How Wingnuts View Women
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I agree with Jesse Taylor — there’s a lot of pathology on display here.
Update: It’s astonishing to me that I have to spell this out more explicitly, but apparently I do — If you want to know what shocked me about McCain’s post, please read again what I wrote above — the male wingnut understands women not as human beings, but as objects that men do things to. Note also the photograph. These are clues.
Basically, what McCain says in his post is that women are objects who must be either used or protected by men. He gives women no respect as autonomous human beings. To McCain, women are projections of men — of lust, scorn, idealism, whatever.
I bolded the two sentence above because it gets to the heart of my problem with McCain’s post. He may see himself as “chivalrous,†but his attitude toward women is the same as a rapist’s attitude. That he has assigned himself the role of “protector†makes little difference; it’s just the flip side of the same uber-patronizing coin. McCain may not rape women physically, but he is a rapist nonetheless because he denies their humanity.
Now, let’s walk through McCain’s post. This paragraph:
Who cares that she’s not even old enough to buy a pack of cigarettes legally? Get her drunk on wine coolers, get what you want, then the next morning, take her to CVS to get Plan B and make sure there’s no chance the slut will show up in a few months talking child support payments and DNA tests.
First off, the narrative above describes what is commonly called “date rape.” Let’s be clear about that.
Second, who is not actually participating in this narrative? The woman is not participating. The man gets her drunk, uses her body, and then takes her to CVS for Plan B. At no point in this narrative is the woman presented as a person with free will who can decide for herself what to do. The man is the only participant. The woman is just a doll. She is not a human being, but an object. This is a rapists’ attitude, of course.
Next paragraph:
So guys, if you screw a 17-year-old and “forget” to use a condom, remember: Nothing says “thanks a lot, you cheap whore” like the gift of Plan B!
As joan 16 says, “cheap whore” was a slip of the mask. It may be that he was mimicking the attitude of a man using a 17-year-old for sex, but where is his concern for the 17-year-old who has been used? Does he think 17-year-old girls were never used for sex before Plan B was available? Does he think that denying Plan B to a 17-year-old who has been raped is an act of compassion for her? Does he think that men who date rape women are thinking of long-term consequences at all at the time?
Further, does he think that all 17-year-olds who have sex do so in a date rape scenario? Isn’t it possible that two teenagers sometimes give in to nature’s most compelling temptation? One may not approve of sex outside marriage, but the girl who gives in to the temptation is no less a human being afterward than the boy, and she is entitled to the same respects and considerations due to any other human being.
Instead, McCain is saying girls must conform to his projected expectation of being “pure,” or he will re-assign them the alternative projected status of “cheap whore.” Out of his sight, she has no reality at all. He has no perception of or empathy with her life and the realities of an unplanned pregnancy.
For those of you who didn’t see that, I rather doubt that my spelling it out is going to make any difference. But there it is.
“[T]hanks a lot, you cheap whore….”
In the midst of what tries to be snark, the mask slips. Who exactly do we have to protect 17-year-old females from, again?
I guess it says a lot that R.S. is considered John Sidney McCain Junior the Third’s crazy brother.
Sigh, just what the world needs: yet another bastard who gets women drunk, rapes them without a condom and then blames them for getting pregnant. This man’s obsession with raping 17-year-olds should be looked into.
I don’t really want to click through…
Okay, I’m going to be in the minority on this one.
Taking McCain’s post on its face, I think you have to be trying really hard to not hear the irony in his tone. As I read it, he’s not suggesting that teenage girls who are sexually active are cheap whores: he’s suggesting that easy access to plan B will enable men to treat them like they are.
Of course his point is vapid – the same argument could be made of condoms, for example, and I hope to god he isn’t lobbying to have them removed from store shelves – but no need to make his post sound worse than it is.
*blinks* Something’s not right here… I can’t match what you’ve written here with what’s written on the links. I declare shenanigans!
The first post you link to discusses how Texas doesn’t care about underage pregnancy, only underage marriage – which doesn’t seem a wildly unfair assertion in the context in which it’s raised.
The second post is clearly dripping with indignant sarcasm. This is someone who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, horrified at the idea of emergency contraception which he believes encourages disrespectful relationships towards women.
I can’t say I have many political views in common with R.S. McCain, but my quick glance here suggests you have wildly misrepresented him. Personally, I think you owe him an apology, but I doubt that’s on the cards here.
I very much enjoy your blog, but some days you seem to fly off the handle just as badly as the “wingnuts” do…
Best wishes,
Chris.
Sammy — You aren’t getting my point. McCain’s view is entirely ego-centric. The only person in his narrative who is a free agent is the male. The female is merely a passive object that the male acts upon; he and only he takes any sort of action or makes any decisions. That’s what I find shocking. The issue of birth control is a point, but not the main one.
Chris — in the first post linked, McCain apologizes for a cult that raises little girls to be used sexually by the age of 12. In the second, he reveals that he doesn’t understand women to be free agents who can decide for themselves if they want to take a morning-after pill or not.
And may I say that if I have to spell these things out, you need serious old-fashioned feminist consciousness raising. I’d be alarmed if I were you.
