The Effect of Trump’s Rhetoric on Men
Trump’s words condone misogyny and sexual assault — but by attacking women, they serve as an important wake-up call for men
By Miranda Corral
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
THE “DONALD TRUMP BRAND” MAKES PEOPLE THINK OF MANY THINGS: extreme wealth, “successful” business ventures, giant golden hotels, politics — recently, at least — , steaks, universities — the list could go on and on. The current election, however, has added a few more descriptors to that list, and they are not by any stretch of the imagination as gleaming as the others: male chauvinist, misogynist, sexist, and sexual assaulter, to throw out a few.
From the start of his campaign, Trump faced issues with words he had spoken about women in the past, from sexualizing his daughters to attacking women for their appearances and rating women on numerical scales. During the campaign, his sexist rhetoric only worsened, with him memorably calling Rosie O’ Donnell a “pig” and inferring that debate moderator Megyn Kelly must have been on her period because she was asking him, in his opinion, unfair questions. Most recently, Trump dealt with the effects of a tape released of him bragging about sexually assaulting women, with him saying that he could “get away with that stuff” because of his power, prompting a multitude of women, from different points in his career, to come forward and state that he sexually assaulted them.
Trump faced obvious backlash because of his words, ranging from emotional reactions of disgust, repulsion, and sadness, to political trauma and the abandoning by the GOP of the Make America Great Again ship. While these results of his magniloquently demeaning words are of course significant, there are a couple equally — if not more — important impacts of him saying these things.
ALTHOUGH IT IS IMMEASURABLY IMPORTANT TO ANALYZE AND RESPOND TO HOW HIS WORDS AFFECT WOMEN, we must not forget that his words have an impact on men, too, and in an abundance of ways. A couple specific impacts of Donald Trump’s sexist slander on men are important to talk about: that his words justify sexual assault of women, and that they also create an important wake-up call for men.
Trump’s misogynistic words have the ability to make men believe that sexually subjugating and attacking women, verbally and physically, are acceptable things to do — and even things that great, “honest”, intelligent, respected, successful men do. As a politician, one has a moral duty to uphold the expected values that are assumed and counted upon to be practiced. Politicians have a great power and privilege because they are trusted representatives of the population; although it does not always happen, politicians are supposed to be the moral compasses for whom they represent, and are for that reason looked up to as role models. Politicians then have the responsibility to be a role model, as people often follow their thinking and mirror their ideals.
“Trump’s misogynistic words have the ability to make men believe that sexually subjugating and attacking women, verbally and physically, are acceptable things to do — and even things that great, ‘honest’, intelligent, respected, successful men do.”
When Donald Trump said, speaking of the second presidential debate at a North Carolina rally, that “when she [Hillary] walked in front of me, believe me, I wasn’t impressed,” insinuating that her body did not match up to his standards of beauty, or when he said of women, “I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait,” and then dismissed it as “locker room talk,” he normalized rape culture by justifying it as “just” locker room talk. So is it okay to grab women, if it is said only in a light-hearted way, if it is simply “boy talk”? Is it okay to insult a woman’s body as she walks over to someone to talk to them about how she is going to save the country from global warming and ISIS and and bring back the economy?
To his supporters, he is telling them that the answer is yes. By not taking responsibility to really apologize for what he says, he is telling the elderly man in his South Carolina rally that it is all well and good to call a woman pig. By propagating his sexism and misogyny day after day, he is telling the young man watching the debate coverage on TV that it is okay to walk into a room full of half clothed teenagers at a beauty pageant just to leer at them and remind them of their place in the patriarchy. By crudely talking about women’s breasts, he is telling the little boy listening to the news that it is okay to snap his older sister’s bra strap.
Trump abuses his trusted position as a political leader by justifying sexual harassment and sexism, and sends the message to men that it is okay to do this, too, which is a very dangerous thing.
WHILE THE EFFECTS OF TRUMP’S RHETORIC MAY BE TERRIFYING, THERE IS THANKFULLY A BENEFIT that can be reaped from this, although it does not by any means take away the horror and the pain caused by his comments: Trump’s words serve as a much-needed red flag for men to realize that sexism still exists and is as rampant as ever, and that it is something that women struggle with everyday.
A Pew Research Center poll released August of this year took a survey of 4,602 adults, and found out that 56 percent of men think that “obstacles that made it harder for women to get ahead are largely gone”; this means that over half of the men surveyed believed that sexism was a thing of the past, and not an issue anymore.
“Trump’s words serve as a much-needed red flag for men to realize that sexism still exists and is as rampant as ever, and that it is something that women struggle with everyday.”
This is damaging to the improvement of the state of women in society because, as women cannot win the battle against sexism alone, if the majority of men think that it is not a problem anymore, why would they want to help fight a pointless battle? They wouldn’t. Men need to know that sexism, misogyny and sexual harassment are major problems that affect the lives of women everywhere, and Donald Trump’s words have hopefully helped many men realize this.
By seeing that even a man of great power and self-proclaimed success is an alleged groper, it makes men understand that there is a large possibility that more men than they thought are like this, and therefore that sexism and everything that comes along with it is still an uncontrollably massive obstacle. Through this understanding, men can become better allies to women everywhere, and help in the struggle against everything that falls under the umbrella of sexism, from workplace sexual discrimination to political underrepresentation — and as they say, two heads are better than one.
In conclusion, Donald Trump’s presence on the political battlefield has been one of great issue; but from that, we can try to draw out the good, and use it against him to make the world a better place. As Michelle Obama put it best, “when they go low, we go high,” and that is what we will continue to do.
