The revenge of “legitimate rape”

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA). After both Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) and Richard Mourdock (R-IN) lost their senatorial elections due to their comments on rape – which this cartoon from the Minneapolis Star Tribune‘s Steve Sack sums up spectacularly well – one would hope that other Republicans would learn something and not mention the word “rape” except to say how awful it is. Apparently that was too much for Gingrey, an OB/GYN by trade – no, really:

. . . [Akin] said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that. . . . We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, “Just relax. . . don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.”

He then went on to say:

But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.

In other words, ovulation is the more decisive factor in pregnancy. Never mind that you’re generally getting an adrenaline rush from consensual intercourse.

I’m writing this on my lunch hour on Friday, and I’m just waiting for someone to create a demotivational meme with Gingrey’s face and something like “Legitimate rape: Just relax, don’t be so tense and uptight.” Why did ever he think he would benefit from reminding people of that? Or, as Dan from Winnipeg commented:

Who looks at a shitstorm of controversy that stripped multiple Republicans of their seats (or at least contributed) and thinks, “I gotta get me some o’ that”?

For real. This came up when he was addressing the Smyrna Area Council of the Cobb Chamber of Commerce, and someone asked him about abortion. The smarter thing for him to have done would be to spout stock pro-life lines and barrel on to the next topic. But, no, he had to go there.

This will likely have little impact on his re-election in 2014, should he pursue it. But it may have impacted something more important, and definitely not in a good way: women’s perspective on the Republican Party. Under no circumstances will it improve if the ranks of the Republicans who “just don’t get women” swell.

Let’s, like, vote for the cute one, tee-hee!

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

OK, people. This is it. The very last FotW before Election Day. I’m sure some of you expected me to give it to the candidate I’m not endorsing, and this would be my “final word” column on the election. But you’ll have to wait until Monday for that. Instead, this week’s fail, brought to my attention by Charlotte from Nebraska, was brought to you by the Young Guns (YG) Network, a center-right non-profit that happens to be the purveyor of what may go down in history as the most intelligence-insulting radio ad I and all other women will ever hear. And, my God, was that one hell of a run-on sentence. I apologize. Won’t happen again.

The ad wants women to know why they should support Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) for re-election. Aside from the standard-issue “Republican candidate = thriving small businesses, Democratic candidate = TAAAAAAAAX” message, five words from the character Olivia, words that are so pointlessly dumb that she must be this Olivia, stand out: “He’s the cute one, right?” (He is, if you like bland guys.) What in all tarnation was the point of that sentence?! And what was the point of “He’s a good husband and father” (spoken by “Emma“)? Trying to make up for the fact that he was on Road Rules? He met his wife on that show!

Either they conducted absolutely no research to find out what women in Duffy’s district wanted to hear; they did conduct research and ignored it; or those women really are that dippy, which is doubtful. Remember that the YG Network are the same people responsible for the “Woman Up Pavilion” at this year’s Republican National Convention, where female attendees could have their hair and makeup touched up between speeches. It was a hit, apparently.

This method of outreach is as lazy as trying to attract young voters by making up a rap about the candidate, or trying to attract voters in Mississippi like this. All you have to do is pick the most obvious stereotypes of the demographic at hand and base your advertising on those. “What do women like? Pink? No, he won’t go for that. Fifty Shades of Grey? No, don’t make me puke. Cute guys? That’s it, cute guys! Perfect!” That kind of mentality gave us Dan Quayle, people. And if you’re a Republican, it also gave us Obama. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

I could give them the benefit of the doubt and suggest that they know this behavior will get headlines, which is really all they want, seeing as they’re not exactly the Heritage Foundation. But that’s a stretch. It’s likelier that they really are that lazy.