Gee, it kinda brings back memories of Jim Bakker crying in the shower with his repentant heart…”Oh lord please wash me, I’ve been with a whore”
Well, R.S. does manage to be scripturally sound in his observations.. the bible does say..”Beware of the harlot all saucy and pert for she seeks to devour you”
I pretty much agree with McCain that men and women are fundamentally different. Just try to teach a man how to use a computer and then teach a woman. You have to approach it differently.
That does not mean, however, that the end result – that both males and females are able to competently work on a computer, solve logic problems and have equal access to computers – should rather be that men use computers and women ask men if they can use the computer. That seems to be what he’s suggesting in his dating scenario.
Women are only aggressive because we have had it pounded into our brains that we are equal? Ha, too bad.
Most women are dying to settle down with you and pick up your socks from the bathroom floor? That’s why they date? My, oh my.
And the line that bothered me the most –
That sentence is so wrong on so many levels it’s not even funny.
I think you have to be trying really hard to not hear the irony in his tone.
Heard the irony, heard also where it cracked apart and the tone completely changed to simple, unalloyed loathing, with the “cheap whore” remark. One has to be trying really hard not to feel a sudden slap in the face.
This is someone who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, horrified at the idea of emergency contraception which he believes encourages disrespectful relationships towards women.
In other words, R.S. McCain has a ridiculously patronizing, truly disrespectful attitude towards women. As I said above (twice), when the tone changes from (phony) indignation to loathing, his mask slips. Those who are defending McCain’s posts are either (intentionally?) misreading them, or are painstakingly separating the words from their context.
I pretty much agree with McCain that men and women are fundamentally different. Just try to teach a man how to use a computer and then teach a woman. You have to approach it differently.
Jennifer, by the time we’re in our early 50s, age creates a greater division than gender. Well, if teaching computer skills, anyway. And I do feel at this point in my life that I understand 50-year-old males better than I understand 20-year-old females. Go figure. Middle age is just one goofy surprise after another.
Interesting Jennifer… The following might be slightly OT but your comment got me thinking.
I write software and there are studies suggesting that men enjoy the pursuit and eventual conquering of the problem and even the implementation of the solution and might be more adept at it but they often leave behind something incomprehensible and difficult to follow…for those who must fix it or maintain it. It seems that once the dragon has been slain (or problem solved) the job is done…but that is rarely true in reality.
On the other hand, this study suggests that, on the average, women software developers consider relationship more and consequently those who must deal with what they leave behind. They comment more, they organize more, they document more etc….on the average.
But a successful development team takes all kinds and I suspect, as with ethnicity, that maybe the average difference between people in a group (in this case gender) is smaller than the difference of the average in one group vs. another. I do wonder.
I know myself from software projects that those who are willing to polish or practice basic hygeine that is the veritable oil in the machinerythat keeps things running smoothly often get shoved to the back of the class in favor of some self-promoting “idea person”, often a hare that finishes behind the tortoise. …and we get these overpaid brainiacs that brought us highly vaunted inventions such as derivatives in order to keep profits increasing at rates which defy the rate of population growth. Strip mining, polluting to keep costs down and profits high, clear-cutting, take-no-prisoners marauding…there seem to be male/female differences in almost everything.
Much of this seems to come down to a regard for relationship and those who come later. I might be off my rocker but this seems glaringly obvious to me. The same patterns repeat all over.
If anyone is interested:
Men Write Code from Mars, Women Write More Helpful Code from Venus
Women write more expressive, sensitive code
This is not exactly a contrast in end user approaches to computers but illuminating nonetheless.
Uh, Joanr, 50 ain’t middle age unless we live to be 100.
Sad but true, dear lady
(oh crap, I’m 54!)
“This is someone who doesn’t believe in sex before marriage, horrified at the idea of emergency contraception which he believes encourages disrespectful relationships towards women.”
Believe there ain’t any such man who believes in sex after marriage! Who are the first guys with a gal in the backseat of a car begging the gal to give him some sex by telling her he will love her forever and respect her in the morning? It’s usually the born again Christian man.
You seem to have some serious problems with reading comprehension, especially ironic devices, and projection. It takes some serious cognitive dissonance to twist this man’s sarcastic rant about how he honestly does NOT want women to be treated … into some sort of proof positive that he treats them in exactly that way. So who’s really falling prey to their prejudices here?
I was working with a SF story idea; one feature of the future society was that conception was always mutual, planned, deliberate, and consensual. STDs were cured, so sex could be as committed or informal as suited the individual.
This concept would bother a lot of Shallow Hals out there, who are driven to spread their seed as far & wide as possible and don’t like the idea that a conquest could be annulled with the morning after pill.
We moved one small step closer to my fantasy world, where the relationships one selects are entirely a matter of choice, and the joint responsibility of creating new life is not a game of chance.
erinyes — oh no, are we… old???
Well… I will clarify to say “age 35 to 50 has been one goofy surprise after another.” Speaking just for myself, of course.
