ZOE KIRIAZIS
Special to The Leader
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump claimed during the second presidential debate that the 2005 leaked audio of him talking about what he has done to women was nothing more than “locker room talk.” People responded heavily on Twitter when New York Times best-selling author Kelly Oxford asked women to come forward to talk about their first sexual assault encounter using the hashtag #NotOkay.
Leaked footage of Trump obtained by The Washington Post on Oct. 7 caught him saying vulgar and disturbing comments about women quoting, “and when you’re a star … you can do anything.” During the presidential campaign and debates, he has repeatedly said negative and derogatory comments towards women. He has claimed during each debate that he has respect for women stating things like, “nobody has respect for women like I do.”
An uproar subsequently ensued on social media.
Defined by The United States Department of Justice, sexual assault is any sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. By law, what Trump described was sexual assault.
“Women: tweet me your first assaults. They aren’t just stats,” Oxford tweeted at 4:48 p.m. on Oct. 7.
What began as a small tweet led to 50 tweets per minute and over one million Twitter responses overnight, per Hindustan Times. Men and women shared their stories, some for the first time.
On Oct. 18, Twitter user Dominick Evans tweeted, “I know of too many trans men who have had their crotches grabbed by cis men trying to remind us we’re not real men.”
Karen Freeman on Oct. 17 tweeted, “I was 17, a man overpowered me, shoved me between 2 cars & tried to rape me. 2 strangers came by & scared him off.”
Twitter user Alexa Fitzpatrick tweeted on Oct. 17, “When you say ‘All men say these things,’ you tell me a lot more about you and your friends than you do about all men.”
A community came together as survivors shared their stories with many positive responses and support from the media.
Planned Parenthood, an organization funded by the government to provide reproductive health services in the U.S. and around the globe, commented during the third presidential debate on Oct. 19, “Women don’t come out with sexual assault allegations for fame.”
Dose, an online media outlet whose goal is to “educate, entertain and inspire” based in Chicago, posted on its Twitter and Facebook page a video of 11 women talking about their sexual assault stories in a locker room — the “real” locker room talk.
Jill Gallenstein, a Los Angeles-based artist, took to her Facebook page with the tag to comment about her own sexual assault experiences, “This is RAPE CULTURE – the cultural conditioning of men and boys to feel entitled to treat women as objects.”
Over 30 million tweets have poured in using the hashtag. Oxford’s one tweet has helped millions of women and men who have experienced sexual assault gain the confidence to come forward about what has happened, according to numerous Twitter users who have been using the hashtag. There hasn’t been a similar uproar through Twitter about sexual assault since 2014, when hashtag #YesAllWomen took social media by storm, exposing sexism and life as a woman in our society. The #NotOkay tag has been used during each presidential debate and has been written about in The Huffington Post, The Washington Post and The New York Times.
Political officials have even commented on Trump’s sexual assault allegations and his continuous denial of his comments.
Former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said, “Hitting on married women? Condoning assault? Such vile degradations demean our wives and daughters and corrupt America’s face to the world.” People of all different political backgrounds and beliefs are coming together to stand against Trump.
Current Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton wrote on her Twitter account the day the audio recording was leaked, “This is horrific. We cannot allow this man to become president.”