This letter came across my desk this week, handwritten in lovely script and signed by a woman.
It’s in reference to the recorded Donald Trump conversation in which he brags about how he kisses women without waiting and grabs them by the p***y.
Trump has tried to dismiss his words all by saying it’s just talk, just “locker room talk” that, implying that, you know, all men do this. It doesn’t mean anything.
The letter reads:
“I have a question for all these poor sensitive women who are so offended by words. You want equal treatment and equal pay as men receive, but you wilt like old flowers over words. You ought to go back and study the history of what some of our ancestral women and great-grandmothers put up with to settle this great country we live in. If words are all you have to worry about in life, you’ve got it made.”
There’s a weakness in her defense of Trump. Multiple weaknesses, with names and experiences to share about being groped and kissed and assaulted by the Republican candidate for president.
They’re all lies — really, just look at those women, Trump says.
Someone should tell him that suggesting he would only sexually assault beautiful women isn’t a great defense.
Yet his people cheer him on. They agree with him.
His message: Don’t let the “elite” and the corrupt media tell you that talking about sexually assaulting women, or talking about women in explicit and vulgar terms is wrong. They’re just being politically correct. Taking what you want is the American way.
So, Trump apologists, when this happens to you, or your daughter or mother or sister or wife — what do you say? What do you say when your husband or son does this himself?
What do you tell girls and women who think this is how boys and men behave — that this is how they should behave? What do you say to those boys growing up who see grown men talking about women as things, not people?
Is this the message you want young women to take to heart — that no matter what a man says to her face, this is how she’s thought of and talked about behind her back?
As women come forward to say Donald Trump has assaulted them — doing exactly what he bragged about doing in that recorded conversation — thousands of others have started to share their own experiences.
They’re saying out loud what was done to them and why they didn’t think they could tell anyone. And if they did report what happened, how they were brushed off and told to deal with it.
This is exactly what Trump and his enablers are saying and doing now. He, and his supporters, aren’t saying it’s wrong. It’s just wrong to talk about it and to expect men to be good human beings.
We must listen to the words of girls and women who, after years of silence and undeserved shame, are talking about what happened to them.
Women you’re friends with, women you’ve known for decades, women you know to be powerful and confident — their experiences must be heard. The aggressions must be recognized for the trespasses they are.
Listen to women talk about the times a man grabbed her breasts or genitals, the time an older boy shoved his hand down her shirt when she was a girl, how a leering co-worker asked if her husband sexually satisfies her because, boy, he sure could.
Listen to women talk about being physically assaulted, raped, yelled at, harassed on the street. Being grabbed on the bus, cornered by a teacher or camp counselor.
These are the words that matter. This is what we should be talking about, men and women together.
Their words. Your words. Our words.