Captain Obvious — It takes some serious cognitive dissonance to twist this man’s sarcastic rant about how he honestly does NOT want women to be treated
As a woman, let me explain firmly that we do not want women-haters like McCain to dictate how we will be “treated.” We women will dictate to McCain how we will be treated, and if he doesn’t accept our wishes, he can kiss our collective ass. Is that clear?
For those of you who completely missed the ugly in McCain’s original Plan B post, click the link again. He’s really piled on the stupid, and slathered it with a big dollop of angry angry angry irrationality. He fails to understand that he actually shoots down his own original, specious, “ironic” post with this statement:
Men and women are not “equal,” in the sense of being identical and therefore fungible.
Well, duh. “Fungible” means “interchangeable.” Apparently Angrier-Than-John McCain didn’t know that when he wrote his original post, because its “irony” derived from an attempt to interchange males for females.
Plan B is bad because it helps bad men! And bad men are bad because of cheap whores! Plan B is all about men! Sex is all about men!
Wow. In R.S.’s world, it’s always raining men.
This guy is a complete and utter crock. No wonder the old jackass is crowing about winning a “Malkin Award.” If he lived in the present day, he’d realize that’s like receiving the Hermann Goering Seal of Approval.
Joan & Erinyes – My Grandmother (at age 70) woulg go visit ‘old people’ at the nursing home. At 85 she had a hip replacement; her rapid recovery earned her the nicname ‘superwoman’ with the hospital staff. She displayed a talent Heinlein described as the ‘continual ability to unlearn old falsehoods’, lived to be 103 and was an inspiration to all. Age is just a number.
Clear as mud. According to your reasoning: If I don’t want you to be treated like garbage… Not only am I “dictating” that you “shall not be treated like garbage,” but I am actively treating you like garbage in the process? What is the source of my fascist power behind an internet comment to enforce such paradoxes into reality?
I’d say that anyone concerned for the decent treatment of their fellow humans is just a decent person themselves, regardless of whatever gender we’re talking about.
The only thing being “dictated” here is that McCain is somehow a woman-hater based purely on your say-so rather than anything actually written (and comprehended, that’s the trick).
Nice circular reasoning… because you say so, RSM is a woman hater… therefore his treatment of women is that of a womanhater… therefore his treatment of women is indicative of a womanhater… therefore he is a woman hater… therefore his treatment of women is that of a womanhater… ad infinitum.
Yet the rest of the English-speaking world would read the article and say “Wow, this guy is really worked up AGAINST the further sexual objectification of women.”
Whether you agree this particular regulation of Plan B furthers that objectification or not, that’s still quite a leap to “he’s obviously a woman-hater who wants to rape 17 year olds” as you and a few brain-trust commentors would have it.
As for that “We Women will dictate … our wishes” nonsense…
You’re demanding to have your ass-kissed… or else… he’ll have to kiss your ass. Some negotiating skill you’ve got there. How about Option C, where we actually FURTHER real feminism by ceasing to mistake chivalry for chauvenism.
I hate to wander into this, because it risks offending some women I’ve come to appreciate and respect even though we’ve never physically met.
I tend to agree with Captain Obvious (perhaps my own name should be Captain Oblivious?). Setting aside RSM’s history, this current posting of his is pure snark from the male only view. Of course women have their own ideas as to how they should be treated (and any smart man will be savvy to this and honor it – if he knows what’s best). This is just snarking about the immorality of a Plan B, without bringing into the discussion – at least overtly – the notion of free agency. Why not just let RSM off the hook – at least he’s repulsed by Plan B – many men are not. At least he got that part right.
McCain is not only a Neanderthal about women, he’s a Neo-Confederate. He’s letting his keep women “barefoot & pregnant” sentiments hang out.
mistake chivalry for chauvenism.
I really don’t know a polite way to put this. That is the stupidest remark I have heard in these comments in quite a while; it only works if you like purty words that kinda sound alike, but don’t know their meanin’. (btw, the year is 2009, not 1209 as Captain Obvious thinks, or 1949, as McCain thinks.)
moonbat, come on. “Snark” must be based on a realistic observation. Everything about that post was phony. I won’t repeat all the points I made in my comments above; if you choose to disregard them, fine, but I stand by them, absolutely.
at least he’s repulsed by Plan B
Then he shouldn’t ever take it.
If I don’t want you to be treated like garbage… Not only am I “dictating†that you “shall not be treated like garbage,†but I am actively treating you like garbage in the process?
You, sir, mistake chauvinism for chivalry. What you and R.S. don’t get: We are not objects. We are human beings. Respecting us means respecting that we can think for ourselves. Your idea of “chivalry” denies women their own moral agency and free will.
As the song says, all I want is respect. You can take “chivalry” and shove it up your ass.
moonbat — Again, McCain’s ideas about Plan B, birth control or abortion aren’t what pissed me off. The picture ought to be a clue as to what did piss me off.
I’m going to do something with the intent of obtaining honest, sincere responses.
I do NOT want to start some sort of firestorm or have this blog firing shots at McCain’s blog. I do NOT know McCain. Until this morning, when I read Andy Sullivan’s blog, I had neither read nor heard of McCain. And I cannot, after reading more of the guy’s blog, say that I agree with him on much.
