To be honest, when I first heard the audio recording of Donald Trump stating that he likes to “grab [women] by the pussy” and “just kiss them,” I wasn’t shocked. I was barely surprised. In this election, this man has given me no reason to believe he is an upstanding person. This “locker-room talk”, as he calls it, only furthered my belief that we cannot have a person leading the country whose main hobby involves degrading more than half of our nation.
And no, I was not surprised that Donald Trump claimed this wasn’t sexual assault. The inherent misogyny in our society has facilitated this way of thinking—that being assertive is something that women always enjoy. Donald Trump’s words don’t agree with the necessity of consent—he wants it, so he takes it. That makes him a perpetrator of sexual violence.
However, Donald Trump’s politicization of sexual assault has provided him with a (weak) fight against Hillary as Trump uses her husband against her. Bill Clinton is no stranger to sexual assault accusations; besides his frequent infidelity, many women have come forward to state that he has assaulted them.
Accusations of sexual assault always need to be taken seriously, and though these specific claims came out decades ago, the victims still need closure. Trump recognized this and has manipulated it to his own game: publicly support these victims without actually helping them. He does not give a damn about them—his image remains his sole concern. Sexual assault is not supposed to be a pawn in a political game. It’s a pressing issue that is often made into a technical problem, and the fact that an attack on a woman can be made into a campaign strategy is, frankly, disgusting.
Additionally, Trump using these victims to somehow underscore Hillary Clinton’s ability to serve as president is highly ineffective. The accusations towards Bill Clinton shed no light on her capability, as many of these claims are from the 1970s and 1980s. If Bill Clinton is ever found to be guilty of these crimes, then I fully believe he should accept the punishment. His judicially proven innocence is something I have to respect, even if I believe that the bevy of sexual assault accusations cannot be a coincidence.
As a nation, we also have to stop blaming Bill and Hillary’s actions on one another. Newsflash: it is completely and totally sexist to say that Hillary is only here because of her husband. It’s also completely incorrect. The determination that a woman has does not come from her husband: it comes from herself. Associating Bill Clinton’s sexual assault with Hillary should not affect her ability to lead America; it only serves as a detriment to the larger conversation about how America handles rape and assault.
Trump has been fighting a losing battle in the last weeks of this election, and his manipulation of a serious case of sexual assault has proven to be yet another undoing. Despite his ignorance, this act serves a purpose. His political game demonstrates that we must change how we talk about sexual assault—or how we don’t talk about it. I’m too tired to hear another round of “locker room talk.”