The Compromises Women Make

Anyone who listened to Anderson Cooper’s interview with Stephanie Clifford, aka Stormy Daniels, witnessed the compromises many women make every day of the week to just survive. I can remember in college trusting a classmate I had known for several years enough to go out for coffee, going up to his apartment when he “forgot” his wallet, and him accosting me the very second the door closed. I did nothing to give him the impression that I was interested in anything other than coffee, but he had other ideas.

I pushed him away and got very angry. He laughed. I walked out of his apartment and out of his life but back then, in the 70’s it wasn’t enough to contact the police. Besides, the police wouldn’t have believed me anyway. My fault for going up to his apartment. Right?

Wrong.

As I listened to Ms. Clifford share her story with Cooper she said that believed she was responsible for what was about to happen because of her choice to have dinner with Trump, a man old enough to be her father. She walked out of the bathroom and he was on the bed, “perched” and waiting. She didn’t have the strength at that moment to say, no. She acknowledged that she was not attracted to him but stated that she felt she brought this on herself by choosing to be there. There apparently wasn’t any agreement beforehand that sex would be part of the evening, but after all, he provided dinner, so she believed she really had no choice.

Now, we can all be judgmental and say that she always had a choice. But at that moment, she didn’t believe that she did. And how many of us have been in that situation with a man who expects what he expects? Misogyny is as rampant now as it was in the seventies and men still don’t understand how to treat women. In spite of the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements, we’re still a long way from assumed safety.

And now we have the president we have. A guy who views women as objects for his own pleasure. He’s made embarrassing comments about his own daughter. And according to reports from his many girlfriends, he seems to compare them all to his daughter. I don’t even know what to think about that other than to be sickened by it. I guess I’ve known too many predators in my life and as far as I’m concerned, there’s something wrong with sleeping with young women while comparing them to your daughter.

The adultery aside, Ms. Clifford claims that a man approached her in a parking lot while she was taking her infant daughter out of the car seat threatening her if she didn’t back off of an interview she agreed to give about her contact with Trump. I believe her story. I believe she was threatened. And that’s the point here. Powerful men appear to believe all they have to do to keep something or someone quiet is to pay them off and/or threaten them. But in Ms. Clifford’s case, she seems not only afraid but also offended by not only the payoff but the threats in particular.

I don’t blame her. She’s a mother and a businesswoman. No matter what anyone thinks of her chosen profession, she has every right to live her life as she chooses. And now we have to deal with the apparent fact that we have a douchebag in the White House who engages with all of this, all because he can’t seem to keep his dick in his pants. All because he can’t seem to be faithful to his wife, whichever one. He’s one of those pathetic men whose wealth buys him anything and anyone along with their apparent silence as well.

He feels entitled to all of this, to the women, and whatever it takes to make it all go away.

Women are sick of men like Trump. I remember seeing a picture of a woman during the campaign with the words, Trump can grab my pussy anytime, scrawled on her t-shirt. My heart clenched and I said to myself, no, honey, you really really don’t. And now the evangelicals among us are giving him a mulligan, a do-over of sorts. Enablers, all.

To hear Ms. Clifford say the very words that so many women throughout history have echoed brought home the truth that as long as men like Trump have the ability to expect sex and then to threaten a woman if she talks, we’re no closer to solving this problem. But maybe now that it’s out there, more women will come forward and Trump will have to answer once and for all for his skeevy behavior.

Our hearts should break when hearing her words, words that so many of us have either felt or spoken. No woman should fear saying no to a man. No man should expect anything of a woman she’s reluctant or unwilling to give. Ms. Clifford should never have believed that this was her fault or that she was stupid for going there. It was dinner. She should have never felt that she had no choice. But that’s how it is for women. We’re always to blame whereas men like Donald Trump are blameless.

She was 27. He was 60.

What’s wrong with this man?