It’s been two weeks since I learned definitively that I would be a woman living in Trump’s America. I had known in my heart for a longtime that this was a possibility, though I fiercely hoped that I was wrong. I wanted my friends’ confidence that Hilary would “break the glass ceiling” to prove itself well founded. But as the election results began trickling in on Tuesday evening, my fears quickly shifted from possible to inevitable. As a woman, I began to feel sick to my stomach.
Even as I struggled to accept these election results I recognized how lucky I was – as a well educated white woman, I would remain more or less untouched. Still, I found myself deeply hurt by the direction America had decided to turn. When Americans elected Donald Trump as President of the United States, they sent me a powerful message: they told me that because I was a woman my health, safety, and humanity were negotiable.
No matter how many times Donald Trump publicly claimed that no one loved women more than him, his actions and statements about and to women have proven his deep rooted misogyny. He openly bragged that because of his fame he could get away with doing anything to women without waiting for consent, even “grab them by the pussy.” And even after multiple women confirmed that they had been sexually assaulted by Trump, he and his campaign dismissed his despicable conversation as “locker room talk” and “boy talk”. He has said that pregnancy is an inconvenience. He has regularly demeaned women for their biology – attacking Megyn Kelly after she challenged him during the first Republican Presidential Debate, derogatorily implying that she must have been menstruating. The list seems endless. When Americans elected Donald Trump, they told me that they agreed with or could at least overlook these demeaning words and actions and accept Trump as the top representative of America.
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Journey into Europe 