Locker Room Talk
Many of you may have heard of the video obtained and distributed by the Washington Post, where Donald Trump was caught on a hot microphone bragging about having sex with, kissing and groping women. He bragged about his failed attempts at seducing a married woman, talking about her “phony t*ts” and how he “tried to f**k her.” He was having a conversation with Billy Bush, who has since been fired from his job on NBC’s ‘Today’ Show. They said a multitude of vulgar things, including: “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the p***y. You can do anything.”
After the release of this video, Donald Trump issued a response, saying that he’s not a “perfect person.” “I’ve said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am,” he said. And later, in a way to explain his actions, he dismissed this conversation as “locker room banter,” and that you hear these sorts of conversations “all the time.”
First of all, these words reflect exactly who Donald Trump really is. He is a known sexist, to add to the list of being a bigot, racist and all-around jerk. He is known to have called women horrible things such as fat, pigs, slobs, disgusting animals and dogs; he said all these horrible things to women after the event in the video took place. So no, Donald Trump hasn’t changed since the video. And, I’m willing to argue that the only reason he’s apologizing for what he said is because he knows it will lose him a lot of voters, and his apology was a desperate attempt at trying to win them back.
Luckily, this was the last straw for some people, especially among the young voters Trump so desperately lacks and needs. It’s sad that it’s taken some people this long to finally say “enough is enough,” but at least they’ve come out of their dark shell of denial. A recent poll at Quinnipiac University taken almost immediately after the video was leaked on the Washington Post, found Trump trailing among likely voters aged 18 to 34, 48 percent to 27 percent. In another instance that took place also on a college campus, Liberty University President Falwell, to defend Trump regarding the “locker room banter” video, said, “We’re all sinners,” as though sexual assault is no big deal, a problem we don’t need to prioritize in eradicating. The students on his campus had a very different reaction. “Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense—taking the name ‘Liberty University’ with him,” a group of Liberty students said in a statement condemning Trump’s association with their school. The collision between the recent explosion of awareness for sexual assault on college campuses and the presidential election makes for a very bad mixture for Trump.
The students weren’t the only ones condemning Trump. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, who has defended Trump on through many of his controversies, said, “No woman should ever be described in these terms or talked about in this manner. Ever.” And House Speaker Paul Ryan, who has been campaigning for and with Trump, said the comments in the video “sickened” him, and also added: “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified. I hope Mr. Trump treats this situation with the seriousness it deserves and works to demonstrate to the country that he has greater respect for women than this clip suggests.” That’s funny, because I really think he doesn’t have much respect for us women at all.
This isn’t just “locker room banter.” The fact that he’s condoning this, saying that it’s normal to have these type of vulgar and horrible conversations about women in a “locker room” setting is disgusting. No one, no where, at any time should be having conversations like that. This incident is just a repeating and terrifyingly familiar pattern of denial that perpetuates the rape culture that our society subconsciously accepts as a part of our lives. But we can, and we have to, change this mindset. And our first step is to reject someone like Trump to represent and lead the United States.