On Monday, President Trump denied an assault allegation by E. Jean Carroll, columnist for Elle magazine, in the dressing room of Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s. He stated that she was lying and that he didn’t know her.
“I’ll say it with great respect,” he said to reporters from The Hill. “No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, okay?”
Great respect? His statement suggests there is a certain type of woman that he indeed would rape. In the past, Trump has denied other sexual assault accusations by emphasizing that the women who accused him of taking advantage of them were not attractive enough to assault.
“Believe me, she would not be my first choice, that I can tell you,” Trump told supporters at a campaign event in 2016 after a woman accused him of putting his hand up her skirt while on an airplane. “You don’t know. That would not be my first choice.” As the crowd laughed, he said, “Check out her Facebook, you’ll understand.”
Trump is cruel and insulting, as always. In a diabolical way, he understands the system of misogyny: Sexual abuse is not about sexual attraction. It is about power.
By saying, “She’s not my type”, it continues his habit of dismissing women he deems as unruly, and his negative assessment of their attractiveness.
Does Trump mock women’s appearances? Let’s see – Rosie O’Donnell, Carly Fiorina, Arianna Huffington, Bette Midler, Mika Brzezinski, Stormy Daniels, Heidi Cruz, Heidi Klum, and so many others. But in reality, Trump is not talking about their looks. He is talking about their ability to please men (specifically, him).
This is his poor attempt to defend the status quo. He is working, using petty insults, to protect a patriarchal system, the very one that is threatened when women such as E. Jean Carroll come forward to declare their refusal to be served up at the misogyny table.
In 2018, The New York Times summed up his attempts to diminish women:
Mr. Trump has accused women of having “fat, ugly” faces and of repelling voters because of their looks. He called one woman a “crazed, crying lowlife” and said another was a “dog” who had the “face of a pig.” He said Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break during a 2015 presidential debate was “too disgusting” to talk about. He has repeatedly mocked women for being overweight.
Trump said he had never met Ms. Carroll, but the two were photographed together at a party in 1987 with Ms. Carroll’s former husband, John Johnson. Mr. Trump said on Saturday that the image was misleading. Of course, he did.
Ms. Carroll said that she fought back, while in that dressing room. “I want women to know that I did not stand there. I did not freeze. I was not paralyzed, which is a reaction I could have had because it was so shocking. No, I fought.”
Ms. Carroll’s accusation is the 22nd recorded allegation of sexual misconduct against Trump. All these women have nothing to gain by speaking out. With coming forward, they face all kinds of attacks on their character. Why would they subject themselves to all this over a lie? Truth is, they wouldn’t.
#EJeanCarroll #DonaldTrump #sexual assault #patriarchy