Warning: May be triggering
At the beginning of May, the perpetual hot-air machine Donald Trump dumped this gem of a tweet on his followers: “26,000 unreported sexual assults in the military-only 238 convictions. What did these geniuses expect when they put men & women together?” I guess cramming so much offensiveness into 140 characters should be regarded as a talent.
This tweet came on the heels of the Pentagon’s report on sexual assault in the United States military. The assessment revealed that reported assaults have risen from 3,192 to 3,374 in 2012, and based on anonymous surveys, the department estimated that about 26,000 service members have been assaulted.
Aside from the misspelling of “assault,” Trump made quite a few other egregious errors in this tweet.
Trump’s tweet took the blame off the perpetrators by saying sexual assault was “expected” when “men & women [were put] together.” Shifting blame is a major issue in regards to sexual assault, since in our culture it is often the “victims” who are blamed, many times for situational circumstances such as how they were dressed.
In this situation, Trump blamed the military for placing men and women together, as if this were a recipe for assault. In doing so, he assumed the problem was environmental, when in reality sexual assault often stems from the anger and power of the aggressor. By saying that assault was expected when men and women work together, he pushed the assumption that people are not responsible for their own actions. With this logic, we are animals driven by instinct, and should avoid certain situations so we don’t go assaulting those around us.
This argument draws parallels to the assumption that people shouldn’t dress/act in a certain way in order to avoid being assaulted or raped. This is the sort of nonsense that sparked the SlutWalk after a police officer in Toronto said “…women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” What throws this theory back in it’s face is that everyone in the military is in a standardized uniform that is consistent across the board, and no element of their utilitarian dress would “bring on” assault.
Trump’s comment also lended to the idea that people are wired to rape or that rape is inevitable. Assault is a crime perpetuated by rapists, not something that is bound to happen when humans are left to their own devices.
In a following tweet, Trump again places blame on others: “The Generals and top military brass never wanted a mixer but were forced to do it by very dumb politicians who wanted to be politically C!”
According to him, to eliminate sexual assault in military we should segregate the sexes. Should we segregate the sexes in all workplaces in order to avoid assault? The reality is that people always have and always will need to coexist, in the workforce or otherwise. To suggest segregation to fix this issue is absurd. Not only was he originally blaming the military, but he further blamed women for joining the military, and then blamed the politicians who “let” women join. His comments are blaming everyone and everything other than the perpetrators themselves.
Trump also assumes that only heterosexual assaults take place in the military with his comment about putting “men & women together,” when in reality it could happen to anyone. Same sex assault is a very real issue in the military, but it is an ongoing problem swept under the rug since people aren’t interested in talking about it since it doesn’t fit into the usual narrative of rape and assault.
In two single tweets, Donald Trump managed to misunderstand and misrepresent the fundamental concept of assault. This type of viewpoint only contributes to a society where sexual assault and rape are explained away. Even though he said so few words, so much can be taken from them.
I am unsure as to whether or not Trump learned from this experience, especially after the lash-back of his followers, though it is doubtful. This sort of ignorant and hateful speech should not be ignored. If someone as prevalent in the media as Trump feels free and unashamed to make such comments, we should really take a step back and figure out why someone has such ignorant opinions in the first place, and why they lack the insight to not share them to millions of followers. Trump is only perpetuating an ongoing misunderstanding about the cause of sexual assault and rape with his ill-informed tweets, and it is this sort of discourse in society that needs to change.