This has nothing to do with “locker room talk,” but everything to do with rape culture & violence against women.
I generally avoid posting a lot of political stuff on G+ but save that for Facebook, but I think this is a topic that goes well beyond politics and speaks directly to the heart of feminism, equal rights, women’s safety, and more.
I have been revolted by the tape of Trump bragging about trying to have sex with a married woman, then bragging about what can only be described as sexual assault. No need for me to repeat everything, as it’s been plastered all over American media for 4 days now.
Beyond the sheer disgust at his words, however, is my disgust at the attempts to justify and normalize what he said that he did. In particular, the attempts to brush it off by the evangelical Christian movement as “just words” or “locker room talk.” I mean….what the hell kind of locker rooms do these people hang out in? Never in my life have I heard a guy bragging about sexually assaulting a woman by kissing or groping her against her will; not in locker rooms – not anywhere!
Right now, I don’t give a damn about what Bill Clinton did; to a certain extent, it’s not even just about what Trump talked about doing. The fucking problem is that people are trying to pass this off as “just the way guys talk when they’re alone,” as if that makes it ok! First of all, if that’s the way you talk with guys, then you have a serious problem. Second of all, that does NOT make it ok. There are NO situations that EVER justify talking like Trump was talking. Ever!
This is nothing more than an attempt to normalize violence against women; to rationalize the idea that men can do what they want; to say that it’s ok for men to talk and act in ways that treat women as nothing more than sexual objects. And all of that is absolutely wrong.
In the end, only we men can change this. We must ensure that all boys are taught to respect women as equals; ensure that perpetrators of sexual assault like Brock Turner are punished severely under the law; ensure that women are protected under the legal system; we are the ones who must make the change so that women don’t have to fear being victimized at work, at home, out running, at the gym or bars.
So as the athletes and coaches say in this article, Trump’s words were not and are not “just locker room talk.” Those words were rape culture come to life and can not ever be tolerated, justified, rationalized, or normalized.