Donald J. Trump at Marriott Marquis NYC September 7th 2016
Today, Time Magazine announced its choice for man of the year. It is Donald Trump.
Not exactly, of course. The opposite, if you will. It is no longer “man of the year” but “person of the year,” a choice that Donald Trump has ridiculed, and that has indeed hardly led to gender balance.
This year, however, the person(s) of the year are indeed female. They are what Time calls “the silence breakers,” the (rather amorphous, but remarkably large) group of women, from Ashley Judd via Taylor Swift to anonymous hotel employees, who exposed the men for their sexually assaults.
Trump must be disappointed it’s not him. Not many others care as much about the award that they would hang a fake Time cover with their head shot in their golf clubs. (Of course, not many other people have their own golf clubs to begin with.)
Trump, of course, did win the award last year. As well he should have, given that his electoral campaign had catapulted him to the level of a global obsession; his unexpected election was, in this sense, only an icing on the cake. Critics pointed out that the award is not exactly a Nobel Peace Prize for moral integrity; Hitler and Stalin had won it, too, but Trump, ever the narcissist, did not care. Nor did he care about the less than flattering picture that announced him.
This year, not surprisingly, Trump made it clear that he thought he deserved the award again. He even tweeted an utterly strange story, according to which Time Magazine had offered him the award in return for an interview and a “major photo shoot”. Which he declined, or so he says. That story was odd from the start, and of course Time denied it. But we now know that it was not fully off.
Because Trump, of course, is also a silence breaker. He broke the silence in the infamous “Access Hollywood Tape” by boasting about the sexual assaults he himself committed “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he suggested, thereby presenting an uncharacteristically insightful analysis of the relation between sex and power that now fills editorials.
Publication of the tape did not prevent his election, but it was not without effect. It was also a decisive starting point for the movement that has now culminated in the #metoo movement, the exposure of sexual assaulters in many positions of power. One problem with sexual assault accusations has always been that they were not believed. Again and again, perpetrators have managed to depict their accusers as not credible. This may now change.
Trump, of course, has also called his accusers (of whom there are a lot) not credible. Remarkably, after the tape was publicized, Trump, in an impressive move of split personality, managed to depict himself as not credible, by calling his own confession “locker room banter.” He got away with it, for the moment.
Today, this does raise the question: Now that we believe women, should we not also believe Trump? And draw the consequences? If we ask Senator Franken to step down because he pretended to touch a woman’s breasts on a picture, should we not also demand a President to step down who admitted that he touched several women’s genitals? If a Times reporter is suspended for kissing a woman, should we not also suspend a President who confesses that he “moved on [a woman] like a bitch?”
The award has been called a “rebuke” of Trump, but it is really more than that. On the one hand, it is a celebration of women as agents instead of victims. But in addition, the award is about the men who are exposed. This year’s award is about women who are heard, but also about the men whom they accuse. And first among them is the man who is currently the President. A man who has so far been strangely insulated from the numerous accusations of sexual assault that have been made against him.
“You can do anything,” Trump boasted in the Access Hollywood tape. That was true in 2016 when the tape was publicized and Trump won the person of the year award. 2016 was very much the year of the male perpetrator, encompassed in Trump’s election. 2017 is the year of female resistance, from the Women’s March via female senators insisting to be heard to the #metoo movement. This year’s award went, deservedly, to female exposers, and it is no longer the case that you can do anything, at least not without bearing the consequences. But it is too easy to laugh that Trump did not get it. He did get the award this time together with many other men who were ousted or had to step down. Trump needs to go, too.