Hundreds Rally At Trump Tower To Tell GOP 'This Pussy Votes'
By aaroncynic in News on Oct 18, 2016 3:55PM
Hundreds gathered Tuesday morning in the shadow of Trump Tower in Chicago as part of a national day of protest to remind the Republican Presidential nominee that women are, in fact, people—and they vote.
“The things that have been said and done by Donald Trump and Mike Pence are unacceptable, we can’t take this lying down anymore, said Linday Cogan, who was among the huge crowd of mostly women that gathered at the corner of Wacker and Wabash avenues before marching across the river to the plaza across the street from Trump’s hotel.
“His treatment of women, people of color, Islamophobia—there’s a laundry list of things...we can’t have someone like this in the White House, we’re better than this as a country,” she said.
“This pussy votes,” the group chanted as they marched into the plaza across from the phallic monument to Trump's ego Trump International Hotel and Tower, along with chants of “Trump thinks he runs this town, pussy came to shut him down” and “my body, my choice.”
The protest, part of a national set of demonstrations organized to call out the carnival barker’s sexist and misogynistic comments, comes as at least nine women have leveled various accusations of sexual assault against him. Trump has repeatedly denied all the allegations, calling the women who came forward liars and mocking their appearance. In an interview with Fox News on Monday, wife Melania also said the allegations were untrue and should be handled in the courts.
“All these women are coming out and they are allegations but they are not true,” she said, according to the Hill. “Why now? Why three weeks before the election? And what they are accusing my husband, that is not the first time that I know.”
Alizia Swiz, who organizes the group Slut Talk, a Chicago-based feminist collective that hosts regular events and performances and helped organize the demonstration, said that Trump’s status as a man and business mogul and his vast wealth have allowed him to continue on as the leader of the GOP’s three-ringed xenophobic circus.
“We see men still as powerful and leaders—that’s kind of ingrained in us,” she said. “Trump already has that status as a businessman. He’s rich as shit and money gets you lots of places.”
A handful of counter-demonstrators stood nearer to Trump tower, waving large flags and holding huge cardboard signs which that referred to Hillary Clinton as a lesbian and former President Bill Clinton as a rapist. After chanting "read Wikileaks" and "free Assange," a reference to the website's founder Julian Assange, who's spent 5 years in exile inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, one shouted towards the women "you bitches don't read anyway."
"You bitches don't read anyway," say counter protesters chanting "free Assange" #GOPHandsOffMe #PussyGrabsBackChicago pic.twitter.com/0OgJFq9YB9
— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) October 18, 2016
Swiz however, said that she was hopeful that the event, along with the potential of a presidency by Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, could help combat the rampant sexism and misogyny in America.
“Trump represents what a lot of Americans are comfortable with about the way our world works unfortunately,” she said. “Vote for someone else that’s not Trump—but I really hope they’ll vote for Hillary. I think she’d make a great president. Part of what that shift will do and part of what today is doing will help us all get over this internalized sexism that pervades our culture and makes us unable to look at women as equally valuable citizens.”