Dear Donald Trump: Thank You For Your Comments On Women

Dear Donald,

Can I call you that? Donald? Considering some of the names you’ve called women over the years, simply calling you by your first name should be no big deal, right? By now, the world has had the privilege of hearing your conversation with Billy Bush back in 2005 where you proudly talked about how easy it is to fondle and grope women simply for being a rich and famous guy. Out of the many things this tape reveals, it certainly drives home the fact that money will never buy class, standards or morals. But talking about your status isn’t why I’m writing this today so let’s move on, shall we?

Your words, your bravado, your arrogance, is nothing new. You’ve been treating women like sexual objects and anything but human-beings since your youth. You have a well-documented history of accusations of sexual assault and have publically called women and young girls fatties, pigs and dogs. You’ve been in and out of more relationships and marriages than one can count, leaving all of your exes with nothing nice to say about the guy you are, and you have even talked about your own daughter as a sexual conquest, so to hear the words you spoke so proudly in 2005 did not come as a complete shock to me or anyone else for that matter. It’s ironic, really. With all the material from your past to pull from, it’s this audio recording that will be the nail in your coffin. So before your certain political and professional demise unfolds, I want to take this opportunity to express how thankful I am to you for those words you spoke.

Yes, thankful. You see, up to this point, I’d become complacent to the struggles women face on a daily basis, especially with regards to rape culture, sexual abuse and misogyny. Sure, I’ve always been aware and know it exists. I see articles as I casually scroll through my Facebook timeline or news website while leisurely sipping my morning coffee but I had become immune to the gravity and brevity of it all. It’s kind of like sun: You know that it’s constantly there and you’re aware of the potential it has to harm you but because you’re wearing your sunscreen, you become complacent to the potential for harm, but forget your sunscreen a time or two and you’re bound to get burned. Regretfully, this is how my attitude had become about men like you – complacent and comfortable. In our society today, men like you have become all too common resulting in women like me becoming numb to your ignorance. You see, when you’ve never been on the receiving end of such behavior, it’s easy to think, “This doesn’t affect me. No need to worry” and this is where I’ve been horribly, horribly wrong.

You see Donald, I’m a mother of a little girl. Today she is five but as you very well know being a dad yourself, she will grow up to be a woman and in being a woman, will have to deal with a whole different world than you could ever imagine. She will be denied jobs because of her gender. She will be dictated to on a daily basis as to how her body should look, how much she should weigh and how a lady should act. If she decides to have a family, she will always be pit against whether to stay home with her children or be a working mom and in the end, someone will tell her it’s the wrong choice regardless of which one she chooses because that’s what we do to the women in our society. She will have to fight to be taken seriously if she’s a female athlete because apparently, only men can play sports well and succeed and above all of this, she will have to deal with men because, well, you just can’t ignore half the world’s population. And this is where I’ve failed my daughter in raising her up to this point.

Thank you, Donald, for your words which snapped my head back into the reality of the world in which we live. Thank you for your sobering and harsh comments about women that remind me of how far we’ve come have come and sadly, how much further we have to go. Thank you for reminding me that among us still remains an antiquated and bigoted species of men who genuinely feel that women are only good for sexual pleasure and fodder, making your dinner and raising your children. Thank you for showing us rape culture in action so that all moms everywhere know what it really looks like and how to combat it in their own homes for both girls and boys. Thank you Donald, for reminding all of us that sexual crimes are only a sliver about the act of sex but more-so to do with men like you who feel so small that they need to abuse women in order to feel big.

Thank you for reminding me that as a mother of a girl, it’s my job to make sure that my daughter knows her worth in this life because sadly, she will always encounter men like you.

Sincerely,

A mom who just grabbed you by the ballot