President Barack Obama and Frank Bruni’s opinion piece in The New York Times remind us that we don’t need to be parents of girls or have a wife to know what’s not acceptable — what pulls all of us down. Bruni raises the question: Why do our “leaders” need daughters or wives to know what behaviors around and toward them are wrong? What about all those people with sons? Do they care less?
I have two sons and a daughter. But if I didn’t have children, I’d still know that what Donald Trump has said about women is despicable. Yes, I am a woman. But my husband can’t recall “locker room” conversations like the one Trump had with Billy Bush. And neither can male athletes who refuse to be used as an excuse for the inexcusable.
Perhaps I should be saying, “I have two sons and that makes me worry about Donald Trump becoming a role model as a U.S. president.” But it doesn’t take a daughter, mother, sister, son, father, spouse or any other relative for a person with moral fiber to know that Donald Trump’s insults and demeaning behaviors are beneath us. They lower all boats. As President Obama summed it up, “You just have to be a decent human being to say ‘that’s not right’.”
With all due respect, your husband must have led a sheltered life. While I am fortunate to not speak of people in that manner because of a dear friend in college, I have heard much worse. I grew up on the streets of Chicago and attended an Ivy League Catholic college. I can assure you that much worse is said in the locker rooms by both men and women (so my sister tells me about women) regularly. We condemn people for their actions not locker room talk especially private conversations that are supposed to be off the record. Considering Bill Clinton actually did something that cost him his law license and the thing with Monica Lewinski as actions he actual took that are historically documented, Hilary’s position is nonsense. But I forgot, in Hillary’s world we would be condemned for private thoughts which is very Orwellian. If you read our founding father biographies and the things they said and did at the time concerning women, everyone should really be offended, but they are not. This kind of stuff is just a smoke screen to take people away from the real issues and the lack of governance by Hillary and the political elite for the past 30 years. If she is so great than how come things are so bad for so many people. Considering the wiki leak emails coming out about open boarders and the vilification of catholic’s and evangelicals from Hilary’s camp, Donald’s comments are not of any significance in this regard. Your sensibilities should be more offended by Hilary’s lack of leadership and the wiki leak emails that have grave consequences for our country and freedoms. I know I am.
I have considered Donald Trump appalling from the get-go and while his sexist remarks are far from endearing, I wasn’t either surprised nor particularly put off by that. This sort of banter goes on all the time in all-male gatherings, and often in mostly male gatherings. The party-rape videos that have come out of fraternities are part of that culture.
A Facebook friend posted a link to the bus open-mike conversation with Billy Bush. My response was:
“Pathetic. But he’s hardly unique. As a woman in a male dominated field most of my life, I heard a whole lot of this sort of thing (I wanted to say a whole lot of this “sh*t”). If you’re a woman, it kind of wears you down. That and the constant questioning of your ability and credentials. I eventually took early retirement–when I had put enough time in to live on my retirement.
This is why Trump appeals to the good-old-boys. They’re racist and misogynist and personally insecure about all the women “taking” men’s jobs. It’s a sort of validation when someone else thinks and talks the way they do.
But let’s not fool ourselves. This is certainly not a recent phenomenon. It has been SOP for at least three millennia. Check out the Epic of Gilgamesh. Or the bible. Or Greek history. Or Roman history. The Egyptians has some respect for women. So did Mohammed, apparently. But that flicker of enlightenment got swamped out in the culture of the historic “cradle of civilization.”
The good ole boy network is not just males. In my 38 year career I have seen females in it to. The good ole boy network represents elites who think only they are entitled to success. The rest of us male or female regardless of merit get little to nothing. This is exactly the kind of thing Trump is fighting. Why do think people in his own party do not like him like the Bushes. They think the world revolves around them and it doesn’t. All anyone in the country wants is a fair shot based upon merit and not quotas whether race or gender based. They want reasonable government not one that thinks they can control every aspect or most aspects of your life. They want fair taxes and wise money expenditures. They want public servants who think they are there to help the public rather than enrich themselves at our expense. The want the immigration laws enforced. We should not be giving free rides to people who are not supposed to be here like every other country in the world does. We cannot even provide a decent living to every one in our own country. We have no business do stuff for others when we cannot even take care of our own.