Haven't seen it? Take a quick look at one of Hilary Clinton's newest ads, "Mirrors".
Now, regardless of personal stance, you cannot deny that this ad does hit Trump with quite a blow. Not only does it call him out for all the misogynist, disgusting comments he has made in regards to women, it also perfectly depicts how these comments will penetrate the hearts of women. Point blank, if you’re a woman you should be sickened by this ad. Also frankly, if you have a sister, daughter, mother, wife or female friend, you should be outraged by this ad. And for anyone who is about to complain about how “he’s only speaking the truth” or that the comments aren’t that bad, click off now, because if you cannot comprehend the true negativity in his words, you probably never will. Misogyny is ingrained, after all. And for all those out there who support Trump, but are still shocked by his words, keep reading, you may be surprised by how seriously these statements need to be taken.
Before we begin I would like to address that, yes, this is an advertisement by Hillary Clinton, meaning it is not meant to make Trump look good. However, her team has only added images to the words he has said. This is not Hilary twisting his words, these phrases have not been taken out of context. Trump has said, irrevocably, all of these utterly mortifying things.
So, now that we’ve established that yes, Trump is 100 percent accountable for these statements, it’s time to look at why Clinton’s ad is so important. Right now, we are not focusing on the battle between these candidates, but rather the idea of a woman directly calling out a powerful man on all of the bigoted things he has said. Believe it or not, that is an incredibly bold thing to do as many women, including myself, are trying to have a voice. In today’s society, we like to think that women aren’t oppressed, because that’s how the image is painted by the men who write our laws and history books. But, we tend to overlook the fact that America is only ranked 55th in terms of GII (Gender Inequality Index), only just ahead of Saudi Arabia and just behind the Russian Federation. Shocking, right?
But not shocking when you take into consideration that the GII is a score calculated by three factors: women’s rights to reproductive health, empowerment (measured by the number of men per women in the government seats and with a secondary education) and economic status. Women, although it is claimed otherwise, still don’t have many rights to their own body; in fact, we are shamed into thinking we shouldn’t have these rights. Nor do we hold many public offices, and if a girl is impregnated as a teenager, it is she who is expected to drop out of school to take care of the baby. On that note, we are also expected to take care of children, rather than have a career, but, if we do have a career it will only be 77 cents to the dollar of a man anyways. And on top of all the pointless inequality we face, we also face the judgement of our bodies every single day. Newsflash men: are bodies aren’t here to please you, they are our bodies made for us to live in. So don’t assume that you have the right to even comment on a female’s appearance.
Hilary Clinton’s ad is so, so important because not only does it directly call out the societal construct of a man believing he has the right to degrade a woman because of how she looks, it also calls out someone who could potentially be one of the biggest influential characters in American society for the next eight years. If we elect a man who so obviously, and quotabley, does not respect women, what will our children, both boys and girls, learn? If little girls don’t start starving themselves at higher levels, and little boys don’t start growing into men who take what they want, abusing women, then at the very least we can expect to fall even further down the chain of inequality. Making America great starts with making women empowered, for once.
