ST. LOUIS — Before the second presidential debate between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton on Sunday, Washington University in St. Louis female students rallied in support for Clinton, calling Trump’s recently revealed lewd remarks about women evidence that he is a “disgusting, nauseating and horrifying presidential nominee.”
Wash U junior Laurella Dotin, from New York City, was among many women raising signs in support of Clinton outside the media tents at the Danforth University Center.
“It’s terrifying that he could be the person responsible for setting the tone of our country and for telling people what is right and wrong on our moral barometer,” Dotin said. “His bar on how to treat women is sexual assault.”
Dotin said Trump’s lewd remarks perpetuate college rape culture, and she is worried that the leaked video and audio of him will encourage young men on college campuses to “reinforce their manhood.”
College campuses around the country are working to “define consent and are struggling with rape culture,” and Trump’s comments have undermined that.
“He as a presidential candidate, let alone as president, is sending a message to our young men and women that it is OK to talk about women like this,” Dotin said. “It is OK to talk about their bodies, it is OK to perpetuate rape culture as long as you’re in a position of power and have privilege.”
(Andrew Merica/MNS)
Among the large group of young women supporting Clinton, Jeanie Ames, a 45-year-old woman from St. Louis, stood alone, holding a pink “Women for Trump” sign.
Ames, the mother of two boys and a girl, said Trump’s remarks on “Access Hollywood” shouldn’t carry any weight in the election, and added that they pale in comparison to Clinton’s alleged coverup of her role in not preventing the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi and the need to protect the Second Amendment. She said she is “voting my guns and my daughter’s right to protect herself.”
“If you’re going to say that this is a huge issue about women — was it deplorable? Yes. So call it deplorable,” she said. “I’m a deplorable person according to Hillary Clinton because I support Donald Trump. So if he’s deplorable for those comments, then fine, let’s call it deplorable, he apologized. Now let’s go back and say how many things have you done?”
Ames angrily commented that females need to look past Trump’s comments because they were made “not only when he wasn’t running for election, but before he was even considering running for office.”
“If I had a dollar for every time my husband used the ‘p’ word inappropriately when he referenced women, then I’d be more rich than the crooked assholes running the Clinton foundation,” she said.
Wash U senior Julie Hurwitz of Chappaqua, New York, said she’s indifferent to Trump’s remarks because she is confident of a Clinton victory. But still, her friends joke that “Women for Trump is literally like Jews for Hitler.”
Wash U senior Iman Abdikarim from Oak Hill, Virginia, also said she isn’t upset about Trump’s comments, but is sad to see that it takes insulting white women to get the Republican Party to retract support for Trump. She said the party should have pulled its support a long time ago in light of other racist and misogynistic comments.
“People need to re-evaluate why this is the issue causing parts of the Republican leadership to denounce Trump,” she said. “He has said homophobic things, he has said racist things, he has said Islamophobic things. It isn’t until it affects white women, this has now become a huge issue in the media.”
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