A week ago I heard the news story about the Girl Scouts marching in the Inaugural parade.
A week later I am still thinking about it.
Initially I started to dismiss it. I mean, there’s so much to be outraged about, what’s this one more thing? My experiences with the Girl Scouts were limited to my brief stint as a Brownie when I was 8 and my boorish boss who used to bring in his daughter’s order form for cookies and pass it around with a fake “no pressure” caveat. It certainly never seemed like the most progressive of organizations, so was I really shocked?
But then I thought, “Wait, the Girl Scouts. These people are in charge of young girls, young women. The shape their minds, they teach them things about the world, they chaperone them. They cannot be a custodian of young women and support a sexual predator at the same time.”
That statement hit me somewhere deep. Because all of our lives women are being given the message that we are not entitled to decide who can touch our bodies, that they are there to serve men, and that when someone does touch our body against our wishes it was no big deal, or our fault, or something we were probably making up. Telling little girls to march to honor Donald Trump, was just another way of sending that message.
I heard people try to parse who exactly was marching, it wasn’t the Girl Scouts, it was the National Capital Council of Girl Scouts. By the CEO’s own admission in Time it was 75 girls. Seventy-five girls being told it was an honor to parade for a man who doesn’t value women and thinks he has the right to their bodies.
Donald Trump should not be a role model for boys or girls. Period. The fact that some of this country voted for him will never change that. We are living in a time where the President of the United States cannot serve as a role model. He is a bully. He makes fun of people with disabilities. He makes racist statements. When a woman challenges him he insinuates it’s because she’s on her period. He lies. He cheats. He refuses to pay contractors and probably his taxes, not that we’ll ever know that because he refuses to release them. He incites violence. He asks other countries to hack citizens of ours. He’s not even a good businessman. He’s declared bankruptcy numerous times and is thought to be in debt to his eyeballs, not that we would know that because again, he refuses to release his tax returns.
Oh, and he is an admitted sexual predator. He forces himself on women by his own admission and by their own testimony. It was bad enough that he sexually fetishized his own daughter, called any woman who disagreed with him a pig and worse, but he also in his own words says about women “I just start kissing them,” “I don’t even wait” and “You can do anything…grab them by the pussy.”
The Girls Scouts excuse was that they’re non-partisan. No, Girl Scouts, you don’t get to be non-partisan about sexual assault. And maybe it seems like there’s so much more to be outraged about and that this shouldn’t be that big of a deal, but I am so sick of no one looking out for girls. The very people who are supposed to protect them are leading them to the slaughter and colluding with their predators. And it’s not just organizations like the Girl Scouts. It’s parents, too.
And again this hits me somewhere deep. Because our parents are supposed to protect us. They’re supposed to tell us that no one has the right to touch our bodies; that we shouldn’t put up with bullies or people who are verbally abusive. They’re not supposed to vote for them to be President. It breaks my heart that there are little girls out there who are being let down by the people who are supposed to be looking out for them. If you’re a parent of a daughter and you voted for him knowing all this, I question how much you really love your daughter. You certainly don’t care if a man forces himself on her. You just told her that was OK, that you were willing to overlook it if it meant lower taxes or building a wall. At the most Trump’s presidency will last 8 years. You gave your daughter a message that she will carry with her for a lifetime. When she’s in situations where she has to look out for her own safety, she will remember that you said it was locker room talk and no big deal. She won’t leave that abusive relationship or think she has the right to say “No” or report her boss when he crosses a line. She’ll spend a lifetime trying to be physically pleasing to men: starving herself, inducing vomiting, getting surgeries, all because you valued a predator who ran a beauty contest over an intelligent woman who worked her ass off fighting for women and children.
I’d say you deserve all that heartbreak, but your daughter doesn’t, so I can’t.
The real joke is that these are the same hypocrites who want their women to be vestal virgins never in need of birth control or abortions. You’re not supposed to have pre-marital sex, but if a man wants to grab your pussy that’s totally fine as long as he’s white and Republican I guess.
Just writing this right now fills me with such a rage for the people who voted for him. We have to do better for our girls. Why do we keep telling people they can do whatever they want to them as long they don’t make our lives uncomfortable or complicated? Or do you think it will just happen to other people’s daughters? Do his comments and actions not bother you because it wasn’t you or your family? Because you’ve been taught to think it must have been someone who deserved it. There should be penance for what you did. You should have to go volunteer at a rape crisis hotline or donate all the money you save on taxes to an organization that supports sexual assault survivors. Because it’s not too late to protect our girls and for you to be a good role model for them. But first, you have to start.