What does it mean to be a Woman in Donald Trump’s America?

Women currently living in the United States under Donald Trump’s presidency talk about their experience

I’ve often grappled with the widely-held notion that America, the land of the free, provides sanctuary and refuge for everyone and anyone. But who exactly is the United States free for?

As a daughter of two immigrants, I can’t sit here without recognizing the opportunities this country has provided for me and my family. With each passing day, I watch this idealized notion of the free land drift away.

As a society, we’ve become highly desensitized to information that should have a cataclysmic reaction. We are living in an age where Donald Trump, a man accused of sexually assaulting up to 20 women, can hold the highest position of power in the world, where millions of documents accuse these same tyrants of power and heinous crimes against women. How can we expect to uphold the standard for freedom?

I’ve spoken to a handful of women, each coming from a unique perspective regarding their gendered experience in the United States, and the sentiment surrounding Trump’s influence remains relatively the same.

My mother, an Indian-American, Muslim immigrant, who has spent the majority of her adult life in the United States, notices the stark difference in society, and in her own life, before and after Trump’s presidency.

“Since I wear the hijab, I feel that people have been seeing me differently since the Trump administration because of how divisive he is. He never loses a chance to say something negative about Muslims and Islam. Even if people don’t believe him or trust him, he still can create an impression in people’s minds.”

57% of Muslim women have reported experiencing a more difficult life since 2017, and 55% of Muslim women have experienced firsthand discrimination.

“As an immigrant, and a Muslim and a Black woman, the rhetoric being pushed around his executive orders and what he has been saying in the media, has caused a lot of anti-immigrant sentiment, and anti-Black woman sentiment,” said Aliah Osman, a 20-year-old Ohio State University student.

This discrimination isn’t solely towards those who have immigrated into the United States. Women from every corner of the country feel this way.

“Politics started affecting my life in 2016, when [Trump] ran for the first time,” said Greta Atilano, a 21-year-old DePaul University Pre-Law student. “As a young woman I was subject to a lot of BS from young boys, throwing Trump’s name around in defense of their racism, in defense of their sexism. I think I was 11 or 12 when I started to think ‘this is bad.’”

Graciella Reina, a 20-year-old University of Santa Barbara student studying political science, spoke to me about her experience attending an all-girls high school. “I got dress-coded at 14 for wearing a skirt. I was told to respect the male faculty. That’s when I realized women are just viewed as some sort of distraction.”

My mother, Shireen Mohiuddin, in 1995 immigrating to the United States.

How did we get here?

GivenTrump’s administration, its influence, its past, did it cause our country to move backwards? Or was it always like this, and Trump simply allowed people to be more comfortable with hate?

“There’s a pendulum swing with men, usually college-aged men, towards the right,” said a 20-year-old University of California, Berkeley student. “They think Trump tells the truth more than other politicians, because his form of rhetoric is shock value. He’s saying things that aren’t shrouded in this polite, political rhetoric. He’s saying the most simple, incendiary things and people think it must be true.”

Since 2016, the Presidential administration has begun rolling back on initiatives to combat gender pay gaps, initiatives to support women’s healthcare and more.

We have witnessed the attempted reversal of women’s achievements through the dismantling of DEIB at a federal level and overturning constitutional rights, with seemingly no end in sight.

The desensitization of discrimination against women

Issues in society, such as cat-calling, sexual assault and blatant sexist sentiments towards women have been normalized. People have been desensitized to any mention of it.

“I feel as though he has taken away any repercussions for treating women poorly, and any protections for the women themselves,” said Olivia Brummond, a 20-year-old DePaul University student.

The Epstein files, social media and the media in general have continually made light of the situation, taking away from the voice and experience of the victims.

Though some would argue humor may assuage the frustration millions of women feel by providing some comfort in a time of unrest, the constant mocking of the files has had, and will continue to have, severe consequences.

Research has shown that constant exposure to sexism and general prejudice against women disguised as humor leads to a promotion of behavioral violence, and we can see this happening in real time.

“I think specifically with gendered sexual violence, it has invalidated a lot of women in it that it makes them more fearful to confront that issue,” Atilano said. “Sexual violence against women has always been a problem in this country, but when you have someone like [Trump] in office who has practically bragged about his past, people become a lot more comfortable casually declaring something as not rape, or seeing what they can get away with.”

As women we have been taught to familiarize ourselves with fear. But when will this narrative change?

“This is not the America I grew up in and loved,” said a University of Michigan student. “I don’t know if it’s the childish nostalgia glimmering over all of the things that were wrong with the country before, but we did not have these problems. We didn’t have people walking around scared for their life, particularly girls and women.”

I am grateful to have a strong support system of passionate, empowering women in my life who make this current political climate and crusade against women more endurable. But, like everyone, I continue to ask myself when I can wake up in the morning without feeling as though another fundamental right has been taken away.