“I was trying to push him away.”
“He tried to make me touch him.”
“He tried to put his hands by my vagina.”
These are just a few snippets from the powerful stories of assault women describe in a new video produced by progressive social media campaign Humanity For Hillary. The pro-Clinton campaign created the video, titled “It’s Not OK,” in response to Donald Trump’s recently resurfaced hot mic comments and the accusations of sexual assault the GOP nominee faces from more than a dozen women.
The video features dozens of women, including celebrities like Rose McGowan and Amber Tamblyn, describing a time they were sexually harassed or assaulted by men. Each woman has a story of verbal harassment to go along with the sexual assault she’s experienced.
Their riveting testimonies remind viewers that Trump’s “locker room banter” is anything but “just words.”
Warning: Stories in the below video may be triggering to some readers.
“I think people like Donald Trump will never understand the correlation that women understand between words and actions,” Tamblyn ― who’s been an outspoken advocate for sexual assault survivors ― says. “Especially when you’re a man in a position of power and you talk that way publicly and you say those things. You are telling the world, you are telling everyone, that it’s OK to behave that way.”
As one woman says in the video in response to Trump’s “grab ‘em by the pussy” comments: “It’s not ‘just words,’ it happens every day. It’s happened to me more times than I can count.”
Liz Garbus, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker who directed “It’s Not OK,” explained in a press release why featuring these women’s voices is so important.
“After the release of the Trump Access Hollywood tapes, I felt it was important to share the OTHER side of the story ― stories of women being objectified, kissed, groped, and humiliated by the words and actions of others. These words and actions have a huge effect on women’s lives. And we are here to say, together, in one loud voice, that this is NOT OKAY.”
As another young woman in the video asked: “You’re taking about harassing us, like that’s OK?”
Spoiler alert: It’s not ― and many American women won’t stand for it.
Editor’s note: Donald Trump regularly incites political violence and is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist and birther who has repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims — 1.6 billion members of an entire religion — from entering the U.S.
Need help? Visit RAINN’s National Sexual Assault Online Hotline or the National Sexual Violence Resource Center’s website.
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