I read Sully’s blog this morning and found his Malkin designation for the three paragraphs of McCain’s entry that Sully had selected kind of odd. I have little use for Malkin. But to me, McCain’s three graphs – NOT the whole entry, which I had not read – made a certain amount of sense.
I’m not a big fan of teen pregnancy or what I chose to call young Bristols and Levis getting into the Parent Business. I’m a guy, but I don’t think many guys treat ladies with the respect they deserve. I support a woman’s right to have the first, and last, say on the activities and responsibilities of her body. I’d prefer that people be married and stable in both the areas of maturity and finance before they decide to get into the Parent Business. Maybe one or all of these beliefs make me a fool. Won’t be the first time. Or most likely the last.
So, I’m going to post below the comment that I wrote on McCain’s site. If you think I’m incorrect somehow, I ask that you respectfully tell me so. If you think I make some sense, reading about that would be nice, too.
I really believe that teen pregnancy is an important issue, one that requires men and women to talk honestly and respectfully to each other and, more important, to appreciate and understand everyone’s opinions on the matter.
I am NOT doing this to drive up traffic, start some sort of blog vs. blog battle, or be a pain in the backside. I do not want to control the flow of the debate. I’d just like to add to it in a meaningful way.
So, if possible, I’d like to read your thoughts on the matter. And I thank you for your time.
My Comment to McCain:
If your argument is that too many men in this country make babies and then make tracks, I agree.
If your argument is that too many men in this country have no respect for women and will do anything, including pump them full of booze and drugs, to have sex, I agree.
If your argument is that protection (i.e. condoms) should be mandatory for sex between two people unless those people are (a) married, (b) want to get in the Parent Business, and (c) have the marital and financial strength and commitment to get into the Parent Business, I agree.
If your argument is that 17-year-old kids, let’s call them Bristols and Levis, would be better off postponing intercourse until the Bristols and Levis have aged a bit and matured even more, I agree.
If your argument is some sort of Maggie Gallagher screed that abortion is evil and sex is Satan in his/her/its purest form, I disagree.
Spell things out a bit.
P.S. I found your Malkin, at face value, to be perhaps the most un-Michelle comment I’ve ever seen land Andy’s honor. Then again, I don’t know you and your work well.
P.S.S. Sorry, no google account. I’ve got enough passwords to remember.
Name is Mark.
Maha: You completely misunderstand me, and I believe Mr. McCain too. You are entitled to your interpretation of this man’s opinions, and also entitled to your horror at the sexual abuse aspect of this tragedy, but I believe you wildly overstep the mark in representing Mr. McCain’s views through the lens of your own committed beliefs.
I reiterate: I don’t believe I hold a single political viewpoint in common with this man, but I can see what motivates him to write his mind here and I feel your response is wildly disproportionate to the opinions being offered and the likely motives behind that opinion. It reads as if you haven’t even spent a moment trying to understand his position – as far as you’re concerned, the fact that he does not share your intense outrage at the sexual abuse aspect of the tragedy makes him absolutely wrong, and you no longer need to listen to what he is actually trying to say.
As a Buddhist, I had hoped that you would pursue Right Speech and Right Action in a spirit of compassion… here, you are enforcing your interpretation on a situation where I believe it is far from warranted, and thus driving people to write “hate comments” in the blog of someone who is an incredibly mild example of right-wing beliefs. This is not any kind of social justice I recognise.
Is it your view that Right Speech and Right Action (or for that matter, feminism) means simply enforcing your morality on other people? In which case you are no better than the “wingnuts” you lambast. The feminist movement was supposed to be about liberating *all* minorities, not about enforcing one specific social agenda.
Honestly, you complain constantly at the intractability of the “wingnuts” with regards to their political and social beliefs (and with just cause most of the time!) but here you are condemning a man simply because he views the use of women as sexual objects as offensive, and sees the disbanding of so many families, and the putting into the care of so many children, as a difficult outcome to rationalise. I know this isn’t how his words read to you.
Can you really say with absolute confidence that in ten years time the sexual abuse aspect of the FLDS tragedy will have caused more anguish and distress in the victims than being torn from their community and rendered an orphan en masse? I find both aspects really quite distressing, which is perhaps why I can have sympathy for both perspectives being offered here, and I find your attack on Mr. McCain for attempting to draw attention to the latter aspect of the tragedy (however badly expressed) to be quite shameful. I wonder, in ten, twenty years, what the victims themselves will have to say on the matter… Certainly, you cannot know that they will share your opinion simply because you feel your views so deeply.
It seems to me that you have demonised this man for not sharing your beliefs, which I personally see as a betrayal of the original feminist ideal, and certainly wildly shy of the standards of the Eightfold Path.
Please do not reply to this comment – I don’t have time to debate you on this, and I have no desire to do so when you’re in the grip of your sharp-tongued anger. Either dismiss my views, as it seems you already have, and move on, or meditate on what I am saying and try to see that upholding our human rights agreements should mean more than raging at those who believe differently to us.
