Thoughts on the First Anniversary of the Women’s March: On the Power of Words

I wrote a longer draft of this essay for my nonfiction workshop around this time last year. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, it still feels relevant.

In college I knew men who ranked women on the binary scale, either a one or zero, depending on whether or not they would sleep with them. It was such a neat and tidy division, one that didn’t allow for too much agonizing. An appraisal was made, and then the woman was either put into the shopping cart or left on the shelf.

It was just a game, nothing serious, like joking about getting women liquored up, or referring to teenage girls as “on deck,” or telling women in a bar to smile.

Rosie’s a person who’s very lucky to have her girlfriend. And she better be careful or I’ll send one of my friends over to pick up her girlfriend, why would she stay with Rosie if she had another choice?

My mom attended the same university as I did. During her time there, a “make your own sundae” bar opened at one of the dining halls. Shortly thereafter, a group of men started sitting nearby. When a woman would approach the sundae bar, these men would hold up cardboard signs that read “No Fat Chicks!” with a circle and a slash drawn through it.

When I wrote about this “prank” for a column in the humor section of the student magazine, I adopted a light, joking tone. “Who needs the cranberry juice fat flush when giving into your sweet tooth earns you the jeers and scorn of a few loud and obnoxious college guys?” I wrote. “Instant dieting solution!”

The point of the column, the reason for its existence, was to point out the quaintness of “back in the day,” a wink and a nod to the past that also posed the question: Can you believe things used to be like that?

I’ve known Paris Hilton from the time she’s 12. Her parents are friends of mine, and the first time I saw her she walked into a room and I said, ‘Who the hell is that?’

I’ve written satire and humor pieces about events and subjects that have cut me and threatened to break me, made me sob almost to the point of vomiting: an earth-shattering breakup, our country’s inexplicable refusal to confront gun violence, Donald Trump’s prejudice against anyone who doesn’t share his pigmentation and anatomy.

But if I feel temporarily vindicated while writing a piece, I often feel worse after, confronted with the minuscule power my words have in comparison to his. It’s easy enough to hyperbolize Trump; after all, he speaks in all caps and dreams in exclamation points. My pieces resonate with people who already think about him the way I do, people who may have also cried when they heard the now infamous tape.

To some people, these were the words that would sink Donald Trump’s presidential bid. To others, they were just words.

You know, it really doesn’t matter what they write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass. But she’s got to be young and beautiful.

I wonder who you are, you 53 percent of white women who voted for Trump. I’ve read the profiles. The Ivanka voter, who thinks Trump is uncouth and even a little boorish, but sees his redemption in his svelte, pedigreed (beautiful, slim, blonde) daughter. The economically depressed rural voter, whose town has been ravaged by OxyContin. The evangelical voter, whose vote is determined by a single letter (R) and a single word (Abortion).

Many times, I’ve imagined you going into the polling booth. Were his words in your head? Or were they dismissed and explained away as soon as you heard them? Because everyone makes mistakes, because they don’t represent what’s in his heart, because all men talk like that, because women objectify men too, because her husband cheated on her and she stayed with him, because.

It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knees.

Words are a concrete representation of societal conditioning, of learned behaviors, of internalized prejudice and bigotry. Donald Trump’s words make it clear that he views women as objects — as aesthetic objects, though it’s unlikely he would use that adjective, and as objects that can be purchased, or seized by force.

I’m confronted with the limitations of words every day, with the smallness of my words — on protest signs, in emails to representatives, in political satire — in comparison to his. Yet at the same time, I’ve never been more convinced of the power of words. His words tell me everything I need to know. They will continue to shape our country, even more than they already have.

And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything.

With liberty and justice for all.

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Grab them by the pussy, you can do anything.