I, again, tried to watch the last debate livestream and failed as soon as Trump started talking. Luckily there are plenty of people live-tweeting the debate so I could keep up on what was happening.
One thing I noticed.
At the end of the night, all the women tweeters talked about how HRC won solidly and how creepy Trump was with his stalkerish moves getting up in her personal space. They marveled at how calm and collected HRC was in the face of that onslaught and how we wish we could be that hardcore. They pretty unilaterally noted that his behavior confirms the truth of his recorded 2005 remarks about how he assaults women.
None of the guys I read even noticed. Their bottom line was that it didn’t go as badly for Trump as expected. One even said it was a good enough performance that it made people who unendorsed him look foolish. (It wasn’t and it didn’t.)
After I went to sleep, many of the guys read women’s commentary. They rewatched the tape. They said oh. Yeah, that actually happened. He was a creepy stalker dude. How did I not see that?
Privilege is a pretty powerful thing. But I’m glad that sometimes the privileged listen and open their eyes.
I want to embed this video but I can’t figure out how. Watch with the sound on.
Did you watch the debate? What were your impressions?
Grumpy Rumblings (of the formerly untenured) 
October 11, 2016 at 7:55 am
Yep. I couldn’t believe the commentary saying he did much better. Wha?! He threatened to jail his opponent when he won, like a dictator!
October 11, 2016 at 7:58 am
My colleagues who study international stuff are literally speechless about the last debate. They just can’t even.
October 11, 2016 at 10:41 am
I can’t even watch. The stress level in this election is already too high for me. I’ve known who I was voting for for ages, and I just did an isidewith that confirmed my decision in a significant way.
I am still appalled at Trump’s candidacy and his supporters. That’s really not the kind of world I want to live in.
October 11, 2016 at 6:06 pm
you and me both. :-(
October 11, 2016 at 11:38 am
I didn’t watch the first 20 minutes, which was when they were talking about all the sexual assault stuff. I’m glad I missed that part. The whole experience was unpleasant enough.
I actually always make a point to *watch* only part of a debate, and usually not for my first impression. I want to see what they do with their voices alone (plus, it annoys the heck out of me the US population tends to vote for the taller candidate. Radio has it’s merits). Clinton always beats Trump on those grounds, even accounting for my bias (interestingly, trying to adjust for my own bias as best I can, I think Kaine also beat Pence for radio listeners- it was only too much smiling/smirking that was incongruous with the verbal hostility that hurt Kaine on tape).
I definitely noticed the pacing/looming of Trump during the debate during the parts I watched video of. I found it extremely annoying and distracting, but mostly in the way of someone who can’t quite contain himself (like a little kid working on potty training). My father used to pace and gesture a *lot* as his speaking style, and it correlated with how hard he had to work not to yell or interrupt. Of course, he always felt that was one of the reasons he was better doing the research and writing on the debate team, and not delivering the addresses. It’s very bad form on style to move that much. Of course, it could still work to Trump’s advantage inasmuch as the audience focusing on the content of his arguments doesn’t help him.
I did read a lot of women who felt the looming part was threatening (and the general vibe of “I can’t control myself”). I do think it is a crude type of dominance display, so I see where they were coming from.
I will say I found some of the gifs from Trump’s movements after-the-fact to be pretty funny- there is one where he really looks like he is having a special time with a chair. It makes the whole seem thing less sinister and more ridiculous.
October 11, 2016 at 12:12 pm
I didn’t watch. In fact, I decided not to even follow along on Twitter in real time. We had my sister over for dinner and had a nice evening watching my kids dance to my husband’s latest musical finds instead.
I am finding that this entire election is dredging up every bad thing that has ever happened to me because of my gender, and I am struggling to deal with it. I need to revisit my meditation practice….
October 11, 2016 at 12:32 pm
That’s really hard.
DH and I were talking about if I’d ever been sexually assaulted (based on twitter conversations about how what Trump was describing had happened to most if not all women) and my first answer was no. And then I remembered that I’d actually had another girl tweak my breast painfully in middle school (there was a thing where a group of girls at my bus stop were certain I was stuffing a bra, despite the fact I wasn’t yet wearing one), and I had a physics teacher in high school inappropriately touch a breast over my shirt in the guise of admiring the decoration on the pocket (the decoration was nothing special, and the dude was constantly putting arms around girls and making sexist jokes). I’ve been lucky(!) that any other groping was consensual, at least so much as I remember.
It is horrible how growing up in an environment where these things happen is normal.
October 11, 2016 at 3:18 pm
I have dim memories of a few students passing me around a corner of a classroom to have my breast buds tweaked even earlier than that (3rd or 4th grade — my class was 100 students spread across several partially connected rooms with 3 teachers, so supervision was kind of spotty), because I was an early developer. I was also raped by a verbally/emotional abusive boyfriend in college (who I then stayed with for several years because I didn’t register what had happened for a LONG time).
I can’t watch any of this. It’s feeling kind of nightmarish that every story in the media seemingly has to include a giant photo of him. (I probably need to seek out more restorative photos of young Tim Kaine ;) ) The man’s ubiquity in the media is just one long trigger for me. I am praying that Clinton kicks his ass and he JUST GOES AWAY.
October 11, 2016 at 3:49 pm
:(
Horrible.
It will be so wonderful to vote for Clinton. Here’s hoping for a landslide and affirmation of the values that make America great.
October 11, 2016 at 3:19 pm
I noticed that as well (alpha male chest thumping is only attractive to other alpha male wannabees) as well as the part that so few commentators noted that Trump’s answers to Muslim and minority America were likely disqualifying in their eyes. The pundits are still evaluating it all through white male eyes.
October 11, 2016 at 7:01 pm
I noticed the weird stalking thing while watching the debate and was dumbfounded when his supporters said he had a good showing because I thought, especially in combination with the jailing Clinton comments, he came off as super threatening. In retrospect, I think his moving around helped him a lot because it meant we didn’t get side by side close-ups of him making faces like in the first debate (as opposed to Clinton who, because she sat when Trump talked, got a lot of side by side facial shots).
October 13, 2016 at 7:07 pm
I’m so glad that in what livetweeting I followed, I saw a pretty equal distribution of the men and women alike who were horrified by his creepy stalkerish behaviors on the stage. Then there was this guy (http://nymag.com/selectall/2016/10/serious-face-debate-man-earlest-johnson-voting-for-hillary.html) who was then of course overshadowed by still-undecided (eyeroll) voter Ken Bone.
It might be the only thing I can be glad of this election – there’s a good amount of affirmation that the people I choose to see or follow are fundamentally decent people who want a better world and that world doesn’t envision DT and his racist, sexist, and abusive policies at the head of our country. And then there are the people who don’t have the courage to speak up against the hate until it directly affects them and it gives me a sense of their character as well. This election cycle is exhausting.
October 13, 2016 at 7:11 pm
Great article. We are so ready for the election to be done.