What does it say about our society that people still consider violence against women funny?
The day that President Trump retweeted that infamous photoshopped GIF, tweets from enraged users filled my timeline and major news outlets tweeted their responses almost immediately. The GIF in question shows the president hitting a golf ball that was photoshopped to look like it knocked Hillary Clinton to the ground.
Thankfully, the responses from people I was following were all negative and condemned Trump’s childish display of, in his mind, masculinity and superiority. Once I dug deeper into responses of support, however, I was disheartened.
The large majority of supporters were stating the GIF was meant as a joke, and that people should not take it so seriously. While it was only a tweet, the larger implications are quite serious. Responses from men and women claiming that the portrayal of violence by the president against a woman should be seen as funny is actually pretty scary.
Whether he’s president or not, we should question why we find this comical. To add another dimension to the issue, he is the president, so why aren’t we holding him to a higher level of professionalism? Consider how our current president conducts himself compared to previous presidents. If a tweet like this had been shared by President Obama, these same supporters of Trump would be responding in protest to the disrespect the tweet conveys.
However, the fact that Trump would share a tweet like this is almost unsurprising in many ways. It’s consistent with many of his comments from during the election—and prior—that promote violence toward women and other minorities.
This issue is undeniably an intersectional one of gender, race, power and affluence. At its core is the fact that people still find acts of violence against women funny or normalized. There are endless examples in our society that work to normalize such violence—whether it be music lyrics or the many celebrities who are known abusers that are still idolized.
As a female in college, I can’t say fear of being targeted for violence is in my mind every single day, but it is an issue that affects me often. Some people may not realize that gendered power differentials still play a huge role in our society. Fear of violence and abuse in my lifetime is something I personally deal with, and I know many other women do as well. Even if it’s unnecessary in some situations to be fearful, the number of women that have lost their lives to abusers is innumerable, so I believe this fear and outrage toward Trumps retweet is justified.
Fortunately, college campuses such as USF are working hard to prevent violence against women. Title IX, as it currently stands due to its expansions during the Obama Administration, has a large presence on campus. In every course at USF, Title IX standards are included in the syllabus and USF’s own policy on abuse and sexual assault is extensive.
Although the leader of our country may be using his platform to normalize violence against women, there is hope in solidarity. With institutions like USF making efforts to end discrimination and violence, and the vast majority of responses to Trump’s retweet being negative, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the direction our society is moving.