No, I’m not surprised. I am angry.

I have been trying all day not to write a rant.

 

I tried to channel my inner “Whoa. OK” Hillary shoulder shimmy. That just made me angry that Hillary has to make her well-earned exasperation cute in order to appear “likeable.”

 

I listened to Hillary quote Michelle and thought, “When they go low, we go high.” That seems like valid life advice – after all, if there’s one person whose steely grace I’d like to epitomize, it’s Michelle.

 

Then I listened to the debate.

 

I listened to a journalist clearly define sexual assault and a presidential candidate dismiss it as “locker room talk.”

 

I thought about what “locker room talk” means to me. I grew up with Title IX. For me, a locker room is where I learned from female teammates how to be strong. Where I learned what being a captain means. Where I learned the line between celebration and consolation is perilously thin.

 

Locker rooms were a safe place for me. The talk that happened there felt empowering.

 

That’s not the kind of “locker room talk” Trump meant.

It’s hard to describe the sensation of listening to Trump’s words. Let me try:

 

*At some point in your life, if you spend enough time around pools, you will intentionally do a belly flop. You will do this even though you know it will hurt. And it will hurt. And people will laugh at your pain. Why will you do this? Most likely, you were dared. You might feel a fleeting sense of accomplishment at fulfilling said challenge. Mostly, you will find it hard to breathe.

 

That’s what watching the leaked Trump video and then listening to his absurd rationalizations felt like. I knew it was going to hurt. I knew a large amount of bystanders would watch that hurt and think, “That’s just life.” I still felt like I had to do it. I still felt breathless afterward.

 

Then I decided to go on Facebook.

 

One should make that decision carefully if one is trying to avoid a bad mood.

 

I will admit that my newsfeed, like everyone else’s newsfeed, is a carefully curated echo chamber. If I really wanted to raise my blood pressure, I’d just go straight to Twitter and find some trolls. That doesn’t mean I didn’t find a few Facebook posts that made me want to do some carefully uncurated screaming.

 

The first was by one of my former coaches. He started by saying he abhors Donald Trump. Good start. Then he gave a lengthy explanation of how Trump’s comments qualify as private speech, the kind that no one would want to be held responsible for. Far be it from me to throw the first stone, he said.

 

I thought back to how uncomfortable I would be every time my volleyball coaches would talk about going to Hooters to debrief. How no one but my mother ever said anything to me to indicate that my discomfort was natural and justified.

 

The second post was from a colleague. It said “am I supposed to be surprised.” Fair question.

 

I thought about how another colleague at that same school had a student write “Fuck me, Ms. _” on the board. How the administration didn’t react because they didn’t want to draw attention to it.

 

I respect both those people. They have stood up for me. I believe they’re in education for the right reasons.

 

That doesn’t change reality. We live in a patriarchy and a rape culture. Every time that status quo goes unquestioned, it becomes harder to achieve real change.

 

Trump is not surprising. He’s not the only man who acts like a pig. I could do another whole post on Billy Bush and his disgusting culpability.

 

That doesn’t mean we can just shrug our shoulders and pretend “boys will be boys.” Or that people shouldn’t be held responsible for “private” thoughts. The Klan met in private. Maybe that seems like a stretch to you. Maybe it wouldn’t if you’d spent every moment of your adult life feeling like your body is an object that other people view as a potential conquest. Or if you thought hard about the incredibly long list of people Trump has threatened.

 

I’m not apologizing for being angry. When Clinton fights to keep a straight face, I can hear the screaming in her head. If she can’t say it, we have to say it for her. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE. Interrupting someone in a debate might be poor form. Interrupting sexist paradigms in real life is the only way to ever shift the dialogue.

 

Be the one who speaks up. Not because it could be your daughter or your wife under attack. Because it could be a person under attack. Because objectifying women is dangerous and immoral. Because men have to speak out too. Because we all share responsibility.

 

We are better than this.