*TW: Content describes sexual assault.
Tears of joy poured from the eyes of women across the Nation on Wednesday. We have been liberated. No longer do we have to fear, Donald Trump is here.
From the moment I heard the words, “I will protect women, whether they like it or not” a deep sense of relief has overtaken me. From this day forward I will walk the streets and the eyes of men will no longer pierce me, they will no longer undress me with a glance.
To be protected is all I’ve ever wanted, to be shielded from the hungry eyes of male desire. To never feel a hand up my skirt on a night out. Those hands that latch on to my a** at the train station, and grab my breasts in high school hallways while the mouth attached laughs. The feeling makes me scrub my skin until it turns red in the shower.
For so long I thought a baggy sweatshirt was my protection, to hide my figure as it is foreign. However, it hasn’t worked. I will still be approached in record stores and asked how I prefer to have sex. At a rejection of the advance I am proclaimed a lesbian. Like it’s some sort of insult, until they find out that’s half of the truth and it becomes “hot.” I have been yelled at from car windows, “run faster sl*t,” many different variations of sentences containing the word “b*tch,” and mostly unintelligible spewing.
Over time the words no longer frighten and fragment you on impact, you start to yell back at the young men. But that’s only until they grow big enough to theoretically beat you up. After that point you keep your head down and bite your tongue, repeating the words: “I won’t be a target.” But where is the bullseye on my back, maybe it exists inherently in the way my skin takes shape. But, we’ve already been over this, it doesn’t matter what form I occupy. Whether it be sweatpants or a miniskirt, if it be femininity inward or outward, as long as it is female, I fear, that is enough to make them try.
I do not know what to do, how to make them stop, how to assert I am not an object. How could I make sure my sisters are all cared for, that they are free from patriarchy, that we are free from colonial violence. That my aunties across the ocean are safe from artillery that falls like rain. I am only one woman.
But to know my president wants to keep me safe, to keep us safe, brings me solace. To know he will take the concerns of women for what actually frightens us. Man, am I relieved that Donald Trump is here to protect me.
