DOWNTOWN — Chicago women plan to build a wall around Trump International Hotel & Tower next week in response to Donald Trump's taped comments about grabbing women "by the p---y" without consent.
Alicia Swiz of Hermosa is organizing the Chicago protest Tuesday morning, which is part of a larger group of women organizing a "national wave of feminist action" Oct. 18.
The event, referring to the presidential candidate's once private remarks during a 2005 taping of "Access Hollywood," has drawn more than 30 RSVPs and almost 100 people interested since being posted Thursday afternoon to Facebook.
"It's just a show of solidarity; most of us are offended he's allowed to run," Swiz, a humanities professor at Harold Washington College, said. "He’s just proven time and time again he doesn’t respect women ... not only in how he treats them but how he speaks to them."
Last week the Washington Post revealed the 2005 tape, in which Trump crudely told former "Access Hollywood" host Billy Bush he uses his position of power to kiss and grab women without consent or consequence.
"When you're a star, they let you do it," Trump said.
Trump later downplayed the comments as "locker room talk," but the spin doesn't resonate with Swiz or many other women. A group of women in New York blockaded Trump's namesake tower in Manhattan on Wednesday.
"We will not allow a man who treats women this way to have a voice louder than ours; in order to do that we have to stand together," Swiz said. "I felt (Trump's comments) viscerally in my body. As a woman who has been grabbed unwanted by a man ... to have someone talk so casually and cruelly (about that), it makes my skin crawl."
The group will meet at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday at an undisclosed location near Trump Tower before starting the protest.
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