Your interpretation is not the only possible perspective on this matter – to suggest that it is strikes me as being as far from the ideals of the Buddha as imaginable. That you would go further and impugn my motives for attempting (clearly unsuccessfully!) to intercede on this man’s behalf is truly depressing. I despair for a great nation brought low by two squabbling ideologies that it seems have both descended into partisan hate-mongering.
“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.”
Namaste.
Mark and Chris — Please read what I just added to the post.
Update: It’s astonishing to me that I have to spell this out more explicitly, but apparently I do — If you want to know what shocked me about McCain’s post, please read again what I wrote above — the male wingnut understands women not as human beings, but as objects that men do things to. Note also the photograph. These are clues.
Basically, what McCain says in his post is that women are objects who must be either used or protected by men. He gives women no respect as autonomous human beings. To McCain, women are projections of men — of lust, scorn, idealism, whatever.
I bolded the two sentence above because it gets to the heart of my problem with McCain’s post. He may see himself as “chivalrous,” but his attitude toward women is the same as a rapist’s attitude. That he has assigned himself the role of “protector” makes little difference; it’s just the flip side of the same uber-patronizing coin. McCain may not rape women physically, but he is a rapist nonetheless because he denies their humanity.
Now, let’s walk through McCain’s post. This paragraph:
First off, the narrative above describes what is commonly called “date rape.” Let’s be clear about that.
Second, who is not actually participating in this narrative? The woman is not participating. The man gets her drunk, uses her body, and then takes her to CVS for Plan B. At no point in this narrative is the woman presented as a person with free will who can decide for herself what to do. The man is the only participant. The woman is just a doll. She is not a human being, but an object. This is a rapists’ attitude, of course.
Next paragraph:
As joan 16 says, “cheap whore” was a slip of the mask. It may be that he was mimicking the attitude of a man using a 17-year-old for sex, but where is his concern for the 17-year-old who has been used? Does he think 17-year-old girls were never used for sex before Plan B was available? Does he think that denying Plan B to a 17-year-old who has been raped is an act of compassion for her? Does he think that men who date rape women are thinking of long-term consequences at all at the time?
Further, does he think that all 17-year-olds who have sex do so in a date rape scenario? Isn’t it possible that two teenagers sometimes give in to nature’s most compelling temptation? One may not approve of sex outside marriage, but the girl who gives in to the temptation is no less a human being afterward than the boy, and she is entitled to the same respects and considerations due to any other human being.
Instead, McCain is saying girls must conform to his projected expectation of being “pure,” or he will re-assign them the alternative projected status of “cheap whore.” Out of his sight, she has no reality at all. He has no perception of or empathy with her life and the realities of an unplanned pregnancy.
For those of you who didn’t see that, I rather doubt that my spelling it out is going to make any difference. But there it is.
Chris — Oh, cut the sanctimonious crap. My “beliefs” have nothing to do with this. This tells me you are asleep at the wheel —
here you are condemning a man simply because he views the use of women as sexual objects as offensive
McCain himself is a prime “user.” He may not use women physically, but his writing reveals that he has no perception of women other than as sexual objects. It’s attitudes like McCain’s that enable rape.
I’d not intended to enter the fray, preferring to gnaw around the periphery, but…
I must agree that the presumed responsibility of the male to take her to buy her “Plan B” is telling and most curious…as if absolving oneself were of prime importance in a situation in which the feelings of another, or consideration of them, apparently did not rise to some level worthy of mention.
That’s not just telling but actually astounding. Nor is it a stretch to characterize tone and even warped outlook from what is so glaringly absent from McCains take on these matters.
I also find the argument “But he did not come out and say THAT” a little silly, naive, or disingenuous…take your pick. In some ways this is a question of the heart not the intellect or word parsing and I wonder how well some know their own.
To “who moi?” everyone must come up with their own answers. For someone who is ostensibly in control of their meaning, emphasis on some things and lack of it on others contributes to a given meaning. That can hardly be a case of mistaken perception.
I see no “left turns” being taken with regard to how his post is being understood here nor would I ever defend McCain or even give him the benefit of the doubt after reading something like this. His meaning will be on a short leash with me. He has earned that much.
In the comment sections of recent posts on this blog, I’ve noticed a very disturbing trend among folks who consider themselves progressive: the rise of an apparent “modus operandi” (no one dares call it a “belief” or an “opinion”) that the dignity, rights, and lives of women and girls are expendable to the progressive folks’ personal conspiracy theories.
Example: women who speak against female infanticide and culturally-enforced abortions purely for gender selection, are cultural bigots.
Example: women who point out that the Taliban abused and oppressed women, are repeating right-wing “talking points.”
Example: women criticize someone who, unaware of the state of relations between 17-year-old males and females in 2009, reaches back to the days of his youth for a piece that sounds like Dashiell Hammett wrote it after Lillian Hellman smacked him around,* and the women are in the wrong.
*Note to the confused: I’m not saying Lillian Hellman ever actually did that. Something else that is NOT snark: hyperbole.
