Editor’s Note: VoiceWaves #Vota blog posts feature diverse youth commentary and views on the upcoming elections. Don’t forget to turn out the youth vote on Nov. 8th!
Last weekend, a young man groped me at a college party in a warehouse in the city of Huntington Park. His actions reflect the misogynistic words of a man who is now running for president.
“Grab them by the p****. You can do anything.”
After hearing the 10-year-old #TrumpTapes exposing Donald Trump’s vulgar conversation, I felt like vomiting. I couldn’t believe that someone running for president speaks about women like that.
To make matters worse, he dismissed his comments as “locker room talk.”
Locker room talk: offensive, crude, and often sexual comments exchanged by men. Harmless right? But the following list of stats doesn’t convince me that it’s just locker room talk:
- According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, there were a total of 26,396 sex discrimination charges filed in the workplace last year.
- The EEOC also shows that 6,822 sexual harassment allegations were documented – over 80 percent of them were filed by women.
- 1 in 3 women have experienced sexual harassment at work at one point in their life, according to a 2015 Cosmopolitan survey of over 2,000 women.
- There are over 280,000 victims of rape and sexual assault each year, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
So, no, I don’t think it’s just talk.
Trump denied forcibly kissing and groping women after the lewd video exposed him a couple of weeks ago. “No one has more respect for women than me,” he said in his defense. But, that doesn’t add up, so my common sense begs this question: if someone respects women so much, why did he need to sexually objectify them through “locker room talk”? Sorry Trump, but I’m not buying it. Instead, I’m disgusted and I’ll be voting for someone else.
As for the people who say they aren’t voting in this presidential election, they piss me off – especially those my age: Millennials. We’re supposed to be the most educated generation, yet I can’t believe some Millennials won’t exercise their right to vote against this terrifying, pumpkin-head-looking, childish, bigot running for president. Sure, the electoral votes matter more (yadda yadda yadda), but wouldn’t you want to look back one day and say, “Yeah, I voted for that other candidate because I wanted to be on the right side of history?”
At the moment when that guy casually groped my butt as he walked past me at the party, I was furious and abhorred – much like how I felt when I first heard the #TrumpTapes. Although that guy didn’t grab my crotch, it still didn’t make it any better. Being groped has happened many times before throughout my life, usually in crowded places. But this time, I caught the culprit.
He cruised to a couch and took a seat and just sat there with a mild grin. I was appalled by him – this guy who probably treats women as nasty as Trump, believing that women are made for men’s enjoyment, to be stereotyped, insulted, belittled, demeaned, excluded, oppressed, abused, and raped.
I went up to this guy, smacked him in the face, and got him kicked out of the party. I poured my drink on him and hurled my cup at him as he was escorted out.
I’m sure his shirt was all sticky and that I humiliated him. Frankly, I’m glad I ruined his night. But it’s an understatement for me to say that people like him ruin my life.
Please, look back at those statistics, and think again about voting – before another guy that thinks he can “do anything” to women becomes president.
