Behind Closed Doors
How “locker room talk” reinforces rape culture
Watching last night’s Presidential debate, I thought about the first time I was sexually assaulted. I was 12 years old waiting for my mom in the grocery store parking lot as she ran in to grab a gallon of milk. Sitting in the back passenger seat, I heard a tap on the window, looked up and there it was; a penis. Confused, it took me a second to figure out what I was looking at, but when I did I was immediately disgusted. I put my head down and waited for him to go away.
I get the same feeling every time Trump speaks.
When I listened to the tape of Trump bragging about grabbing non consensual pussy, I felt sick. Not because I was surprised, but because it is the way men banter behind closed doors that helps justify assaulting innocent women.
During the debate, Trump labeled his words as “locker room talk,” saying, “I’m not proud of it, but that was something that happened.” This is the same defense that Brock Turner’s dad used to defend his son, who sexually assaulted an unconscious woman.
The argument goes like this: these are fundamentally good men who make bad choices. But isn’t the content of our character just the sum of all of our individual choices, good and bad?
It is men’s secret societies — locker rooms, country clubs, corporate board rooms, Congress, and even the Oval Office — where lecherous behavior is expected and rewarded with high fives and reelection.
When men get away with comments and actions that promote sexual assault, it teaches our children to disrespect women. The only way to stop it is for men, who have access to these sacred spaces, to step up and do their part.
Sitting in the grocery store parking lot waiting for my Mom to return, I wondered if I should tell her what happened. When I did, she insisted that we call the police. But the next day when I told my friend and her Mom, they laughed. After all, boys will be boys, or in this case, middle aged men will be creeps.
Rape culture is so normalized that even I am guilty of perpetuating it by judging Hillary’s outfits every time she steps on stage or singing along to songs like “Blurred Lines” and “Baby Got Back.”
I grew up with sisters, so there was no “locker room talk” at my house. In fact, there is no such thing as women’s locker room talk, anywhere. Just think how ridiculous it would have been had Hillary been the one who was caught saying, “I just grab em by the dick. And when you’re a star they let you do it.”
When asked about the dinners she hosts for her fellow women in the Senate, Barbara Mikulski said, “Senate women are not a caucus, but a zone of civility” and Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar joked, “We never talk about the male senators. Ever.”
If Donald Trump respected women as much as he says he does, the debate would have been the perfect opportunity to go beyond a half-hearted apology and explain how he will work to prevent sexual assault. He could have started by apologizing to the millions of women who tweeted their own stories of sexual assault using #NotOkay. He could have promoted bystander intervention and taken the #ItsOnUs pledge, showing his personal commitment to helping keep women and men safe. He could have simply apologized, condemned his own words, and asked for forgiveness.
But he did none of these things.
Instead, he said, “it’s locker room talk and it’s one of those things. I will knock the hell out of ISIS. We’re going to defeat ISIS.” By deflecting, Donald Trump signaled to young boys everywhere that his actions were nothing more than embarrassing, so as long as you don’t get caught, keep up the misogyny.