Those wimmins are cute when they’re in binders

As Big Bird was the takeaway from the first presidential debate, “binders full of women” was the takeaway from the second. Many people have had funny things to say in response – although none will top this piece of Internet awesome. But let’s get serious today. Last night was the first debate in which women’s issues were a centerpiece, and as much as it kills me to admit this, there are still such things as “women’s issues” in 2012. But let’s go through them all:

Pay equity: The audience member who brought this up asked what each candidate would do to close the wage gap; neither answered. President Obama talked about what he had done, namely the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which gave women more room to sue for equal pay, which isn’t really the same thing. Former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) didn’t address the wage gap at all. I guarantee that if a woman with a libertarian streak were onstage that night, she would have encouraged women to negotiate for higher salaries and stop relying on legislation.

Female recruiting: Ah, yes, here comes the Pander Express once again! You might consider it “progress” that Romney brought up the idea of actively seeking out more female hires and didn’t make a meritocratic counter-argument, which I would have done. But his claim that all those binders actually led to more female hires are dubious, depending on your standards. In any event, not only is this irrelevant to the pay equity question, but it sounds uncomfortably like “Some of my best friends are black.”

Flexible hours: This is where Romney hooked me. The federal government’s freedom to incentivize this is limited, but flextime, along with on-site child care and improved parental leave, are excellent ways to make all parents pursue positions with greater responsibility. The challenge is paying for these without irritating their co-workers who aren’t parents. But at least someone is thinking about these things.

Contraception: Of course, having this provided by employers might offset any of the above-noted irritation. On this, Obama has infinitely more credibility. Did you immediately think “flip-flop” when you heard Romney say “Every woman in America should have access to contraceptives” on Tuesday? You’re not alone. To be fair, though, if elected to the presidency, I don’t expect that Romney would make a concerted effort to restrict contraceptive access. But what about the people he appoints?

Romney won on women’s issues with me solely because he mentioned things I’ve been screaming about for years. But his win would have been more meaningful if he brought it around to this theme: “The government can only do so much to level the playing field for women and men. The women I know don’t need them to do more.”

Everyone has a woman problem

Everyone, meet Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), currently Vice-Chairman of the House Republican Conference and thus the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress. The highest-ranking Democratic woman is still House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), if anyone cares. But we all know Pelosi well; she’s standard-issue when it comes to crafting her party’s message for women. McMorris Rodgers is not. As you’ll see, it’s actually a priority for her.

The profile spends a lot of time on her efforts to appeal to female voters with free-market rhetoric and “pocketbook issues” including jobs, health care and family policy. Like many Republicans and a few independent women who dislike pandering (like me!), she’s not fond of the Democrats’ belief that women need government at all times, most recently exemplified by The Life of Julia. The difference is that McMorris Rodgers (who I’m calling CMR from now on) sees a political opportunity more clearly than her male counterparts.

Let’s use Julia as our example of the ideal Democratic woman. She took Head Start as a youngster; she went to a public school, as do her kids; she paid for her college education with some state aid; she uses her parents’ health coverage; she is not closed off to suing for equal pay; she has student loans, but pays them off steadily; her health insurance covers everything concerned with childbirth, including contraception; her own small business depends on certain tax cuts; and she uses both Medicare and Social Security. All with the Obama administration’s help.

Now, based on CMR’s talk, let’s develop an avatar for the ideal GOP woman. We’ll call her Natalie. (I’m watching Star Wars prequels as I write this.) Her own small business depends on certain tax cuts. Everything else is up to the free market and what she decides to buy and sell from it. Also, she definitely has or will have kids. Done.

Do you see the disconnect? It’s not just that Democrats see a bigger role for government and Republicans see a smaller one. CMR throws around the words “family” and “children” much more often than single, childless/childfree women might like. Say what you will about Democrats and birth control, but at least they acknowledge that some women don’t want children at any given moment, or perhaps at all. Paternalism is the Democratic woman problem; natalism is the Republican one. Either you marry a father figure or vote for one.

Once CMR can capture this segment of the female electorate, her goal will be met. The only thing all women have in common is the desire for respect for our choices, and space to make good on them.

