is him saying that it is okay to objectify women, as long as only men hear it. By saying that bragging about sexually assaulting women is a casual and basically “normal” conversation, he is essentially telling young boys that the girl that sits next to them in class and gets the same grades as they do shouldn’t be seen as their equal, but as a sex object.
As a 20-year-old female college student, the idea of our next American president not taking sexual assault seriously (along with many other women’s issues such as abortion rights, equal pay, and paid family leave) is truly terrifying to me. This man could make decisions in office that will affect me when I attempt to find a decent paying job after graduating, think about starting a family eventually, or even think about not wanting to start a family yet.
Donald Trump’s comments about women, and excusing those comments as “locker room talk” is the definition and pure example of the perpetuation of rape culture in America.
When I think about the comments Donald Trump made, I think about my own safety as a female on a college campus, about my friends’ safety, about my little sister in high school, and every women that has ever been the slightest bit afraid to walk to her car alone at night.
In my eyes, a vote for Donald Trump is a vote for continued sexism and the direct perpetuation of a culture that makes American women of all ages, races and ethnicity feel unsafe and objectified.