Trash Talk Proves You Have Nothing Intelligent to Say

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Kamala Harris,

Seconds. That is how long it took for President Donald Trump to brand Sen. Kamala Harris, Joe Biden’s newly picked running mate, a “nasty” woman. In the world of Donald Trump, a sharp, decisive woman who questions male authority is, in a word, nasty. It is no surprise that his supporters followed up on social media with vulgar attacks. Hundreds of crude comments popped up under the Fox News clip on social media. Frail, insecure men and the women who love them will do everything in their power to silence the voices that challenge their world order.

Trash talk is a pathetic attempt to build oneself up while tearing another down. If you don’t like Harris’ policies and her past record as prosecutor, fine. State your argument with facts and reason. Resorting to insults only proves you have nothing intelligent to say.

Hatred of women is tightly woven into the fabric of our culture. As hard as we try to rip it out, someone like Trump appears to stitch it back in place, and people like him always have plenty of help. Men have somehow convinced “nice girls” that it is their job to mend the ragged edge of the male ego when it is wounded.

You don’t have to slut-shame a woman to demean her. In fact, the sexist wool over our eyes is not always rough. Sometimes it is refined and delicate. When my now college-age daughters were in high school, they were hauled into an assembly at the beginning of every year to review the dress code. They couldn’t wear shorts, leggings or shirts with thin straps because they needed to “show respect to their male administrators and not distract the boys.” According to my son, the male students were not instructed to respect the female students or to just focus on their school work.

This didn’t happen 50 or 20 or even 10 years ago. This is happening in our country today. It is wrong. It is demeaning. It’s sets up a world in which girls are held responsible for the bad behavior of boys.

If a victim of sexual assault dares speak out against her assailants, a thousand sharp needles appear to thread seams of sexism neatly back into place. The needles may be small, but they are fierce and lethal.  Daisy Coleman, who appeared in the 2016 Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy recently die by suicide. The documentary includes Daisy’s story of sexual assault and the cruelty she suffered when she accused the boys who attacked her. Hers is one among many told in the documentary.

Of course, Audrie & Daisy is one documentary among many about the sexual assault of young girls. And then there are millions of girls whose painful stories are never told. The vast majority of boys and men are not held accountable for their actions. The girls and women are always to blame.

In this kind of world, it is no surprise that Kamala Harris is the target of crude, disgusting insults while a man who openly bragged — note, bragged, not confessed in contrition — about assaulting women is elected to the highest office in the nation. We cannot keep silent and passively accept this kind of world. Together we can rip through the tightly woven fabric of fear and hate that binds women into misery. Let’s start now by debating the merits of Harris’ record and potential for growth instead of assassinating her character.

I am deeply grateful for the brave souls who cut an opening through this tangled web so I could pursue my dreams in a profession once dominated by men. I will continue to join those who tug and pull and tear at the smothering blanket of sexism until it is nothing but shreds.


This post also appeared in the Austin American Statesman, on Aug. 13, 2020 https://www.statesman.com/opinion/20200813/opinion-what-kind-of-conversation-will-we-have-about-kamala-harris



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