Trump, Patriarchy and the Sexual Politics of Meat

Recently, as I was watching Democracy Now!, I listened to the released tape of Donald Trump making typical sexist remarks about women with Billy Bush (W and Jeb’s cousin) back in 2005. The revealed audio tape goes as this:

UNIDENTIFIED: She’s still very beautiful.

DONALD TRUMP: I moved on her, actually. You know, she was down in Palm Beach. I moved on her. And I failed. I’ll admit it.

UNIDENTIFIED: Whoa!

DONALD TRUMP: I did try and [bleep]. She was married.

UNIDENTIFIED: That’s huge news there!

DONALD TRUMP: No, no, Nancy. No, this was—and I moved on her very heavily. In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, “I’ll show you where they have some nice furniture.” I took her out furniture—I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her; she’s now got the big phony tits and everything. She’s totally changed her look.

BILLY BUSH: Sheesh, you girl’s hot as [bleep]. In the purple.

DONALD TRUMP: Whoa!

BILLY BUSH: Yes!

DONALD TRUMP: Whoa!

BILLY BUSH: Yes! The Donald has scored!

DONALD TRUMP: Whoa!

BILLY BUSH: Whoa, my man! Wait, wait, you’ve got to look at me when you get out and be like—

UNIDENTIFIED: Just remember who set this up. Just remember.

BILLY BUSH: Will you give me the thumbs up?

DONALD TRUMP: That is very funny. Look at you. You are a pussy.

BILLY BUSH: You’ve got to put the thumbs up. You’ve got to give the thumbs up.

UNIDENTIFIED: You can’t be too happy, man.

BILLY BUSH: You’ve got to give the thumbs up.

DONALD TRUMP: All right, you and I will walk in.

BILLY BUSH: Oh, my god!

DONALD TRUMP: Maybe it’s a different one.

BILLY BUSH: It better not be the publicist. No, it’s her. It’s her.

DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, that’s her, with the gold. I’ve got to use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. I just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.

BILLY BUSH: Whatever you want.

DONALD TRUMP: Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.

BILLY BUSH: Look at those legs. All I can see is the legs.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, looks good.

BILLY BUSH: Come on, shorty.

DONALD TRUMP: Ooh, nice legs, huh?

BILLY BUSH: Oof, get out of the way, honey. Oh, that’s good legs. Go ahead.

DONALD TRUMP: It’s always good if you don’t fall out of the bus. Like Ford, Gerald Ford. Remember?

BILLY BUSH: Down below. Pull the handle.

DONALD TRUMP: Hello. How are you? Hi.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Hi, Mr. Trump. How are you? Pleasure to meet you.

DONALD TRUMP: Nice seeing you.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Pleasure to meet you.

DONALD TRUMP: Terrific. Terrific. You know Billy Bush?

ARIANNE ZUCKER: How are you?

BILLY BUSH: Hello. Nice to see you. How are you doing, Arianne?

ARIANNE ZUCKER: I’m doing very well. Thank you. Are you ready to be a soap star?

DONALD TRUMP: We’re ready. Let’s go. Make me a soap star.

BILLY BUSH: How about a little hug for the Donald? He just got off the bus.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Would you like a little hug, darling?

DONALD TRUMP: OK, absolutely. Melania said this was OK.

BILLY BUSH: How about a little hug for the Bushy? I just got off the bus.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Oh, Bushy, Bushy.

BILLY BUSH: There we go. Excellent. Well, you’ve got a nice co-star here.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Yes, absolutely.

DONALD TRUMP: Good. After you. Come on, Billy. Don’t be shy.

BILLY BUSH: As soon as a beautiful woman shows up, he just—he takes off on me. This always happens.

DONALD TRUMP: Get over here, Billy.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: I’m sorry. Come here.

BILLY BUSH: Let the little guy in here. Come on.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Yeah, let the little guy in. How you feel now? Better?

BILLY BUSH: It’s hard to walk next to a guy like this.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: I should actually be in the middle. Here, wait. Hold on.

BILLY BUSH: Yeah, you get in the middle. There we go.

DONALD TRUMP: Good. That’s better.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: This is much better. This is—

DONALD TRUMP: That’s better.

BILLY BUSH: Now, if you had to choose, honestly, between one of us—me or the Donald—who would it be?

DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know. That’s tough competition.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: That’s some pressure right there.

BILLY BUSH: Seriously, you had to take one of us as a date.

ARIANNE ZUCKER: I have to take the Fifth on that one.

BILLY BUSH: Really?

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Yup. I’ll take both.

DONALD TRUMP: Which way?

ARIANNE ZUCKER: Make a right. Here we go. Right on The Days.

BILLY BUSH: Here he goes. I’m going to leave you here.

DONALD TRUMP: OK.

BILLY BUSH: Give me my microphone.

DONALD TRUMP: OK. You’re going to—oh, you’re finished?

