Friday, October 12, 2012

Republicans and Rape: It's The Culture, Or Lack Thereof

There was a radio squawker who had a gig on Milwaukee's WTMJ 620 AM, named James T. Harris, who's trade line was "It's the culture!"

It didn't matter if Harris was squawking about racism, gangs, teen pregnancy, the economy, disco, sardines, rabid aardvarks, or anything else you care to name. It's always the fault of "the culture."

I was reminded of that as I was catching up on the news of the day and saw that there was yet another story of another boneheaded Republican making a vulgar, insensitive and uneducated comment about women.

The recent spate of idiocy started two months ago when Representative Todd Akin (R-Misogyny) made his infamous comment about "legitimate rape":
“It seems to me, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare,” Mr. Akin said of pregnancies from rape. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something: I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be of the rapist, and not attacking the child.”
Almost every Republican across the country, including Akin's close ally, Paul Ryan, tried to distance themselves from Akin, at least for a little while.

On Thursday, Wisconsin State Representative Roger Rivard (R-Rudeness) made another idiotic comment, referencing girls who "rape so easy":
He told the Journal Sentinel that his father had advised him not to have premarital sex, and he took that seriously. "He also told me one thing, 'If you do (have premarital sex), just remember, consensual sex can turn into rape in an awful hurry,' " Rivard said. "Because all of a sudden a young lady gets pregnant and the parents are madder than a wet hen and she's not going to say, 'Oh, yeah, I was part of the program.' All that she has to say or the parents have to say is it was rape because she's underage. And he just said, 'Remember, Roger, if you go down that road, some girls,' he said, 'they rape so easy.'
Despite having already endorsed Rivard, Paul Ryan, Scott Walker and all the other usual suspects again fell all over themselves in their mad scramble to rescind their endorsements and to distance themselves as much as possible.

A Republican apologist might state that these two clowns were the exceptions to the rules and they're not really like that. Except that it just happens to keep happening over and over and over. Have a member of the party make a vulgar comment, everyone else condemn and backpedal, wait, come back to the offending member like an old friend, rinse and repeat.

That is except for the times when one of the Republicans makes one of their misogynistic comments and none of the others even blink an eye. Sort of like when Paul Ryan made the statement that rape was just another form of conception. That comment didn't even make it to the mainstream media.

These misogynistic comments are far more common than the Republicans would care to admit. This is because they really feel that women are inferior beings. They don't see women as people as much as objects to be owned and controlled. The only exemptions are women who go the extra mile to toe the party line or who are filthy rich. And then, that's only when they are around.

Why this is so could be explained in many ways. It could be because of their religious beliefs. It could be some deep-seated inferiority complex that can only be alleviated by controlling and bullying others, whether it be women, minorities or anyone else that they can get away treating in this fashion. It could be that they're just plain old mean.

But whatever rationale one chooses to assign for the reason that Republicans tend to have this misogynistic viewpoint, what is undeniable is that it is part of their culture. It permeates the laws they write, the policies they implement, the double standards they hold.

To make this even more egregious is the fact that their attitudes are as damaging to themselves and to us as they are to the women they would oppress. By their suppression of women, they are keeping us from being able to benefit from what women could bring to society, whether it be a new discovery or a successful, job-creating business to creations of beautiful art.

And of course, the same statements could be made regarding the Republicans' attitude towards minorities, the LGBT community or any other group that the Republicans feel that they are superior to.

Just something to think about as you go on in life, especially now that we are fast approaching election day. Do you want to be someone who helps raise everyone to the best they can be or do you want to be someone who hurts everyone.

7 comments:

  1. Yeah but, let's remember the popularity and (slavish) devotion amongst younger (mostly) women and amongst the older ones, the devotion to that craptastic 50 Shades of Grey (the "Mommy Porn book)
    This means ass-loads of women like this stuff, interpret it as "strength" etc. Then we can all remind ourselves that women had a huge influence in raising these idiots...
    Humans are weird.

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  2. oops I forgot to say slavish devotion amongst the younger women to the Twilight series. i left off half my sentence O_o

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    1. Ok, but Twilight is fantasy, it is about vampires. These guys are supposed to be real.

      Some people like Westerns, it doesn't mean that they want to herd steer for a living.

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  3. Rivards comments were addressing an incident at the Chetek School involving a 14 year old girl. Some girls rape easy? huh?

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  4. This is the classic example of a gaffe being a case of a politician telling the truth. This is what today's GOP believes, just look at Ryan's support of the 'personhood' amendments in Congress, and in the Wisconsin Legislature taking up numerous bills on abstinence-only sex ed and abortion, and repealing the Equal Pay Act for women, while doing nothing about our pathetic jobs performance.

    THIS IS WHO THEY ARE. They don't want to admit it too loudly (heck, even that d-bag Vos has now thrown Rivard under the bus), but they believe in this crap, unlike most of us with an ounce of decency.

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  5. I completely agree that his comments were pathetic and shameful but to think that every republican thinks that women are inferior people is just as pathetic and shameful. If republicans pointed out every comment that some democrat made regarding various points of life it would be just as sad, I'm sure Lena Taylor would be an easy target. Instead of worrying about comments from a few members of a minority how about you look in the mirror at what your candidates have failed to accomplish for our country, which is getting it back on track and off the path to Greece or worse. It is the same tactic that President Obama is hoping to apply, look at what they did wrong so you don't see all the things I have done wrong. President Obama is un-American and if you want proof please explain to me why in the history of our country since WW2 has every president paid respect to the fallen soldiers by visiting the d-day memorial except for 3 times in history, 2009 (Obama) 2010 (Obama) 2011 (Obama). I guess he was just too busy appologizing to the rest of the world to pay attention to the country that I am proud of. That is enough for him to not get my vote, but you won't hear about that from the media now would you.

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    1. The right regularly attack Senator Taylor, whether she did something wrong or not.

      It's odd that you bring up Greece as a warning, when their problems only grew exponentially when they followed the teahadist ideal of austerity.

      As for Obama, it could be that he was too busy taking care of the living soldiers and preventing more dead soldiers. As Mother Jones said, "Mourn the dead, but fight like hell for the living."

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