The Violence Against Pretty Much Everyone Act

What’s interesting about the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) is that only a fraction of the full text paints women as the only type of victims it is designed to protect. Otherwise, it is full of generalities that could apply to people of either sex: spouse, partner, abuser, victim, etc. Except for some titles, subheads and statistics, the text of this legislation is almost always ambiguous enough to include male victims. An attempt by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) to clarify this is not quite the “expansion” that opponents paint it to be.

VAWA is up for renewal this year, and it might have been renewed already if not for some concerns by Senate Republicans about extending domestic abuse protections to LGBTs, illegal immigrants and Native Americans. (It’s worth noting that an entire title of the 2005 law concerns Native women exclusively.) This would be done through Leahy’s bill, which does the following:

• prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity;
• gives Native tribes jurisdiction over abusers if their ties to the tribe in question are strong enough; and
• allows police to request visas for victims who are illegal immigrants and who are assisting their investigations.

Meanwhile, the GOP version sponsored by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) would extend the current law, eliminate all of the above amendments, and add provisions targeting related fraud, namely marriage fraud. He dubs the anti-discrimination provision “a solution in search of a problem” (does it need one if it doesn’t mandate anything except not being an asshole?). His problem with the tribal provision is the contention that these courts could have jurisdiction over any American. Which, as you’ll see in section 904, is not true.

I have absolutely no problem with the first two, although I am slightly baffled that the second one didn’t already exist. Clearly tribal politics in America is a horse of a different color. The third one is causing the most controversy so far, for the usual reasons. I would tentatively deem aiding a domestic abuse case an acceptable justification for a visa. Leahy’s other two provisions and Grassley’s fraud provisions, meanwhile, can and should peacefully co-exist.

Vacation update: Attempted to use the Nice Ride MN program in a park in north Minneapolis. Until then, I hadn’t been on any bike since I was 10 years old. Turns out my legs are too short to handle an adult-sized bike. Get some women’s and youth sizes in there! Later, took in a Twins-Red Sox game at Target Field, which is basically the best sports venue ever. The Twins got blown out.

Disposal Day #117: The crackpots and these women

STORY #1: The war for women

Amazing how quick former Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) is to take up challenges from President Obama. This week, the challenge was to prove that he can be a good candidate for female voters. After all, the Obama camp charged, is Romney not from the party that opposes legislation making it easier for women to sue for wage discrimination, and has engaged in ridiculous attacks on their reproductive decisions? Romney’s response: 92 percent of jobs lost on Obama’s watch were held by women!

What Romney neglected to mention is that a) the unemployment rate for men is still 0.2 percentage points higher than the one for women, and that b) male-dominated sectors like construction were more heavily represented in the earlier years of the recession, which is a typical pattern, while female-dominated sectors like education are more represented now. Does anyone but him see the recession any other way?

STORY #2: The war between women

Good God, I hope we’re not about to get into this “Mommy Wars” bullshit again. That appears to be the result of Ann Romney’s introduction to Twitter. Democratic commentator Hilary Rosen said yesterday on CNN that, because Ann has “never worked a day in her life,” she can’t be in touch with economic struggles faced by women. Ann shot back by pointing out that raising five boys is work. (But five Romney boys? What did they do, eat sugar? Get a B?)

That it is, so Ann wins that part of the argument. But her inattention to Rosen’s point about socioeconomic status, which bars many women from even thinking about staying home with their children, only makes Rosen look right. The ability to respect other women’s choices in full requires the ability to understand why they were able to make them, which Rosen has in greater numbers. But why Rosen brought a candidate’s wife into a political chat is a mystery.

STORY #3: The war on boys’ clubs

Demands for 50 percent of everything in terms of gender parity sound just as disingenuous coming from smirking right-wing commentators as they do from raging feminists. That seems to be the only thing that will satisfy this wrtier from The Blaze, a fairly new conservative site, on the “boys’ club” mentality and salary disparity in the Obama White House. Does anyone outside the business world ever factor in the role of salary expectations when measuring men’s to women’s salaries? Until they do, I’m not going to bother worrying about it. I’m happy with my salary.

