I’ve had a man grab my “pussy.”
I was 21, walking at night on a sidewalk in Granada, Spain, where I was an exchange student. If you must know, I was wearing jeans and a sweater, and I wasn’t drunk. A man who looked to be in his 30s walked toward me, looked me in the eyes and said “guarra” — roughly, “filthy slut.” As he passed, he grabbed my crotch. He kept right on walking. I stood there for a moment, stunned, heart pounding, shaking.
Then I walked home. Like so many women who have experienced this kind of thing or far, far worse, I felt it was pointless to report this to police.
Nearly 30 years later, I still think of this moment. Since the 2005 video of Donald Trump boasting about grabbing women by the “pussy” was made public, I’ve wondered how his boasts would affect women in the United States.
With the nomination of Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama to be U.S. attorney general, I worry we have an answer. When Sessions was asked in an interview whether the behavior Trump described in the video could be characterized as sexual assault, he replied, “I don’t characterize that as sexual assault. I think that’s a stretch.” But it’s not a stretch. The Department of Justice, which Sessions is now tapped to lead, defines sexual assault as “any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient.”
According to 2014 CDC estimates, 19 percent of women in the U.S. have been raped and 44 percent of women have experienced sexual violence other than rape during their lifetimes. According to a U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis of data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, in 2014 only 34 percent of rapes or sexual assaults were reported to police. In that survey, the reasons women gave for not reporting included fear of retaliation, belief the police wouldn’t help, and believing it was a “personal” matter. Trump’s belittling of his accusers’ appearance and credibility and threats to sue them give some sense of the barriers to reporting.
Though estimating sexual assault rates is challenging, the CDC’s 2014 survey found that one in five women in the U.S. has been a victim of rape. With so many women experiencing some form of sexual assault, Sessions should educate himself about the crime, and stand ready to enforce laws against it.
“Pussy” grabbing isn’t normal. It’s violent, degrading, and illegal. I’m one of many, many women who can say, from personal experience, that it is wrong.