In order to stake out these positions, the progressives do some mighty violent logical acrobatics. They argue that female infanticide and sex-selective abortion in other cultures are caused by economic factors, then argue that improving the economic status of women in those cultures won’t make a difference. They argue (as near as anyone could tell) that Americans aren’t entitled to any opinion, whatsoever, on what religious-fundamentalist governments around the world are doing to their female citizens. They argue that it is “sharp-tongued anger” to point out sharp-tongued anger, that it is “enforcing [one’s] morality on other people” to criticize someone else for trying to enforce their morality on other people.
For some of us, all this is extremely old news. People would rather think and say nonsensical things than deal with the world’s oldest prejudice; in large part, this is why it remains the world’s oldest. I am reminded of the scene in Taming of the Shrew when Petruchio, messing with Kate’s head in order to gain control over her temperament, keeps arguing with her that the sun in the sky is actually the moon. In the end she relents and agrees with him, in order to shut him up so they can proceed on their journey to her home.
But the sun remained the sun; not the moon, and not a rush-candle, and Kate knew that. So, people can wring their hands over aware, obstreperous women if they must, but they have to bear in mind we’ve been putting up with it for many thousands of years, and we’ve heard it all by now.
Pat:
I must agree that the presumed responsibility of the male to take her to buy her “Plan B†is telling and most curious…as if absolving oneself were of prime importance in a situation in which the feelings of another, or consideration of them, apparently did not rise to some level worthy of mention.
That’s not just telling but actually astounding. Nor is it a stretch to characterize tone and even warped outlook from what is so glaringly absent from McCains take on these matters.
Thank you! That was the exact spot in his narrative that set off alarms for me, too.
Consider that another way this narrative might have gone is that the young woman, after sobering up and realizing what has been done to her, chooses not to take Plan B for whatever reason. Maybe she is personally opposed to it. Oddly, McCain doesn’t even entertain the possibility that the young woman has anything to say about taking Plan B and might object to it, preferring to take her chances with a possible pregnancy.
His whole perspective is entirely male-centric.
joan — Yes, exactly.
I remember that before 9/11 there was a faction of western feminists trying to call attention to what the Taliban were doing to women in Afghanistan. They seem to have disappeared.
Clown sez: “Beware of the harlot all saucy and pert, for she seeks to devour you.”
Naw…It only seems that way…And besides, them gals hardly ever swallow…
(Uh…I hear)
maha,
Thank you for the reply.
You make several salient points with which I agree. I have no use with the way that most men – NOT all men, I respectfully submit – treat women. Call me a fool, but as a guy, I believe that a woman should be treated with respect, dignity, compassion, caring, and as an equal. I’m certainly no great white knight on a shining steed. Never tried to be. Don’t want to be. And I cannot say that the majority of my male peers take the same point of view.
I am representing my own views – not those of the male species.
I find rape to the be among the most heinous of crimes. I will not defend a man’s definition of “I thought she said” or “she really wanted it” or “she was just teasing me” or any other crap that can be conjured up as a defense. No means no. Period. No does not mean wait. No does not mean maybe. No does not mean I want you to take me. No does not mean I want you to seduce me. No means only no.
I don’t know this McCain well. I cannot say that I agree with much of the rest of his post outside of these three paragraphs. I read it, and this is just me, as the writer (whose gender I did not know) being angry, as I am, about men treating women as sexual objects and having no respect for the responsibilities and obligations that are inherent with sharing yourself with another or potentially producing a child together. I have no use whatsoever for men who make babies and make tracks. Our society has suffered, and will continue to suffer, as a result of such actions and attitudes. I believe I have made that clear in the above post.
I do wonder, with all due respect and with NO INTENTION of attempting to either defend McCain or stir up some sort of fight, if you’re not reading a bit too much into McCain’s post. You have explained to me in detail your perception of what McCain wrote. And it appears that you know McCain far better than I. I have taken the time to peruse other posts on McCain’s site and I can’t agree with the guy on anything. I find many of his views rather barbaric and indicative, sadly, of someone who thinks Milton Friedman and Joe McCarthy were some sort of deities.
Again, and I cannot emphasize this enough, I respect your opinion and admit that you know his opinions on a wide variety of issues far better than I. And I don’t want to start some sort of war.
Instead, I’d just prefer that women retain the right to exercise final authority over their own bodies, that they be treated deservedly so as equals, that teenage pregnancy be seen as the life-changing and society-altering problem that it is, and that we find some way to educate kids to make reasonable lifestyle choices to avoid becoming (a) parents, (b) owners of sexual diseases, and (c) responsible, mature, capable adults who have the abilities and understanding to deal with their own lives and the lives of others.
I don’t know if such a pill will assist to these ends. And I don’t know if we can find any way to address the problem of teen pregnancy. But I’m willing to take a shot. With respect for women and with appreciation for their viewpoints and ideas. I surely don’t have the answers. Hell, I’ve got too many questions.
Thanks for your time.
