Every day it becomes clearer that Hillary Clinton is going to make history and win the presidential election. It’s hard to feel excited or even relieved, though, when her road to victory is so slick with the odium of Donald Trump.
Between the video of Trump bragging about sexual assault and woman after woman coming forward to claim he did just that, it’s hard to stave off that sick-to-your-stomach feeling Michelle Obama described so powerfully last week. For those of us who have endured a lifetime of unwanted leers and touches, this last leg of the campaign has been painful. And as Trump surrogates and supporters – even his wife – continue to shrug off the offenses as “locker room talk” or outright lies, we’re reminded of just how easily women are disbelieved.
There is one thing, though, that’s giving me hope in the midst of this ugliness: the outcry from men who refuse to characterize sexual harassment and abuse as normal male behavior. Too often, discussions about sexual assault center only on women – our victimization and perceived culpability. Since the tape’s release, though, the national conversation has shifted: men are coming forward en masse to reject the idea that “real men” talk about abusing women – that this is normal language to use in a locker room or anywhere else.
A group of male high school athletes in Oregon posed in feminist shirts with the picture’s caption reading, “sexual assault is not locker room banter”; pro athletes across the country weighed in on social media, decrying the idea that this is just what men are like; a player for Amherst College’s men’s soccer team criticized Trump’s comments, writing: “As a sports team, we have found success by valuing the ideal of doing the right thing even when no one is watching.” These men and others are quelling that nauseated feeling I’ve had the last week or so.
Yes, it should go without saying that men don’t support groping or vile comments about women and their bodies. But as long as we live in a culture where a former mayor of New York City can claim on national television that all men talk about sexually assaulting women, we will need men to actively push back.
Thankfully, the past decade of feminism has laid the groundwork for this very moment. The rise of “yes means yes” as a standard for consent, and the increased understanding of rape culture especially, have given men and women the ammunition they need to fight back against the insulting vision of masculinity that Trump’s supporters would have us accept. That the Access Hollywood tapes were almost immediately and universally described by the media – which often gets things wrong on this front – as predatory and as describing sexual assault is also because of feminism’s work.
“Boys will be boys” doesn’t fly – not anymore.
I’m heartbroken that this will be how the first woman president is elected – running against a ridiculously unworthy opponent, in the midst of a scandal that dehumanizes women. But the fact that it will be feminism, with the support of outraged men, that finally brings down Trump – well, I think that should take the edge off.