Disposal Day #113: SEX! Now that I have your attention . . .

STORY #1: The anger games

Pop quiz: When the Obama administration decided to shut down Texas’s “Women’s Health Program,” which provided health care for 100,000 low-income women, over the state’s decision to forbid any federal funding from going to abortion services, who made women more angry? Was it a) the state, for cutting off funding for abortions, or b) the feds, for cutting off funding for everything else? Answer: Frankly, I don’t know, but if I were a low-income Texan woman, I’d pick B.

There are plenty of arguments to be made against the state’s decision, primarily the already very limited availability of abortion services in the South. But the feds’ move in response is, to quote Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) (and I rarely do except to ridicule him), “political posturing” of the worst kind. The process of cutting off the funding will take about nine months, which may be time for Texas to make up the revenue. But it’s safe to say that they won’t use that time to change their minds about their right to fund services as they see fit.

STORY #2: Satan loves porn

Number #1,583 on the list of Relatively Unimportant Things That Freak Former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) Out: consensual adult porn. I imagine non-consensual, non-adult porn is in there as well, but he’s certainly not arguing for a national porn ban on that basis. His campaign website promises a crackdown on the distribution of hardcore porn through all channels, including the Internet. Of course, this is Santorum we’re talking about, so that probably includes depictions of kissing with tongue.

Easy as it may be for the government to get away with censoring porn, that doesn’t make it right. The simple act of looking at it (the consensual adult version, which I cannot clarify enough) does not cause any harm to others that merits government interference. For that matter, laws of this nature can be vague enough to lead to the prosecution of 16-year-olds who write yaoi. Say “censorship” and I’m done with you.

STORY #3: Follow the money

In the second of our two stories about people caring way too much about abortion: A controversial and ultimately scrapped decision by Susan G. Komen for the Cure to cease donations to Planned Parenthood was due to pressure from Catholic bishops in Ohio, even though no money from Komen’s Ohio chapter go to Planned Parenthood at all. They just feared that it might somehow end up at another affiliate elsewhere in the country. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could geotag our money to make sure it never pays for things we don’t like?

I love it when the women get involved

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), now a two-time failure here at The Future American. But don’t worry, this isn’t about another politically motivated Oversight Committee vendetta against President Obama. . . . God. I really hope the Republicans get back to the economy soon; I’ve been talking like a hardcore Democrat for the past two weeks thanks to this reproductive nonsense, which, unbelievably, continued on Thursday. Believe me, I don’t feel good about that.

Anyway, Thursday was the day Issa convened a hearing on Obama’s rule for employers to provide free contraception to female workers, now complete with an exemption for religiously affiliated workers. The first five witnesses at the hearing were all male and all religious leaders. But that was just the first panel; the second included two women, one of whom happened to be a doctor. The three congressional Democrats who walked out of the hearing in protest missed that, and now, rightfully, look too self-righteous for their own good.

But that wasn’t the fail. No, that happened when Issa told Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), one of the walkers, that Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke would not be permitted to testify because the debate wasn’t about “reproductive rights and contraception.” Fluke’s role would have been to provide insight on how any watered-down version of the rule might affect women. I’m skeptical of how much insight a law student could provide, but Issa was basically saying that any such testimony was irrelevant to the discussion.

See, that would have made sense if the rule in question concerned religious matters far broader than reproduction. Unfortunately for Issa, it’s at the very core of the rule he’s so angry about; there are parties to it other than the five religious leaders he brought in. (Wouldn’t everyone have gotten the picture if only two or three of them had spoken?) It’s very clear that this cross-section of the GOP has no clue what women’s concerns are, including Catholic women, and don’t want to try to get one.

