Donald Trump made a #MeToo joke during one of his latest make-me-king rallies. He appeared surprised that it did not get the laughter he wanted. Now, a real queen has made a powerful statement.
Maude Gorman, 24, won the Miss Plymouth County beauty contest. As such, the reigning beauty queen ran the Miss Massachusetts Miss America Organization.
Then, an emcee made a crude joke about the women’s movement, #meetoo, while he held the pageant stage. He had been talking about the competition discontinuing the swimsuit competition before he tried to imitate Trump’s so-called humor.
The skit in question had not been pre-approved by the pageant. In it a woman kneeled on a chair in the skit and said:
‘We may have very well seen the last ever swimsuit competition on stage. It’s very upsetting, And I’m trying to understand, God, why it happened.’
‘Me too, Amy.’
That was when Gorman made her powerful statement.
She turned in her Miss Plymouth County crown and resigned from the Miss Massachusetts Miss America Organization in protest. The beauty queen was clearly putting actions behind her beliefs.
When Gorman was 13-year-old, three men raped her. As a rape survivor, she found no humor in the emcee’s joke. She told The Boston Globe:
‘It was heartbreaking to hear, In that moment, everything collapsed right in front of me.’
She wrote a message on her Instagram page, saying she was “internally conflicted” about quitting. Yet, in a courageous act, she said she would go on as an advocate for other sexual abuse survivors.
‘As both a survivor, and advocate for victims rights and sexual violence on a whole, I refuse to stand idly by and simply ‘let this go. Instead, I will stand up for every individual who has ever had the courage to speak out; and for every person who felt liberated by the #metoo movement.’
Featured Image via Maude Gorman’s Instagram Page.
