“Back Up You Creep” Needs to be Option A

It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, “Well, what would you do?”

Reading an excerpt from her book What Happened, Hillary Clinton’s words are about what was running through her mind as Donald Trump loomed behind her during the second presidential debate. Hearing them, however, I was struck by their familiarity. Because what woman hasn’t found herself in a pause moment figuring out the best way to proceed when a man invades her personal space.

Earlier this summer, while away at a conference where I was thrilled and more than a bit nervous to be giving a big presentation, I was having a lovely time at a cocktail reception for attendees. The drinks were flowing, spontaneous karaoke had broken out, but I decided to call it an early night because my presentation was first thing in the morning.

Going around and saying my goodbyes, I found myself face to face with an older married man who I’d, to be frank, had a drunken make-out session with a few nights before. Things never progressed past kissing for various reasons, his being married the most obvious one, but the biggest being that I’d recently had my heart broken in a complicated situation. When I told him I couldn’t emotionally handle any more complicated, he said that he understood. Now, here he was, lunging in for a kiss when I’d only offered a hug.

Dodging out from under him, I bobbed and weaved, making a dorky dance out of “do we hug or not?” for the people watching to mask my discomfort. Finally, I landed a safe, butt-out hug and, in my mind, the moment was maneuvered. But when I went to pull away, he didn’t let me go, holding me in place he insisted,

“One kiss goodnight, at least.”

It was one of those moments where you wish you could hit pause and ask everyone watching, “Well, what would you do?” Because as time slowed down and his body loomed over mine, I felt like everyone was watching us. In the end, I didn’t do anything. I froze and let him kiss me. Because I’d consented before, I rationalized, so I’d created the situation. Because I didn’t want to make a scene. I turned 40 years old this year and achieved a number of professional successes I’d never have dreamed possible even two years ago. Yet, I stood there and allowed a man to kiss me when I didn’t want to kiss him. Because I didn’t want to be rude.

The stakes surrounding Hillary Clinton’s pause moment are inconceivably higher since everyone really was watching as Donald Trump physically leered behind his female opponent, stalking her around the small stage and making faces as she spoke. Just two days after Access Hollywood leaked Trump’s propensity for pussy grabbing, the entire world watched this happen and no one, not even Clinton herself, called Trump out on his behavior.

Reading from her book, Clinton states that at that moment “aided by a lifetime of difficult men trying to throw me off” she chose what she designated as Option A: “I kept my cool.” Instead of Option B, which would have been to turn, look Trump in the eye, and loudly say,

“Back up you creep. Get away from me. I know you love to intimidate women but you can’t intimidate me, so back up.”

At first, Clinton’s unchosen, unspoken words made me flash on my own Option B. What would have happened if I’d planted my feet, pushed that man away, and said,

“No. I don’t want to kiss you goodnight. So back up, creep.”

At the end of the excerpt, Clinton wonders if she should have gone with Option B, quipping that “It certainly would have been better TV.”

But what I wonder is: Instead of questioning whether we should have chosen Option B, why isn’t demanding respect for a woman’s right to her own body automatically considered Option A? Why is speaking out the alternate option?

Even the recent case of Taylor Swift going up against the DJ who groped her during a meet-and-great in 2013 originated with Swift choosing Option A — smiling for the camera while the DJ, David Mueller, had “a handful of my ass” so as not to make a scene and upset her fans. Don’t get me wrong; I was floored by Taylor Swift’s unwavering badassery as she took her creep to court and nailed him with her now infamous,

“I am not going to allow your client to make me feel like it is any way my fault, because it isn’t.”

But, as Laura Bates states in her recent Op-Ed for The New York Times, Swift’s mother, Andrea Swift, testified that “her daughter had agonized over the fact that she had said an almost automatic ‘thank you’ to Mr. Mueller and his girlfriend after the photo shoot.”

Even with all of her fame and success, in her pause moment, Taylor Swift left her Option B go unchosen out of politeness. A sense of politeness that, in her testimony, Swift’s mother blames herself for instilling in her daughter. I agree with what Bates positions in her piece that — as Swift herself so powerfully mic dropped in court — neither Taylor Swift or her mother are in any way responsible for Mueller’s foul actions.

Whose fault is it, then, that playing it cool, staying quiet, smiling for the camera is far too often Option A for women? When my older sister, who has much more on me than a few extra years in age, posted the NBC News video of Clinton’s pause moment with Donald Trump to Facebook, her accompanying words provided me with this sobering answer. All of us:

He sexually harassed a woman in front of the world, and rather than disqualify him from the debate or even the whole damn race, we rewarded him by electing him President of the United States. My post isn’t about health care policy or Clinton’s emails, or abortion. It’s not even about Clinton’s book, which is the focus of this particular news clip. This is the clip that shows the exact moment Americans gave a man permission and praise to sexually harass a woman openly and proudly. Every American girl’s timeline was altered right then. Right then.

I imagine every American girl has an Option B that altered her timeline. What was your Option B?

Fighting back against the surmounting normalization of sexual harassment that the world’s silence allowed during Hillary Clinton’s pause moment means that ingrained politeness can no longer be a reason why women doubt themselves — self-censoring our words and actions to protect everyone else from the dreaded FUSS.

Loudly saying, “Back up you creep” needs to be Option A.

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