 

Donald Trump, being his usual “open self”, actually did a favor to women everywhere by revealing what a lot of men say behind closed doors, behind their wife’s or girlfriend’s backs, and by showing how patriarchy is still very much embedded in our culture. It is not surprising really, as Carol Adams pointed out in her preface to the Twentieth Anniversary of The Sexual Politics of Meat, mentioning Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream about Rudy Giuliani (who strongly supports Trump):

“As Susan Faludi shows in The Terror Dream, after 9/11 the media hyped John Wayne-like masculinity, Superman-like male powers, and the hypervirility of rescuers and politicians. Thus we learned that, after the World Trade Centers fell, the first meal Mayor Giuliani wolfed down was a sandwich made of “meats that sweat”. Where there is (anxious) virility, one will find meat eating.”

But Trump is not alone of course. A few months ago when actress and activist Pamela Anderson showed up with Captain Paul Watson in the French senate to oppose Foie-Gras and the destruction of the ocean, all the sexist politicians rose up to the occasion, first to get their pictures with her and then to make the most sexist and speciesist comments. Because the two don’t function without each other, I noted two of them in particular which I translate here:

• “No silicon in my foie-gras”
• “This is the Assembly, we’re not here for clowns and chicks.”

These guys, whatever their country of origin have all the same thing in common. It doesn’t matter where they’re from, they are male (usually white) and they flank their patriarchal entitlement which oppresses women and non-human animals.

Trump speaking of “pussy”and “legs” is similar to those calling a cow’s or a hen’s body parts “breasts”, “legs”, it’s about reducing women or non human animals (mostly female animals since the animal industry wouldn’t exist without their reproductive abilities) as consumable. As Carol Adams says it very well in her preface:

“The process of viewing another as consumable, as something, is usually invisible to us. Its invisibility occurs because it corresponds to the view of the dominant culture. The process is also invisible to us because the end product of the process – the object of consumption – is available everywhere.”

What Trump and the French politicians did was shine a light (not willingly obviously) on the rampant unspoken subjects of our cultures, the patriarchal entitlement over women and animals. Animal agriculture, as Will Tuttle perfectly demonstrated in The World Peace Diet, was started by men about 10,000 years ago and the oppression of women with it.

Trump did us a favor by (unwillingly) exposing also the hypocrisy of others. Let’s not forget that he says openly with his sexism what most Republicans (and a lot of Democrats) say behind closed doors and wouldn’t admit publicly. When vice-presidential nominees Tim Kaine and Mike Pence squared off in their only debates and were asked about their religions, abortion and women’s reproductive rights in general was put to the forefront of the discussion (again by two white males who think they know better than women). Green Party’s vice-presidential nominee, Ajamu Baraka, called them “sexists”. No wonder, both Republican and Democratic parties exclude third party candidates, they might say a few truths.

The oppression of  women is more subtle than Trump’s overt sexist speeches, politicians use laws to restrict women’s control over their bodies. For instance, after Texas voted very restrictive abortion laws, over half of the clinics closed down. And for those who think that would support the anti-abortion side, according to the The Atlantic, “Between 100,000 and 240,000 Texas women between the ages of 18 and 49 have tried to end a pregnancy by themselves, according to a pair of surveys released Tuesday by the Texas Policy Evaluation Project, a University of Texas-based effort aimed at determining the impact of the state’s reproductive policies.”

Patriarchy treats women as children incapable of making their own decisions about THEIR bodies. These laws, whether you agree with them or not, are made by mostly white older males who think they know better than women what women should do about their reproductive lives. What we do to non-human females is the same: we control their bodies for reproduction in order to perpetuate the same old system of slavery.

And some women are complicit within the patriarchal system. Hillary Clinton is very much pro-war, another male invented concept which has always been about obtaining resources (including women, land and animals).  As part of the Clinton Foundation, Hillary didn’t denounce the fact that women within it are paid less than men. And of course, when women consume the bodies, milks and eggs of female animals, they are also participating in the sexual politics of meat.

Everything is connected and Trump’s disgusting behavior had the merit to open some discussion around at least sexism.

 

Sources:

• In Shocking Tape Trump Boasts of Sexually Assaulting Women: “When You’re a Star…You Can Do Anything” – Democracy Now!
• The Sexual Politics of Meat by Carol J. Adam on her website
• The World Peace Diet by Dr. Will Tuttle at WorldPeaceDiet.com
• Exclusive Pay Gap Alert: Clinton Foundation Male Execs Earn 38% More Than Women – The Daily Caller

• Texas Women Are Inducing Their Own Abortions – The Atlantic

• Expanding the Debate: Green Ajamu Baraka “Debates” Pence & Kaine in Democracy Now! Special – Part 1 and Part 2

• Pamela Anderson & Paul Watson – On n’est pas couché 23 janvier 2016 #ONPC

Donald Trump picture, courtesy Pixabay.com, free photos stocks

 

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