Sunday Inspiration - Women It's Now or Never

Barmy Bible Study - The Biblical Kind of Rape

It's Wednesday Thursday Friday night! Time for Barmy Bible Study!

In light of recent public confusion about the rape thing and what the right-thinking Christian view on that whole thing should be, our text for tonight will be a selection of verses pertaining to this issue. Because the Biblical promises and exhortations for righteous rape are so numerous, I will only post a small sampling here. For extra credit, go and read more on the subject yourself. The Good Book™ is stuffed with stories of the Biblical kind of rape so you'll have no trouble finding plenty of references.

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual assault; violence.

(Atheists and other haters of God's Holy Word skip down past the blue text)

Exodus 21:7-11 (Righteous treatment of female property)
When a man sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself,[b] he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.

Judges 19: 20-28 (A rape is prevented)
20 Then the old man said, “Welcome! Let me take care of your needs. Just don’t spend the night in the city square.” 21 So he took the Levite to his house and fed the donkeys. After they washed, they ate and drank.22 While they were enjoying themselves, some worthless men from the city surrounded the house and pounded on the door. They told the old man, the owner of the house, “Bring out the man who came to your house so that we can have sex with him.”23 The owner went out to them. He told them, “No, my friends! Please don’t do anything so evil! This man is a guest in my home. Don’t do such a godless thing! 24 Here, let me bring out my virgin daughter and this man’s concubine. Rape them, and do with them whatever you want. Just don’t do such a godless thing to this man.”

Thank God! A legitimate rape was averted!

25 But the men refused to listen to him. So the Levite grabbed his concubine and forced her outside. They had sex with her and abused her all night until morning. They let her go when the sun was coming up. 26 At daybreak, the woman came to the door of the house where her husband was and collapsed. She was still there when it became light.27 Her husband got up in the morning, opened the doors of the house, and was about to leave. His wife (that is, his concubine) was lying at the door of the house with her hands on the doorstep. 28 The Levite said to her, “Get up! Let’s go!” But she did not answer. So he put her on the donkey and left for home.

2 Samuel 12:11-14 (David's punishment)
 Thus says the Lord: 'I will bring evil upon you out of your own house.  I will take your wives while you live to see it, and will give them to your neighbor.  He shall lie with your wives in broad daylight.  You have done this deed in secret, but I will bring it about in the presence of all Israel, and with the sun looking down.'
 Then David said to Nathan, "I have sinned against the Lord."  Nathan answered David: "The Lord on his part has forgiven your sin: you shall not die.  But since you have utterly spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely die."  

It isn't legitimate rape if a man has
paid fifty shekels for that girl!
That's Biblical rape - the godly kind!

Deuteronomy 22:28-29 (Justice for stolen property)
“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days.

Judges 21:10-14 (God will provide)
Then the men of Benjamin returned to their homes, and the four hundred women of Jabesh-gilead who were spared were given to them as wives.  But there were not enough women for all of them.  The people felt sorry for Benjamin because the LORD had left this gap in the tribes of Israel.  So the Israelite leaders asked, "How can we find wives for the few who remain, since all the women of the tribe of Benjamin are dead?  There must be heirs for the survivors so that an entire tribe of Israel will not be lost forever.  But we cannot give them our own daughters in marriage because we have sworn with a solemn oath that anyone who does this will fall under God's curse."
 Then they thought of the annual festival of the LORD held in Shiloh, between Lebonah and Bethel, along the east side of the road that goes from Bethel to Shechem.  They told the men of Benjamin who still needed wives, "Go and hide in the vineyards.  When the women of Shiloh come out for their dances, rush out from the vineyards, and each of you can take one of them home to be your wife!  And when their fathers and brothers come to us in protest, we will tell them, 'Please be understanding.  Let them have your daughters, for we didn't find enough wives for them when we destroyed Jabesh-gilead. And you are not guilty of breaking the vow since you did not give your daughters in marriage to them.'"  So the men of Benjamin did as they were told.  They kidnapped the women who took part in the celebration and carried them off to the land of their own inheritance.  

