This Can't Be Ok

Today we need to stand up and say this is unacceptable.

There are issues in this country to which there are shades.  On these questions, one may lean to the left, but reason dictates that we acknowledge that there are legitimate counterpoints to a position.  Fiscal conservatism merits discussion even when you support large government.

I am a staunch progressive, Democrat, liberal, woman.  Choose the phrase with which you want to saddle me.  And I have long abhorred the idea that a man, be it my father, my president, my husband, or my priest, thinks he has a right to tell me what I can and can't do with my body - to dictate that I WILL support another organism in my body and then force me to give birth to it.  But even on this issue, I will concede that there are shades.  Abortion is a deeply personal issue.  It goes to the core of an individual's beliefs about life and our place in it.  And so while I fiercely believe it is a protected right, I don't argue that one opinion may be just as valid as another on the subject.

Rape, on the other hand, is not an issue.  It is a sad, cold, hard fact.  Violence against women in this country is regretfully prevalent.  It is unreported, rampant, and one in five women will be raped - mostly by men they know.  Rape is a crime of violence, dominance, anger, and hate.  It is not a sexual crime.  And it's certainly not a political question.  It isn't something we as a nation should try to define. And yet from a story making lots of hay on the internet today:

"'First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare,' Akin said of rape-induced pregnancy...

'If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,' Akin continued. He did not provide an explanation for what constituted 'legitimate rape.'"

That was, of course, Todd Akin, an (obviously Republican) candidate for Senate in Missouri.

When I first heard the comments this morning, I had some strong reactions.  I coped with the obvious humor: "Oh really?!  Legitimate rape, you say?  So glad my body's got this covered.  But God forbid I'm acting all hussy-like and ASKING for the rape.  Because then I clearly deserve it, and the fetus that will result."

Sarcasm is my forte.  

But I've had more time to reflect.  And get more angry.  Profoundly angry with Mr. Akin, his party, his party's candidate for president, this country, and myself.  How have we created a culture where we could call into question the "legitimacy" of one of the most traumatic things that could happen to a woman.  A traumatic thing that happens to one in five women!?  A traumatic thing that happens almost exclusively to women and perpetrated almost exclusively by men.

Name one other group of victims of violent crime it is acceptable to subtly (or not) criticize, degrade, or belittle.  You don't see a lot of molested children being told it was their fault.  That their molestation wasn't really legitimate.

What makes this all the more infuriating is that this isn't the first time this issue has come up; this isn't even the first time this year.  It seems the flurry of internet anger has just died down over Tosh.0's incredibly insensitive comments about the humor of raping a female in his audience.

And now, Akin has "clarified" that he meant to say "forcible rape" instead of "legitimate rape."  Which, of course, brings him into line with all the other Republicans in state legislatures across the country who tried (and sometimes succeeded) at passing bills limiting abortion to only those instances of "forcible rape."  

There is an undercurrent in our culture that suggests rape isn't real, that women are asking for it.  But what this undercurrent is really about is that women are becoming equals; that we occasionally act like men and have sex for pleasure.  And like men, we hope to have that sex without consequences.  How dare we go so far?  And in response, these "conservative" men retaliate by conflating sexual liberation with a truly traumatic act that has nothing to do with sex and existed long before sexual liberation.  In the process these Republican men ensure that women will be second-class citizens in this culture as long as this current exists.

We continue to be paid less.  Our health costs and diseases continue to receive less money.  Our need for birth control continues to be called into question.  We continue to experience discrimination in the workplace.  And the most humiliating crime against women continues to be trivialized.

So today I'm galvanized.  I don't want to feel like this anymore.  I am better educated and work harder than most men in this country, and I don't want to just read another article about this.  I am writing letters and giving money today.

I ask you to join me.  Do something.  I don't care what it is, but let someone know this isn't acceptable.  And maybe 20 years from now, my daughter won't have to know that some ignoramus in Missouri tried to tack a modifier onto rape.  Because there is just rape.  And these comments can't be ok.