When the Republican party's nominee for President of the United States was revealed on Friday to have told a reporter (and in Billy Bush's case, I use the term "reporter" loosely) that he believed that as a powerful man—a "star," as he put it—he had the right to kiss any woman, to "grab them by the pussy" whether they wanted him to or not, he illustrated in graphic terms just how far his already well-documented misogyny went. A man who calls women pigs and rates them like cattle and views even his own daughters through the lens of their sex appeal—commenting on their breasts and legs as if this is a normal thing for a father to do—somehow managed to plummet to a new low by stating overtly what anyone who's been party to his talk about women over the last 12 months already suspected to be true: that not only does he view women primarily as objects for his sexual gratification, he believes this entitles him to do whatever he wants with their bodies, regardless of whether they consent, simply because he is famous and wealthy.
But when the news broke, instead of having the basic human decency to be horrified at his own behavior, Donald Trump doubled down, suggesting that other men were far worse and that the entire event was just a "distraction" from the "real issues." And before the cascade of GOP defectors began denouncing Trump 24 hours into the news cycle, I saw several conservative commenters use the same language. As of Sunday morning, there are still conservatives in my Twitter and Facebook feed saying the same thing: this is a distraction. This is not a real issue.
In my mind, here are some 2016 election distractions that have nothing to do with real issues: Tim Kaine's eyebrows. Whether Mike Pence looks like Race Bannon from Jonny Quest. Hillary Clinton's new haircut. Donald Trump's hair, period. (Anything to do with the follicles of any of the candidates, really.) These are not issues; they're entertainments. Whether a candidate for President of the United States believes that women have a right to bodily autonomy and whether he is confessing to having violated that right, or believes he should be able to, is a real issue. It is an issue that affects more than half of the American population, and it appears that the GOP candidate is advocating on behalf of the criminals rather than the victims.
Dismissing issues that affect women as "distractions" has been a theme of this election cycle. When Reince Priebus said that Hillary Clinton should have smiled more, reinforcing the longstanding sexist notion that women should be smiling generally, pretty much all of the time (or they're cold-hearted bitches), that was framed as a distraction. When instances emerged of Donald Trump calling Rosie O'Donnell a fat pig and applying a dictionary's worth of crude pejoratives to countless other women who did not measure up to his screwed up personal ideas of physical perfection, that was a distraction, too. And none of those things were distractions: they were emblematic of how men attempt to control women and demand that they perform safe versions of femininity that are compliant, non-threatening, and most importantly, easy on the eyes.
Endorsing sexual assault is a bridge too far for some people, as evidenced by the recent pulled endorsements. (It's fine to treat women badly, as long as you're not doing anything that will actually land you in jail.) But for those who think they've got a few bridges left in them,―and are still willing to frame this as a distraction―what does that say about them?
It could say a number of things: they don't actually think that violence against women is a real problem. It's an isolated thing that happens to people they don't know. They don't know anyone who's capable of it.
These are all delusions. Statistically speaking, I'm sure there are some women who have never experienced any kind of sexual assault. I don't personally know any, but I'm sure they're out there. That it is an almost requisite part of female experience seems to be common knowledge among women, but not among men.
Why? Because unless they are the perpetrators, they do not personally witness it. It is largely unseen by half of the population.
My husband and I had a conversation a while a back where he asked me if I ever got catcalled or harassed on the street. I said, of course, and he seemed surprised. "I've just never seen it happen," he said.
"You've never been with me when it's happened," I replied. The gropers, harassers, catcallers, don't tend to do those things when you're in the company of a man—especially if the man is, like my husband, six feet tall and looks like he could throw a pretty good right hook if he were so inclined. A woman alone is always perceived as vulnerable to the perpetrators, but men in their company present the possibility of retaliatory violence—so the perpetrators don't take the risk. The result is that men who do not do these predatory things themselves rarely witness them being done, either, and are blissfully unaware of how pervasive it is. It is invisible to them.
I gave my husband an example of this happening: A few years ago I was walking to my apartment and there weren't that many people on my route home. My neighborhood was remarkably safe, and it was early evening, so there was no particular reason to have any trepidation about this. As I walked down the sidewalk, nearly home, there was only one person coming down the block in my direction. I barely noticed him because you pass thousands of people on the street all the time in NYC, and there was nothing remarkable about him: mid thirties, maybe. Tall, lanky. White guy with mousey brown hair. Just as we were about to pass each other, he reached over and grabbed my breast. Just grabbed it and squeezed. And then kept walking.
I stood there for a second, stunned. When I looked back, he was calmly walking on, and I felt a wave of rage. My first, animal impulse was to chase him, and for lack of a better description, beat the shit out of him. It bears noting here that I am 5'0" and have never beat the shit out of anybody, nor have I tried to. But that was my first response emotionally, and I think this is probably the first impulse any man would have if the same guy grabbed his crotch and kept walking: to respond to a violation of bodily autonomy in kind, maybe with a fist to the nose.
But I did not run after the guy, much less attempt a right hook, or maybe in the spirit of appropriate reciprocation, a knee to the groin. This is the only time in my life that I can remember ever wanting to physically harm someone, but I did not—in part because women are socialized to believe that violence is pretty much never okay. Even throwing a punch in self-defense has been socialized out of us. We are told to do what the attacker says, or call for help.
Of course, I don't regret not running after the creep, but it's worth pointing out here that in Donald Trump's warped mind, I would have enjoyed that experience if the creep had been rich and famous and we'd been at a party, and the creep would have been entitled to do it even though I didn't want him to. (If you think that this view is limited to Donald Trump, look no further than Billy Bush pressuring Arianne Zucker into physical contact that she visibly does not want as he and Trump exit the bus.)
That a man who could potentially be President believes this is not a distraction. For those of us who have experienced any form of sexual assault—which would be most of us with genitals Trump considers grab-able, it is a large scale policy nightmare that ensures that in a Trump administration, female bodily autonomy would exist only inasmuch as men in power allow it—and that would likely extend far beyond sexual consent.
