If you’ve been following the presidential race or watch the news or eavesdropped on conversations around you, you have likely heard of the recently released tapes in which Donald Trump makes crude and objectifying comments about women. While the tapes were from 2005, Donald Trump’s comments illustrate one of the major problems with our society today.
The heartbreaking part about this story is that Donald Trump is not the only individual making remarks of this nature. While we don’t know Trump’s exact history when it comes to acting on these comments, there are many other United States citizens who do act on what Trump has brought up. Our country’s problem with sexual assault starts with the privately-made remarks of predatory and disrespectful nature.
Every human being deserves respect, and yet, the female population is taught from a young age that it’s normal to be victimized while the male population is taught that they can supposedly get away with anything because they are stronger than females.
If you are female, were you ever pushed down on the playground by a boy? If you told someone about what happened, what did they say? Girls are often told that if a boy is mean or aggressive towards them that means the boy likes them. That’s not the message we want to send to the young children of our society. When you like someone, you should be taught to treat them with kindness and respect.
The term ‘boys will be boys’ is often used to describe and try to excuse males’ aggressive comments or behaviors. Donald Trump’s defense of what he said was that it was just “locker room banter”. This is his version of boys will be boys. What he said is not locker room banter – it’s inexcusable. Objectifying women is not the norm and when it does happen, it’s not a problem that can be minimized and swept under the rug.
According to RAINN, someone in the United States is sexually assaulted every 109 seconds. This isn’t just Donald Trump perpetrating the problem. There are many people of this country who act on the type of messages Trump said. There are people encouraging others to carry out this kind of behavior, like Billy Bush did in the video. There are people who stand by and watch while sexual assault happens. It’s time we rebrand what we teach the youth and hold everyone accountable to high standards when it comes to respecting each other.
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