Deuteronomy 22:23-24 (Justice for woman's sinfulness)

Why didn't she cry out?
Evil temptress! Stone her!

“If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor's wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Zechariah 14:1-2
Behold, a day is coming for the Lord, when the spoil taken from you will be divided in your midst. For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city shall be taken and the houses plundered and the women raped. Half of the city shall go out into exile, but the rest of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

Deuteronomy 20:10-14 (Enemies who ask for it)
“When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it. And if it responds to you peaceably and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you. But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it. And when the Lord your God gives it into your hand, you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the livestock, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as plunder for yourselves. And you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the Lord your God has given you.

Judges 5:30
‘Have they not found and divided the spoil?— A womb or two for every man; spoil of dyed materials for Sisera, spoil of dyed materials embroidered, two pieces of dyed work embroidered for the neck as spoil?’

Study Questions for The Biblical Kind of Rape

1. Does God intend for rape to happen? If so, what would be Biblical rape?

2. Is there any such thing as "legitimate rape"?

3. What can we learn from God's rules about Biblical rape and how can we apply these lessons to modern Christian life?

Yes, exactly as God intended! 
What is the matter with
you silly feminists? 
Read your Bible, Ban!

Before these questions can be properly answered, we need a little background. Bible-believers understand that there is a foundational Truth™ upon which all of the Abrahamic religions are based. Everything written in the Bible about rape - and every "extreme" thing that Christian hardliners have been saying - makes perfect sense once this fundamental Biblical Truth is clearly understood. It is about time for every righteous person (and you too, ladies!) in the Christian United States of America to shout it out, loud and proud:

God's ultimate creation is MAN.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 2.

The book of Genesis tells us with crystal clarity that God did not create two "equal" sexes at the beginning of time, contrary to the revisionist theology of liberal so-called Christians. God created man, who alone was given dominion over all the other creatures of the earth and over the land and the waters, too. Adam was the prototype for all mankind; the original - the only soul-breathed, fully human creation in our male God's image. All of the politically correct, feminazi-controlled language which insists on twisting God's Holy Word to pretend an unBiblical, inclusive equality obscures the Truth™. Feminist women and men (may God forgive them!) have caused enough confusion and it is time to put a stop to it. It's time to take back the language, too, America! God did not create "humankind"; He created "mankind". Man is God's only fully human creation and it is high time we stopped bowing to godless liberal pressure and pretending otherwise.

Thank you, God,
for not making me a woman!
(Men's daily prayer)

This is the Biblical Truth™ which Christians intend to restore to its proper place as the foundation of human society: Man is the ultimate, soul-breathed  godly creation while wombman woman is an afterthought. She is a flawed thing - not quite human and not quite animal - created to serve man's needs. The men who wrote the book of Genesis were unquivocal: God had no prior plans to create woman in her own right like the beasts of the land, the fishes in the sea and His pièce de résistance - man. She was merely pulled out of man - a fraction of the man, so to speak - a little bit like him but much less than he. Man is primary, the pinnacle of creation, moral and thoughtful, a living soul - the delight of the Almighty. Woman is derivative, an animal made from a spare body part, amoral and thoughtless, devoid of the god-breathed soul which entitles man to his amazingly god-like dominance over all of creation, including her - the afterthought of the God of man.

Before the fall, man was right with God. He ruled over all the creatures of the earth without cruelty or strife. That was before the mistake of woman. Woman - that afterthought probably best left uncreated - brought man down and they were expelled from Eden and condemned to die. No longer guaranteed eternal life, the man had to procreate so that his kind could live on after his death. For this, he was able to use the womb that God had provided, which is why for all of Bible-influenced history women have been ruthlessly reduced to their biological reproductive function. Finally, the female helpmeet's role was defined! Sex was employed (reluctantly by man, lasciviously by woman) after the fall as a way for man to reproduce and carry on his line (while he awaits the day when God finally relents and restores him to eternal life). Bible-believers understand that the womb woman's duty is to be the vessel through which man brings his issue into the world. Look, don't blame Christians, this is God's Holy Word.

Tch tch! Is it any wonder people
don't believe he is a Christian?