Mistyped the second graph from the end. It should read:
Instead, I’d just prefer that women retain the right to exercise final authority over their own bodies, that they be treated deservedly so as equals, that teenage pregnancy be seen as the life-changing and society-altering problem that it is, and that we find some way to educate kids to make reasonable lifestyle choices to avoid becoming (a) parents AND (b) owners of sexual diseases UNTIL THEY ARE responsible, mature, capable adults who have the abilities and understanding to deal with their own lives and the lives of others.
That’s what I get for not proofing before hitting submit.
I don’t know this McCain well. I cannot say that I agree with much of the rest of his post outside of these three paragraphs. I read it, and this is just me, as the writer (whose gender I did not know) being angry, as I am, about men treating women as sexual objects and having no respect for the responsibilities and obligations that are inherent with sharing yourself with another or potentially producing a child together.
McCain has a long track record of un-self-conscious misogyny. I’m sure he sees himself as the white knight type, but he’s anything but.
Rape is a particularly heinous form of physical assault because it is utterly dehumanizing in a way that non-sexual assault is not. Too often the response is just as de-humanizing. The conservative who denies assaulted women a morning-after pill or an abortion is raping her also.
McCain may sincerely think he is doing women a “favor” by standing up to their “right to purity,” but in fact he objectifies them in much the same way a rapist does. We’d all like to see irresponsible men taught some lessons, but denying women control over their own reproduction is just compounding the issue of sexual violation, not solving it.
Well done. Jesse Taylor’s post on this one was also good.
Its sad but I didnt pick up the gist until your explaination. Its all because I expect wingnuts to be just like RSM and I have gotten used to their disrespect/contempt for women and other normal behavior. This is what is conservatism now a days.
I cant even get myself to visit any wingnut site. Its bad enough to know that they exist.
The nonsense really has compounded overnight. But since it’s amusing for the moment I’ll continue to reply.
Now because I “don’t want women (or men for that matter) treated like garbage”… suddenly you know that “I” in addition to McCain must obviously treat men and women as some doll objects? My wife, object that she is, would be surprised…
You have done nothing but further demonstrate a total lack of logical process in your frequent leaps to conclusion.
“Basically, what McCain says in his post is that women are objects who must be either used or protected by men. He gives women no respect as autonomous human beings. To McCain, women are projections of men — of lust, scorn, idealism, whatever.”
He says nothing of the sort. The false dichotomy is of your own construction. The very act of replying to you disproves you; by showing disapproval of your libel, I in no way imply McCain is some helpless “object” of “scorn, idealism, whatever” who is incapable of defending himself.
“Projection” however, is exactly the right word for assigning thoughts and feelings to McCain, and assigning exact motives like “letting the mask slip” to his diction in a single phrase which could have been chosen for any of a dozen reasons of which you have no direct knowledge.
This is the crux of your argument: by expressing only the male perspective in this one anecdote, he “obviously” is incapable of appreciating the female perspective.
“Obviously” if you tell someone how to ride a bike, you are incapable of telling them how to ride a bus.
It is a gross assumption, wholely on your part, that disapproval of womenizer men implies some equal disdain for the womenized women. It is a complete fabrication, wholely on your part, to infer from one anecdote of a hypothetical victimization, a nefarious implication that all women must be inevitable powerless victims of identical circumstance.
“as if absolving oneself were of prime importance in a situation in which the feelings of another, or consideration of them, apparently did not rise to some level worthy of mention.”
This is exactly where your erroneous conflation occurs, as you confuse as convictions of the author those which are the considerations of the hypothetical man, of whose “omission” the author disapproves
This little bit of logical contortion is exactly what makes it a BIG STRETCH INDEED to “characterize tone and even warped outlook from what is so glaringly absent from McCains take on these matters.” What you seek is NOT absent from McCain, but absent from the hypothetical man. That absense for which you condemn McCain is glaringly PRESENT as the absence for which McCain is condemning his hypothetical man in the same manner that you would also if you thought about it honestly.
Let me tell you a story:
Dick is a jerk. Dick lives with Jane. They both have to use the restroom. Dick leaves the toilet seat up like any “normal” man.
Analysis: Why is Dick a Jerk? Not because he leaves the toilet seat up, but because he doesn’t consider Jane. This is true even though the author doesn’t state anything from Jane’s perspective. Does this imply Jane is some object incapable of putting the seat down without Dick’s help? Or incapable of yelling at Dick to leave the damn seat down this time? No, neither. And it uses an ironic literary device to imply the author’s disapproval of the “normality” of Dick’s behavior.
If the author is a “chauvenist” for expressing disapproval of Dick’s inconsiderateness, then every man and woman on the face of the planet is either a chauvenist, or an inconsiderate jerk. Hence the false dichotomy created by continuing to confuse chauvenism for civility (since chivalry is such an objectionable word!)
You can NOT logically characterize a lament of possible objectification and an absence of positive feminine perspective as an ACT of specific objectification and PROOF of a negative feminine perspective.
What happens if you do? Given that McCain’s complaint against victimization of women makes McCain a victimizer of women himself. Following this line of reasoning, your complaint against McCain’s victimization of women would make you a victimizer of women yourself. Given that McCain’s lack of feminine perspective in response to the issue shows a victimization of femininity. Following this line of reasoning, your lack of masculine perspective in response to McCain shows a victimization of masculinity. I don’t empirically find you’re a victimizer for either of those reasons, so if the logic is consistent and the conclusions are faulty, then the premises must also be faulty.
