So Trump has crossed a line? His views are as old as misogyny itself | Suzanne Moore
Republican grandees who are shocked by their presidential candidate should have woken up to these attitudes years ago
The shock is that people are shocked. Donald Trump thinks he is entitled to grope women, grab their crotches, to describe sexual assault as some kind of banter. Trump wears his misogyny as proudly as his hair. Feel it, he says, go on see if its real. Its real enough. He is telling it like it is, this is how men are with women. There is no difference between truth and lies. There is only power and its constant neurotic need to reassert itself.
His campaign is an anxiety performance. Machismo by its nature is always an exaggeration, an overcompensation. It works for losers precisely because it covers loss. Look, he says to the disempowered, white male, look at me and my phallic boasting. I will make you hard again.
His hatred of women, his refusal of their bodily autonomy, whether over sex or reproductive rights, is not suddenly being revealed. This is his lifestyle. Now he has crossed a line apparently. Well, the line is a moveable feast when you can hint at assassinating your opponent, at the black vote being rigged, at interviewers menstruating. Multiple choice offence is his USP. Suck it up, bitches.
And they do. Most senior Republicans have not withdrawn their endorsements. They just feel a bit queasy. Mostly because they have wives and daughters and stuff. Potential gropees. Poor men having their property tampered with. What a violation, but its not the worst. You think I am joking? I have been to Republican rallies where the stickers read: My wife yes, my dog maybe, my gun never.
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Hilarious!
Now some of these guys think Trump has made unacceptable remarks. They must just mean recorded, as if saying women are pigs, Mexicans are rapists, war vets are sissies is just tickety-boo. They must sense and fear that Trumps strength depends on defining what is weak and negating it. Nothing then is off limits.
The good guys are also out in force, telling us they dont speak about women like this and have never heard anything like it. They are forever respectful. Well respectfully, they should shut up and listen. I have heard men speak like this all my life. The idea that men are suddenly discovering misogyny because of Trump is somewhat strange. Where have they been?
Trump is hardly the first entitled politico. Silvio Berlusconi and Dominque Strauss-Kahn bought the bodies of young women. Everyone at the IMF knew no woman could be alone with Strauss-Kahn. Westminster has its share of gropers and grabbers who know not what they do because they are depressed. Men let other men off the hook or, when confronted, say they didnt realise the full extent of what was happening.
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So I would rather hear from women and they are all over Twitter telling of the first time they were sexually assaulted, some at eight, 11, 13. A brothers friend. A neighbour. A man on a bus.
The first time is when you realise that your body is up for grabs, that the sexual pleasure taken from it does not belong to you. Sex is something that is done to you, not done by you. And if it hurts, just grow to like the pain. This is the culture I grew up in, its the culture my daughters grow up in.
This absolute refusal to say misogyny involves all men because it is a system by which the abuse of women acts as a guarantor of masculinity is part of the problem. Women have to modify their behaviour. Walk home that way, dont wear that, dont answer back, dont drink too much, dont post that selfie, smile before you run for your life. Believe its not all men or your life would not be worth living.
When one man speaks up applaud him. Here is Robert De Niro who cant take it any more. But where are the other guys who have had this tape for a while? Why, as it features Billy Bush, did they not put it out when Jeb Bush was being hammered in the primaries? Why did we need a tape to find Trump abhorrent?
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Of course some women will continue to collude with these scumbags, they will vote for Trump, they will excuse him. Women are good at excusing men. If we werent, the human race would die out. Some women will look away, believing men cant help it and carry on humouring the banter. You drop something in a restaurant and a guy says: While you are down there love and you laugh because if you didnt you might stick a fork in his eye. And you remember being 14 and being bruised from mere groping but thinking yourself lucky because the worst didnt happen. You think about how you knew the practice of misogyny long before you heard the theory, so wonder how the good guys are slightly baffled by it.
But now with Trump, there is evidence. On a tape. Had they not heard the stories women tell? Yes, America could still elect the man idolised by Patrick Bateman in American Psycho. For misogyny is not some secret society, a form of freemasonry. It is mainstream. It is endorsed by Trump. It is not simply unacceptable, it is murderous.
Kill it dead.
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