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Framing sexual assault with the idea of “it could be your daughter, your sister, your mother” seems to be one of the last resort measures for empathy. Sexual harassment and abuse victims are in no way only women, but it’s almost as if the vague mental picture isn’t enough. Why does it take the image of your daughter to get sexual assault taken as seriously as it should be?
In a phone interview, Donald Trump was asked what would happen if his daughter Ivanka was in a sexual harassment situation in the workplace. He responded with, “I would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case.”
I know it’s August 2016, but Trump’s responses still baffle me from time to time. That wasn’t the answer I was expecting in the least bit. He would want her to leave her job? Change her entire career? The solution is for his daughter was for her to leave the business that hypothetically fails to help her?
From the rhetoric from his campaign, I was surprised that his first answer was for Ivanka to stop putting up with a potentially harmful situation and quit. The quitting attitude isn’t something I would associate with Trump and his campaign. I expected the rage of a father and a cry for justice. Fundamentally, I expected Trump to want to punish the hypothetical perpetrator, but I didn’t see any resentment towards the abuser. Maybe my problem is Trump address the effect and not the cause. Why would the victim be the one responsible for leaving and not the one perpetuating the harassment?
However, there’s absolutely no shame in quitting in this situation. The silence and the lack of options are why many cases of workplace sexual harassment go unsung and unpunished. There’s no shame in seeking the continuation of one’s safety, but I recognize that Ivanka’s hypothetical job change in itself is a luxury of the upper class. There are plenty of people who simply can’t afford to quit their job and start all over. I’d want better for Ivanka than sudden job hunting and troubling late nights considering different career options. In a perfect world, she wouldn’t have to make a sacrifice, but the perpetrator would get their rightful consequence. In a perfect world, Ivanka would continue on her path and continue earn a paycheck to support herself and her family. In a perfect world, the interviewer and Trump could have trust in all companies to take action in irradiating workplace harassment without victim intervention. However with attitudes such as that, that perfect, unattainable world looks further and further away.
