There's been a lot talk over the past week about the comments Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump made about women on an Access Hollywood bus in 2005. The conversation involved him bragging about assaulting women and touching them without their consent.
The comments are obviously disgusting, but are we really surprised by them? Media outlets were outraged and seemed almost surprised that these things were said, but in reality, who did not see this coming? His comments about women have always been dependent on their looks and how much he wants to have sex with them. While I was disgusted by the comments, I was unsurprising.
I am sure everyone has heard Trumps's excuses and have seen Republicans pulling their support, but it is the way that the high ranking Republicans are talking that is bothering me. Trump's comments are obviously outrageous and disrespectful, but analyzing how people are reacting is almost as disrespectful, but is accepted in our society.
When something happens that affects women and men want to express their ideas on it or show support to women, they do it by emphasizing possession of women, or how women relate to them. In almost every situation, this one included, a man will say these things are outrageous and terrible because they are a brother/ son/ husband and they have a daughter/ mother/ wife. They need to justify their support or personalize the attack by talking about it in terms of the women that are part of their lives.
Perhaps this is because people are not supposed to support a cause they are not directly involved in, or maybe because men feel less masculine for supporting women's causes if it's not for their daughter or mother or wife. There should not need to be a qualifier for being interested in making the world safer and more accessible to everyone.
These comments are not the only fall out of the conversation, it also solidified the status of his supporters. There were people defending Trump, men as well as women. I listened to one woman talk about why she still supported Trump online, and I honestly cannot believe what she said. She not only claimed that all men speak the way Trump did, but she also mentioned that she supported him because he was pro-life.
Firstly, if I were a man I would be offended by the statement that all men speak as vulgarly and as proudly of violation as Trump did. What he was discussing is illegal, immoral, and, I would hope, not the way most people think. That is incredibly insulting to men, and does not hold them to a very high standard of conduct.
As for the second thing she said, I do not want to get into an argument over abortion, because my own ideas on it are incredibly gray, but I do not think it should be the only thing that you base who you decide to vote on. Especially since he is immoral in every other facet of his life, including his view of women and the way he thinks of them.
Donald Trump brings out the worst in people. If anything can be learned from this election, it is that hatred and bigotry is loud and obnoxious. These comments only add more evidence to this statement.
