Trump’s Behavior is a Wake-up Call to Men
Revelations of Donald Trump’s dehumanizing conversations and assaultive behavior present a watershed moment for male consciousness and for our culture of unrestrained objectification. But Trump and his flailing apologists are right about one thing: Trump is not the only man who acts, talks or thinks like this. And any of us who have done so or gotten close are now confronted with the abject unacceptability of it. Many of us should share in Trump’s shame.
Trump is an odious power-abusing predator but he is also a symptom. He and Howard Stern and cackling morning radio shock jocks both perpetuate misogyny and reflect it. And thanks to the glaring exposure of this mentality, we might all be lifted.
Athletes and fraternity men have responded to Trump’s trivialization of his language as mere good-natured jockism, insisting that it is not done in their notoriously testosterone-filled environments. This repudiation of what we now acknowledge as sexual assault is encouraging and is a significant sign that Trumplike obscene entitlement is not simply disqualifying for one nightmarish presidential candidate. It represents a widespread and collective revulsion that strikes at our core social and gender relations.
Trump’s behavior has been the dominant public concern for nearly a week. In the face of overwhelming opposition, Trump surrogates are required to listen on-air to indefensible tapes and videos of Trump. They absurdly try to defend and minimize it all. But I admit, my hat is off to men who have never acted, talked, or thought about women in a degrading way. I fear you guys might be a minority and I think that can be proven in one word: porn. So, what does the uncloseting of Trump’s hatred of women say to men who like to think of ourselves as decent, fair, non-assaultive and respectful of women? It says: this shit is unacceptable.
This is a mass consciousness-raising experience, a lightning bolt for change. Objectification and abuse of women is so hopelessly pervasive, so deep, ancient and entrenched that it’s hard to sustain idealism. But once in a great while something happens that is a sudden and unforeseen game changer for what seems like an inevitable state of oppression. Overnight, as we witnessed the real-time transformation of an iconic Olympic male athlete into a woman, the issue of LGBT rights ended up leading to a boycott of Indiana by Wal-Mart and North Carolina by the NCAA. Who could have imagined? The advent of the phone camera showed the world virtually overnight what our African-American community has been saying for centuries. A horrific mass shooting in a black church brought down the confederate flag.
As a male, I find myself altered by the appalling disclosures of the past week. I feel a sense of collective responsibility for the way men treat and look at women. Confronted with the sick behavior of another man, I am compelled to look within myself for anything that smacks of it. His nauseating behavior is a purgative.
Polls tell us that a majority of men support Trump. Mercifully, this support, too, has eroded during the past week. But even those millions of men who end up voting for him have no way of escaping the wrongness of his conduct. We naturally want to distance ourselves from Trump’s shameful and shameless behavior. Few of us can resist internalizing the lessons of this experience and confronting our own sexist demons. Hopefully, this symbol of what is wrong will also be a symbol of what is right. An epic misogynist may unwittingly be the catalyst for a change in the way men look at women.
[Jimmy Lohman is a human rights lawyer in Austin, Texas.]