I generally don’t believe that women in politics automatically bring a different perspective than a men, but anything concerning pregnancy is an exception for obvious reasons. I comfort myself with the knowledge that Independent women are more valuable than the Republicans know.

We desire you would remember the ladies

A contributing factor to my split with organized feminism was my realization that the private sector can have a role in repairing social ills. (That may seem obvious, but I’m Canadian.) As evidenced by a new campaign launched by a series of well-known advocacy groups, the feminist establishment has yet to have such an awakening. As is their way, they’ve entered the debt ceiling debate by bringing up how it will impact women.

The purpose of the “Respect, Protect, Reject” campaign is to lobby Congress not to cut federal programs that support women, or reduce entitlement programs that benefit lots of people (but especially women!). Partners include the National Organization for Women (NOW), the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), the National Conference of Women’s Organizations (NCWO) and, presumably, other groups with “national” and “women” in their names.

Even those with a disproportionate zeal for budget-cutting would agree that cuts to social services, especially those that have proven cost-effective, hurt. Such organizations have enough trouble getting funding already, from private sources or more local governments whose support would be more meaningful. We don’t need to get into how much more painful cuts to entitlements would be, however necessary for the sake of national fiscal health.

But the long-term benefits of taking this into consideration would free up more money for such programs down the line. More importantly, this campaign is one more in a long line of instances of feminist organizations running to the government for help. Their remarks on jobs for women are limited to the public sector mostly employing women, and most recovered private jobs employing men – no surprise considering most of them are in manufacturing.

If feminists wonder why this generation isn’t all that enamored with them, they might consider the new sense of fiscally conservative populism. More women, as well as men, want to hear a connection between feminism (and other social movements) and employment, education, housing and the ability to help feed their families. And they want it outside the confines of government, where it would be safer from cuts.

If the aforementioned feminist organizations absolutely must spend whatever they’re spending on this campaign, they might put it toward the specific non-profits that will have to go without. No amount of social activism will stop what’s happening to the budget.

It’s all about the Susan B. Anthonies

It’s time once again for The Future American’s FAIL OF THE WEEK! Every Saturday, I name a person or group who has spent the past seven days behaving in a particularly idiotic way. Since it’s my belief that idiocy knows no politics, nobody is safe.

This week’s fail was brought to you by Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. I’ve ragged on a number of Republicans for yammering on about social issues at a time when the majority of Americans would like to hear more about deficit reduction and job creation; now it’s a liberal’s turn. President Obama has signed a memorandum that would extend the federal government’s efforts to collect data on women’s progress, mostly in the realm of earnings.

This on its own is bad enough. O’Neill says the data benefits non-profits like hers who need the numbers to lobby effectively; clearly the memo amounts to little more than throwing a bone to her group and others. Even then, she isn’t happy with Obama’s priorities, nor the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that Obama signed nine days after his inauguration: “We’ve got to have investments in jobs, and they’ve got to be investments in jobs for women.”

I’d hate to break it to you, Ms. O’Neill, but there’s actually no sense in job-creation initiatives targeted to specific demographics. The objective is to lower the unemployment rate for everyone, a strategy which seems to be working so far. “A rising tide lifts all boats” may seem like empty rhetoric to the NOW crowd, but it’s true when the boats are equally qualified for certain jobs and no systemic discrimination is involved.

Of course, you’ll have a hard time convincing that crowd that systemic, first-degree discrimination is the largest cause of the income gap between men and women. The best way to determine if it is or isn’t would be to find a large enough group of men and women with the exact same education, skills, experience, seniority, salary expectations and productivity. Has anyone tried this yet? Show me the charts.

The central objectives of the aforementioned Fair Pay Act and another NOW favorite, the Paycheck Fairness Act, are to make it easier for women to claim that they are underpaid on the basis of gender. Women cannot hope to legislate their way to parity. This is one of many examples of feminism failing to realize the individual potential of the people it claims to speak for. It’s on them, not the feds.