When Donald Trump’s Access Hollywood tape leaked to the media over a week ago, commentators and public figures took to their moral high ground to denounce the Republican nominee and declare that his presidency would legitimatize the disrespect of women.
Yet long before Trump’s comments surfaced, the media already embraced and glorified the disrespecting and mistreatment of women on a daily, if not hourly, basis.
As the late Andrew Breitbart once said, politics is downstream from culture. A president is usually behind the times and has very little influence on society in comparison to mass media.
If the opposite were true, more Americans would have rejected drugs during Ronald Reagan’s presidency or disapproved of same-sex marriage during George W. Bush’s.
At anytime of the day, some cable network is making celebrities out of mothers, businesswomen, and wives who call other women sluts, skanks, whores, and b****s. Turn on The Real Housewives series and watch Teresa flip a table, Kim and Kylie Richards call each other drunks and thieves, Marlo saying Sheree’s a prostitute, or Adriana punch Joanna in the face at a lingerie party.
That’s just the Housewives series. There’s also Mob Wives, Bad Girl’s Club, Love & Hip Hop, WAGS and dozens of other copycat shows where women earn big paychecks and fame for disrespecting each other and themselves.
We’re a society that embraces Mean Girls’ Regina George — women who want to be famous must become one of the plastics, and that includes stepping all over the woman’s movement.
There’s no defense for Trump’s comments, but before anyone the media reaches to the ivory tower to denounce how dangerous certain political figures can be towards women, they need to look at the world they’ve created. Girl-on-girl violence, hatred, and name-calling is not the norm. It’s the desired outcome for anyone who wants to get famous.
