Dear Mr. Trump,
In the name of courtesy, I would like to introduce myself.
I am a freshman at one of the best public universities in the country. Every morning, I wake up at 7 a.m., make oatmeal and cram in last minute exam review before class. Between club meetings, lunch runs and procrastinating with friends in the library, I somehow find time to finish my homework and get a few hours of sleep.
I know you’re a busy man. With a month until Election Day, you probably have more important things to do than read fan letters, especially when your preferred method of communication is 140 character social media rants. Why should you waste your time on a nameless nobody from suburban Pennsylvania?
You should because I am a student: a female student.
Every morning, I wake up at 7 a.m., second guess how flattering my jeans look, and stress over my hair before rushing to class. Between fears of walking home alone from the library, derogatory “jokes” from intoxicated strangers at frats, and email alerts about sexual assault on campus, I somehow find time to always carry pepper spray on my keys and wonder whether my gender will impact my chance at getting a summer internship.
Despite the barriers that have been broken down, the rules that have been implemented and the amazing things the women before me have accomplished, there are still miles to go. As one of 11.7 million female students enrolled in American colleges and universities this fall, I can personally attest to the fact that the fight is far from over.
Haven’t one hundred years of American history eliminated the patriarchy that once dominated our culture? Am I just another crazy feminist blaming my life problems on nonexistent inequity and sexism? What, you ask? Does my life have to do with yours?
Mr. Trump, this has everything to do with you and your self-righteous attitude that makes you believes that you have the right to demean women. Unlike other American men, you openly support misogynistic ideology with no threat of punishment except an occasional media storm that consumes pop culture before disappearing into the collection of comments you made that we really shouldn’t overlook but do anyway.
When you make lewd comments about our “female assets” on public radio, you convince the American public that we are inconsequential beings whose only societal contribution is our ability to smile and wave. Sure, we know that we are so much more than the numbers on the scale, but your words nevertheless leave us shaken up and a little more insecure in knowing how we look matters more than how we think.
As you brag about your sexual exploitations on national television, you make it acceptable to consider us commodities rather than human beings. By systematically filling the cracks in the glass ceiling we are working to shatter, you make it impossible for us to live our best lives inside and outside the classroom.
Each time you use Twitter to make crude comments about our inabilities, you reduce us to the outdated image of a helpless woman. Whoever says that words hurt never listened to you, when you open your mouth; there is always someone somewhere who starts to think that she will never be good enough.
I pity you. Not because I can sympathize or share even a remotely similar political conviction, but because of your inability to see the irrevocable harm you are wreaking. You are oblivious to your own storm, and fail to see that politics aside, I will not support you this November on the simple principle that I am tired of dealing with your standards. I hate that you are allowed to tell me how to behave, and are sick of putting up with your constant defamation. I am done sitting behind our televisions and letting your stupidity continue.
You see it was American women who maintained the home front during the Great War and who fought for the rights of African Americans before their own. It was American women who worked in the factories and raised children while waiting for suffrage, equal pay, and protected rights. It was American women who dared to become the lawyers, doctors, astronauts, engineers and housewives our nation needed most. It was American women whose ingenuity and bravery taught us to believe—no, accept—that we are (and always will be) stronger, smarter and sassier than men like you.
Keep objectifying us. Tell us we’re fat and disgusting. Call us “pieces of ass” again.
Although it might seem like we have given into your rhetoric and accepted your perception of women as reality, I guarantee that we have not. We are simply refusing to stoop to your level. Our time will come.
So, go ahead. I dare you.
But when it is an American woman taking the oath of office in January 2017, don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Sincerely,
One collegiate, on behalf of the 11.7 million other girls over it and you
Photo Credit: 1