All you want is respect as you tell people to shove things up their ass. Good luck with that. Respect has to be earned, usually by showing some first. Some calm and dispassionate communication could help in that regard. You can reasonably argue that you feel Plan B prescription de-regulation won’t lead to “any” objectification of women by jerk-men, but continuing to demonize an opposed debater as one of the objectifier-jerk-men distracts from any reasonable argument you could have made in that regard.
“Isn’t it possible that two teenagers sometimes give in to nature’s most compelling temptation? One may not approve of sex outside marriage, but the girl who gives in to the temptation is no less a human being afterward than the boy, and she is entitled to the same respects and considerations due to any other human being.”
It seems to me he probably doesn’t think that women like sex or actually want to have it largely because he’s never known a woman to want or enjoy having sex with HIM and thinks that extrapolates out to the rest of the world. Except for the “cheap whores,” of course, and they are just pretending anyway.
This might have been the most long-winded and pointless exchange I’ve ever read on any blog. Captain Obvious above has this nailed down rock solid, although why he expended so much verbiage trying to convince some people who OBVIOUSLY have an obvious not-so-hidden agenda I’ll never know.
I had never read any of McCain’s stuff before this post, and I may well not ever again. He impresses me as a would-be intellectual conservative, who tries to win over the moderates with his rather highbrow (for Conservatives at least) rhetoric and reasoning, all of which still embraces and advocates for the true red meat core issues without which the party could not survive.
Whatever, I read his article several times with the comments above in mind, and I just could not in all fairness attribute to him ANY of the motives that MaHa implies. NONE! He’s simply stating the obvious downsides to extending Plan B to 17 year olds from what was, I must say, a decidedly cynical (but not unrealistic in my view) view of young male behavior. No, he did not address the female point of view at all, but as Captain Obvious pointed out better than I ever could above, it simply does not follow that that makes him either a chauvinist or misogynist. If, in McCain’s other writings, he’s written stuff to support that point of view, fine, reference it. But to attribute phantom attributes to the man based merely on what the blogger views as sins of omission strikes me every bit as wingnutty as the object of her derision.
James, McCain’s motives are not really the issue. It’s his skewed perceptions I object to; his unconsciousness. And the Plan B post is only one exhibit in the same hall. Of course, unconscious people (such as yourself) cannot recognize their own unconsciousness. I don’t know what it’s going to take to wake you and McCain up, or even if it’s possible. Just know that you are unconscious.
maha,
Thanks for that. I’ll keep an open mind for now in the interest of civility, since merely being called ‘unconcious’ is one of the better slurs I’ve been tagged with lately. Nonetheless, it strikes me that you would do well to listen to responses like mine and Captain Obvious’s above, as I only found your post through a link to a link from I forget where (Andrew Sullivan I think). Rest assured, those of a conservative leaning mind (including RS McCain no doubt) are holding your blog up as a shining example of the ‘wingnuttieness’ of the radical ‘feminista’ left of the ‘democrat’ party. From this single post, I’m not sure I could defend you (and I know, I know, the whole “who needs defending” and all that “agency shit” from before).
This is just me, but you should REALLY be a bit more receptive and inclusive with regard to who you call friends, and just a TAD less quick to villify others, based on your characterizations which just MIGHT, just MIGHT mind you, not actually be justified. Peace out!
Sorry,
Gotta add, the tile thing (I assume its computer generated) seems a bit pejortative as well, don’t you think? You should really show more concern for your ‘guests’ IMO.
James
Rest assured, those of a conservative leaning mind (including RS McCain no doubt) are holding your blog up as a shining example of the ‘wingnuttieness’ of the radical ‘feminista’ left of the ‘democrat’ party.
I’ve been beyond caring what misogynists think of me for several decades.
Gotta add, the tile thing (I assume its computer generated) seems a bit pejortative as well, don’t you think? You should really show more concern for your ‘guests’ IMO.
It is computer generated. If you don’t like it, you can go to
http://en.gravatar.com/
and upload any picture you like.
Good-bye.
Hey, James.. Did you read R.S. McCain’s piece on Sarah Palin? I agree with him that she would make the perfect “Hottie in Chief”.. And I can understand (as a Male) how Todd Palin would be thrilled to know that millions of young boys across this nation would be waxing their carrots with visions of his hot prize wife stimulating their fantasies.
After all, it’s a natural male characteristic to pride yourself in your conquest…at least according to R.S.McCain
Waxing their carrots? I don’t think I’ve heard that one before.
The only thing this post has accomplished is to call RS McCain names. When you address someone’s argument by silently dismissing his premises, substituting your premises in his argument, and then ridiculing the non-sequitur, you’re not arguing your point of view, in fact you aren’t really arguing at all, you’re merely throwing sticks and stones by literally stealing the meaning of your opponent’s words. You’ve made no actual point.