Jill Soloway on Donald Trump, Locker Rooms and Toxic Masculinity

Jill Soloway argues in her article very convincingly about gender inequality and the election. She is discussing the much publicized interaction between Donald Trump and Billy Bush. The above video was played all over the media as an example of what Donald Trump supporters called "typical locker room talk" at the time. Jill Soloway argues that what men call "classic masculinity" or the talking about women in a derogatory way behind closed doors is actually " toxic masculinity". This toxic masculinity is the division in our society based on gender that causes inequality and violence against women. She says that this " toxic masculinity" can be changed and does not have to be this way.
Allan Johnson, in his article Privilege, Power, and Difference, also talked about this need for change.He explains how both whiteness and maleness are sources of privilege that people do not want to recognize. Unless we recognize them as privileges in our society that make things unbalanced and talk about them we cannot change them he says. This is exactly what the supporters of Donald Trump did in regard to this video, I think. They brushed it off as common place locker room talk, that did not have a negative impact on women. Both Jill Soloway and Allan Johnson stress the need for this division in gender to be changed. Johnson says" We are not prisoners to some natural order that pits us hopelessly and endlessly against one another. We are prisoners to something, but its closer to our own making than we realize. And we therefore, are far from helpless to change it and ourselves".Jill Soloway talks about how men won't call out other men out on this behavior because they want to be part of. Men divide women into two types, good ones like mothers and daughters, and the bad ones that they get to talk trash about or worse. Women, she says, also go along with it. White, able bodied, educated males from the ruling class have all the power. In order to access this power you must marry one of these men, she says. Johnson says that the trouble we are in privileges some groups at the expense of others. This demonstration by the President and his supporters sure does give an example of this problem. The elections coming up are a opportunity to change this as well. Hopefully the American people will pay attention to this, and become educated about gender inequality and vote accordingly.