Photo from Associated Press (AP)
Donald
Trump has claimed that “nobody has more respect for women” than he does. However, his cabinet picks, in addition to
his actions in his first few days in office, diametrically oppose his
claim. It is nothing short of horrifying
to read about the men in the Trump presidential cabinet who have been accused
of engaging in intimate partner violence (Jeltsen, 2016). Trump himself has at least sixteen women who
have accused him of sexual assault (Pearson, Vagianos, & Gray, 2016). What are the implications of having a
president whose actions are, time and time again, consistent with sexism and misogyny
(e.g., Cohen, 2017)?
Someone
only needs to review a few examples of Mr. Trump’s vitriolic attacks on women
that demonstrate the former point. In
1991, Trump called women “beautiful pieces of ass,” objectifying women and
reducing them to a single body part rather than considering them as they truly
are—complex humans with thoughts, ideas, and feelings. In 1992, in an interview with New York Magazine, Trump gave away his
technique for working with women: “You have to treat ‘em like shit.” Furthermore, in 2011, Trump called
breastfeeding “disgusting”; in essence, Donald Trump has no issue with women
displaying their bodies in a sexual way for the pleasure of men, but when it is
simply to care for their newborn children, it is somehow repulsive.
The
above photo went viral on social media on January 23rd when Trump
signed into effect the global gag rule that effectively prevents foreign aid
for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that discuss abortion as a potential
option for women’s reproductive health needs (Kahn, 2017). Surrounded exclusively by White men, Trump reinstated
and expanded an executive order that will deny women access to safe
abortions—and as a result, thousands of women will die across the world
(Crockett, 2017). Although the global
gag rule is intended to reduce access
to abortion, it has been found to actually do the opposite: When George. W.
Bush reinstated the rule, it reduced access to contraception and led to more unwanted pregnancies (Crockett,
2017), which women then chose to terminate. In other words, Trump’s executive order denies
the right for millions of women to control their own bodies (i.e., denies their
human rights), puts the lives of these vulnerable women at risk, and will have
real global repercussions.
It
should come as no surprise that women are rushing to Planned Parenthoods across
the country to get intrauterine devices (IUDs) to prevent pregnancy (Cohen,
2017), since many fear that affordable contraceptive options will no longer be
available to them in Trump’s America. In
fact, the number of IUD appointments at Planned Parenthoods has increased 900%
since the election (Amanpour, 2017). Planned Parenthood’s President, Cecile
Richards, said that women “are desperately concerned that they might lose their
access to health care” given Trump’s calls and actions to repeal the Affordable
Care Act (Sanger-Katz, 2017) even before it is replaced with another method to
procure life-sustaining health care.
But
Tom Price, Mr. Trump’s cabinet pick to head the Health and Human Services
Department, is somehow so out of touch with the reality of everyday Americans
that he thinks affording birth control is something that all women are able to
do with ease (and without the help of insurance). In 2012, when a reporter asked Tom Price how
low-income women would afford their birth control copays without the no-cost
contraceptives provision of the Affordable Care Act, Price replied, “Bring me one woman who has been left behind. Bring me one.
There’s not one” (Khazan, 2016). It is
clear that Tom Price paid no attention to statistics on the affordability of
birth control before the Affordable Care Act—when approximately a third of
women reported struggling to pay the cost, with copays ranging from $15 to $50
a month (Planned Parenthood, 2014).
Although $600 per year may not be much to Tom Price, it can be part of a
rent payment, two months of groceries, two car payments, or two weeks of
childcare costs. This was a monetary burden
placed solely on women, when contraception should be a concern for every person
who is sexually active—not just women.
With Trump’s
impending repeal of the Affordable Care Act, women in the US will revert to
spending their hard-earned money on contraceptives; all the while, the gender
wage gap ensures that men enjoy more money for the same work (AAUW, 2016). Women are not expected to reach pay equity
until 2059 at the earliest (Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2015), and
this date stretches farther into the future when adjusted for race: For example,
Black women will wait until 2124 for equal pay, and Latinas won’t reach pay
equity until 2248—232 years from now—if trends in the last 30 years continue (Institute for Women’s Policy Research,
2016). In
the meantime, women continue to be taxed on basic necessities of being women
through paying taxes on feminine hygiene products, for example. On average, women in California pay about $7
per month for 40 years of tampons and sanitary napkins; statewide, this comes
to over $20 million annually in taxes (Larimer, 2016).
Photo from
Jeremy McLellan, @jeremymclellan
All
around us, there are daily reminders that women do not have the societal
benefits of men—that women’s position in society is lower due to the
patriarchal structures of our society that perpetuate maleness as the
standard. Martin Belam, a writer for the
Guardian in London, captioned the photo of Mr. Trump signing the global gag
rule with: “As long as you live you’ll never see a photograph of 7 women
signing legislation about what men can do with their reproductive organs.” Other captions included, “If you’re wondering
what patriarchy looks like: A group of white men watch as Trump reinstates the
#GlobalGagRule” (Valenti, 2017), and “This group just made it more difficult
for women to get access to health care worldwide. You tell me what’s wrong with
this picture” (i.e., no women are a part of this decision; Harris, 2017). Above all, the above photo demonstrates that we
will have to fight to ensure that women’s rights truly are treated as human
rights in the US for the next four years.
Despite the impending detrimental consequences for both women’s health
and their rights in our country and across the globe, I know we are in good
hands. The women’s march was the largest
day of protests in US history (Broomfield, 2017), with approximately one in 100
Americans marching to advocate support for women, immigrants, refugees, Black
lives, and the LGBTQIA community, among many others. Sister marches took place in 60 countries on
seven continents (Wildman, 2017). Signs
rang out: “The future is female,” “no more wire hangers,” and “America is
Brown; America is queer; America is female; America is great.” Provided that the enthusiasm shown in the
march translates to continued political activism, we can fight against the
misogyny perpetuated by our lawmakers who prioritize controlling women’s bodies
over the health and reproductive needs of women everywhere.
Written by: Melissa M. Ertl
References
AAUW. (2016). The simple truth about the
gender pay gap. American Association of
University Women. http://www.aauw.org/research/the-simple-truth-about-the-gender-pay-gap/
Amanpour, C. (2017). Demand for IUDs
reportedly surging with Trump. CNN.
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Cohen, E. (2017). Women rush to get IUDs
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http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/health/iuds-trump/index.html
Crockett, E. (2017). Trump reinstated
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(2015). Pay equity and discrimination. Institute
for Women’s Policy Research. http://www.iwpr.org/initiatives/pay-equity-and-discrimination
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(2016). If current trends continue, Hispanic women will wait 232 years for
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Kahn, M. (2017). President Trump just
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Larimer, S. (2016). The ‘tampon tax,’
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Nearly three in four voters in America support fully covering prescription
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Pearson, C., Vagianos, A., & Gray,
E. (2016). A running list of the women who’ve accused Donald Trump of sexual
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Sanger-Katz, M. (2017). What does
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