The prevailing attitude that "men will be  men" is why 1 in 5 women will be raped in their lifetime.

Donald Trump and his supporters would like you to believe that "men will be men" and "locker room talk" as they call it is harmless but here’s why it’s not.  1 in 5 women will be raped in their lifetime. 1 in 5, that means 1 girl in every 2 average american households will be raped. 1 in 5 means 5 girls in an average 4th grade class in California will be raped. This kind of loose talk of assaulting women should be horrifying to any thinking person. It should be abhorrent to any feeling person. This kind of talk should make any woman’s stomach turn and any man cringe. Yet there are people who defend this disgusting behavior saying, "this was a private conversation" and "The comment was lewd, sure, but I've said worse." You have? What's wrong with you? This is exactly the kind of misogynistic and violent speech that propagates the acceptance of violence against women that pervades our culture. When Brock Turner was sentenced to a paltry 6 months in county jail for 3 counts of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman the judge stated as part of his reasoning that a prison sentence would have "severe impact" and "adverse colateral consequences" Really? Severe impact? So waking up to discover that you have been penetrated by a foreign object behind a dumpster will just have a moderate impact? The mandatory minimum sentence for possessing ANY amount of marijuana is one year. One year.  One year for having a joint. One year for taking a bong load at a party. Yet Brock Turner gets 6 months for raping an unconscious woman for 20 minutes.
What is wrong with this picture? When subjects like these arise at parties and dinners I notice the men bristle and squirm in their chairs. I notice that people start to look around as if anyone who gets upset by this appalling state of affairs must hate men. Personally I feel quite the contrary. I expect more from men. I expect they will be just as outraged as I am when they hear this kind of degrading talk about women in the "locker room",  or in any room. I believe that Judges will condemn men who violently force themselves on unconscious women to the maximum punishment the law will allow. Yet again and again I am proved wrong. If men who hold the highest positions of authority so easily denigrate and undercut the severity of sex crimes against women then how can we expect our citizens to walk a higher moral ground? Shouldn’t our leaders be leaders? Talk about trickling down. If the man who hopes to be president of this country thinks it is funny to talk about being able to "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." because "when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything." than we shouldn’t be surprised when young boys rape unconscious girls behind a dumpster.  It falls to all of us, men and women to reject this acceptance of violence against women. Until we do we can expect that approximately 4 women in this class have been or will be raped in their lifetime.