Make America … go back to 1900?
The 19th amendment was passed in 1920, granting women the right to vote. And this week, in 2016, an actual trending hashtag on Twitter was #Repealthe19th, after FiveThirtyEight published a map projecting a Trump victory if only men voted.
The map seemed to spark an idea among some Trump supporters — what if the 19th Amendment were repealed? And a hashtag was born.
On Thursday, it was joined by another offensive hashtag tweeted by Trump supporters: #NextFakeTrumpVictim.
Over the last week, reports have been surfacing of women alleging that Donald Trump has made inappropriate sexual advances. The firestorm was set off after a tape surfaced of Trump in 2005, where he’s heard making profoundly offensive and misogynistic comments about women.
At Sunday’s debate, Anderson Cooper explicitly asked Trump if he had groped women. His denial inspired women to break their silence.
At least four women, including a former People Magazine reporter, have publicly said that Trump made inappropriate advances.
While Trump is refuting (and even threatening to sue), his supporters are making light of the victims’ stories.
“Historically, we’ve always seen a knee-jerk reaction to disbelieve individuals who are sexually attacked by powerful people — priests, Cosby, Trump,” attorney Carrie Goldberg, whose firm focuses on online and offline sexual violence, told CNNMoney. “Sadly, it’s easier for people to disbelieve the accuser than modify their own beliefs about the attacker. “
But others were using the hashtags to tweet their opposing views, and rallying people to get out to vote.
These are just the latest gender-charged hashtags created with Trump in mind. Last Friday, New York Times best-selling author Kelly Oxford started #NotOkay in response to the 2005 tape.
Trump’s comments exemplified rape culture, the act of normalizing and overlooking violence against women.
And Oxford started getting women to talk about their stories of sexual assault. As of Wednesday morning, Oxford tweeted that more than 30 million people had read or contributed to the #NotOkay hashtag.
“Victims of sexual assault who sue or press charges must sacrifice time, privacy and emotion by coming forward,” said Goldberg. “They are slut-shamed, called liars, and in the case of the women speaking out about attacks by Trump, they are also subjecting themselves to national media scrutiny and attack by his supporters.”