Dear Mr. Trump... can
I call you Mr. Trump? Is that ok? I want you to be
happy, that’s very important to me.
Before I get started,
let me say this letter isn’t from all women. The
Trumpettes surely won’t approve of this message.
But this is from most women.
We see right through
you. We have all known you at some point. Your ways
are not unfamiliar to us. We see through you because
we’ve been dealing with you our whole lives.
We heard you call
women pigs. And disgusting. And stupid. And bimbos.
We watched as you
called a former Ms. Universe “Ms. Piggy” and then
spent four days continuing to insult her.
We see your weakness.
Your lust for attention at any cost, your need to
denigrate women. We see all of it. And we’re mad.
Yes, we’re mad. And
fired up. And here’s the thing about us: We can be
bitches.
Gone are the days
where we question our power or our influence. We are
strong. Smart. We know our worth and it doesn’t
reside in the size of our bras or our skinny jeans.
We build each other up. We have our sister’s backs.
And our brother’s. So when you took on the former
Ms. Universe, you took on all of us.
And right now you’ve
got a lot of angry women to contend with. And let me
remind you, Mr. Trump... hell hath no fury like a
pissed off woman who’s tired of this sexist
bullshit.
Let me remind you, Mr. Trump...
hell hath no fury like a pissed off woman who’s
tired of this sexist bullshit.
We heard you when you
said we should
“look for another place to work” if we
experience workplace sexual harassment. Your
non-solution illustrates either your lack of
understanding or lack of concern. Or both. Your
attitude and ignorance on this is stunning. Your
response, pathetic. We see you, and we see someone
who’s in over their head.
We watched you
interrupt a woman 51 times during a 90-minute
debate. While the better qualified, more
knowledgeable woman was talking, you attempted to
bulldoze right over her. We all know this game. It’s
called male privilege. And it doesn’t look good on
you, Mr. Trump. It makes you look weak. We see you,
and we see a man who is so threatened by a woman
speaking that you can’t even bear to let her finish.
Sad.
And we see it rampant
throughout your campaign and your proposed policies.
It’s in your paltry maternity leave proposal that
leaves out fathers and LGBTQ and adoptive parents.
And when you say that women who seek abortions
should be punished. And when you refuse to consider
supporting equal pay for women.
Your
latest ad, in which your daughter, beaming with
privilege and pride, says “being a mother is the
most important job a woman can have.” didn’t go over
so well with us, Mr. Trump.
We are different, us
women. We are not a homogenous army of fem-bots. We
have different interests, goals and lives. There is
more to us than motherhood. Some of us revel in
motherhood. Some of us don’t want to have children.
And some of us can’t have children. Our status as
mothers has nothing to do with our worth. This ad,
coupled with your policies, show that you are tone
deaf to the reality that women face and point to an
antiquated attitude — one that keeps women as the
caregivers and leaves men out of that equation.
We see you. And we see
a man who has no business representing our interests
in the Oval Office.
We heard you say no
one would vote for
Carly Fiorina “because of her face.”
We remember you
calling women “a beautiful piece of ass” in
Esquire Magazine.
We watch you say one
thing, then say the opposite. Then refuse to admit
any of it happened. Problem is, we can spot
gaslighting from a mile away.
We recall the bit
about all women being gold diggers in your
memoir.
We cringe and hold our
daughters a little closer when we are reminded that
you said you’d
date your daughter. If only she weren’t your
daughter.
We remember when you
called a lawyer “disgusting” for requesting a
break during a trial to breastfeed.
We roll our eyes when
we saw you try to
dismiss Megyn Kelly after she had the nerve to
ask you questions. At a debate. “Blood coming out of
her wherever” was not lost on us. Most of us
remember hearing such comments in Middle School.
We watch you say one thing, then
say the opposite. Then refuse to admit any of it
happened. Problem is, we can spot gaslighting from a
mile away.
We are horrified when
we learn that you
sent a journalist a picture of herself with the
word “dog” scrawled across it.
We seethe with anger
when we read your
tweet blaming military sexual assault on the
fact that women are in the military.
We haven’t forgotten
your lurid
tweet about Hillary Clinton not being able to
“satisfy” her husband.
Not only do you not
understand women, you seem to have an awful lot of
contempt for them. This is not fitting for a man who
wants to be president in the 21st Century.
Which leads me to
this:
Make
America Great Again.
We know exactly what
you meant when you branded yourself with this
slogan. It’s not-so-coded language for a time gone
by. Your “great” America wasn’t so great for women
and minorities and gay people.
We won’t go back.
We won’t be relegated
to the kitchen.
We won’t be locked
into a life where we have no choice over our bodies
or whether we have babies.
We won’t accept your
patronizing response to sexual harassment.
We won’t be silenced
or demeaned any more.
We won’t be ridiculed
for our weight or judged by our appearance.
We won’t be shamed for
owning our sexuality.
We have come a long
way since your days of when America was “great.”
We have busted our
asses to get here, and we’re not going back.
We are raising strong
daughters who fight back against sexist school dress
codes.
We are raising strong
sons who aren’t afraid of their feelings and aren’t
afraid of strong girls.
We are shutting down
catcalling.
We are no longer
letting ourselves be interrupted and drowned out in
the board room.
We are locking arms
with our sisters in solidarity when rapists are
given a slap on the wrist.
We are shouting about
every day sexism.
We are calling you
out, Mr. Trump.
We will not go quietly
into any good night. We are loud. We are in your
face. And we don’t put up with the kind of bullshit
you’re selling.
So maybe this isn’t
your time, Mr. Trump. Maybe your time has passed.
We have come a long way since
your days of when America was “great.” We have
busted our asses to get here, and we’re not going
back.
Maybe you would have
been more suited to the 1920s when women did not yet
have the right to vote.
When
marital rape was still legal.
Or the 1950s when
women largely stayed home and produced children and
McCarthyism and blacklisting were acceptable.
Or perhaps 1930s
Germany would have been a better fit for you.
But now? Now is not
your time.
We’re moving forward.
All of us, smart men and women, have had enough of
the tired gender roles. We’ve had enough of you and
other weak, fearful men trying to stop progress.
We see you, Mr. Trump.
We see your sexism and
your bigotry and your racism. We see right through
you.
Remember... we can be
bitches.
And bitches get stuff
done.
See you on November 3, Mr. Trump.
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