Racism, Sexism, and Bullying: What Barbara Res Saw Over 18 Years Working for Trump

On January 21, 2017—in those ancient, bucolic times when “corona” was just a beer—470,000 women poured into Washington D.C. and socially non-distanced to protest the previous day’s inauguration of Donald Trump. Horrified and disgusted by his politics and his sexism—manifested in so many ways but especially in his recorded brag to Billy Bush about his fame enabling him to grab women “by their pussies”—many marchers held clever signs. Among them: “Rise, Sister, Rise!” “Grab America Back!” “This is only Day One!” “My Pussy, My Rules,” and “Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down.”

But one three-and--half-foot-tall placard—lofted fiercely upward by a determined-faced woman in an iridescent hot-pink parka—was unique. "I AM THE WOMAN WHO BUILT TRUMP TOWER," it read. Under the lettering was a photo of that woman, Barbara Res, some 30 years earlier, smiling in a hard hat: alone in the Manhattan sky, standing on a scaffolding, looking way down on the excavation.