Thus, a woman's sole purpose in life, according to God's Holy Word, is to conceive and bear children to men - sons to carry on his line and daughters to provide wombs for his sons to continue the line of man. Males are persons while females are empty vessels to be used by men to produce more persons. A woman is meant to suffer in childbearing; it is God's punishment on her for the sins of Eve. She must never have control over any man; she is the tool of man so that he can beget sons. Her daughters will also be the tools of men. She has no right to choose, to consent or to deny. Like a man's livestock and beasts of burden, her purpose is to serve man. Like the livestock, she has no thoughts or feelings that are worthy of notice; she is the property of her father until she becomes the property of her husband. As our own CHIC, Ann Romney, so succinctly put it: It's how it is.  This is simply the inerrant Biblical Truth. 

It isn't that Christians want it to be this way - indeed, in their human frailty, most men mistakenly believe in the humanity of women and many are deeply troubled by the Biblical god's insistence that females have no intrinsic worth. But we are a Christian nation! The Bible has tough parts that liberal men may not want to hear, but righteous Christians must insist that they listen. It is imperative that this humanist morality be rooted out and replaced with stronger, righteous Biblical morality, which is why getting Bible-based teaching into our schools and into our laws is the top priority of Christian fundamentalists.

When the Truth™ (according to the author of Genesis) is understood, the lessons about sex, rape and procreation in the Bible - and indeed, the teachings of all of the Abrahamic religions regarding relations between men and lower creation - make perfect sense. Armed with this knowledge, the sincere Bible believer can easily answer the study questions in tonight's Bible Study.

1. Does God intend rape to happen?

Listen up, Liberals: there was no mistake.
These godly men speak nothing but
the Truth™ of God's Holy Word

The short answer is yes. God allows - and sometimes even commands (2 Samuel) - men to force sexual intercourse onto unwilling women and to force pregnancy upon women without their consent. Because He loves man and recognizes the weak human morality which tends toward empathy for others, God would prefer to see mankind enjoy the dignity of loving, consensual unions with willing women. Indeed, that is the Christian ideal, but the provocative nature of fickle, flirtatious females sometimes gives some Christian men no choice but to force the issue.

But, that is not legitimate rape. It is Biblical rape. As explained above, women were created for the use of men - in particular, to be used by men so that men can have children. As human breeding livestock, women have no more right to consent to sexual relations or to pregnancy than a dog can consent to fetch or a hen can consent to lay eggs. Because they have wombs, women must be forced to exist in a perpetual state of readiness to accept precious gifts from God, even if those gifts come through the actions of men whom they may not know, nor love nor want to have children with. As noted above: what women want or feel or experience is of no consequence. This is about every man's right to reproduce. This is about human life!

Recently, the news has been full of reports about good Christian men in government under attack because they have dared to speak the Biblical Truth™. The Bible makes it clear that God does intend rapes - and pregnancies caused by rapes - to happen. It is all part of His Plan. This is uncontroversial among Bible-believers and indeed, it is plainly written in dozens of places throughout scripture. Willful denial of these facts does not erase the truth, it only confuses the masses. If people would only pay attention to what the Bible actually says and stop trying to make it all so politically correct, there would be far less confusion in this country. Hopefully, this Bible Study will help to dispel the confusion.

Yes, it is what God intended.
 Read your Bibles, heretics!

Think of Biblical rape as an umbrella term for all of the resourceful ways that God provides wombs wives and children for the less fortunate of mankind: the men who cannot find willing wombmates. A multitude of passages in the Bible clearly show that it does not matter how a man manages to take a wife - trickery, rape, abduction, slavery; everything is allowed (sometimes even ordered) by God - nor what methods of conception he uses to get his issue into the world. It doesn't matter whether he impregnates a woman through stranger rape, wartime rape, slave rape, incestuous rape or legally-purchased spousal rape or through trickery, sabotage, intimidation, or coercion - just so long as his right to reproduce using whatever womb woman he can thrust his penis into is protected by Biblical mandate.

Godly men can opt for the straightforward sale (eg. Exodus 21: 7-11) by the father of a breeder daughter to an eligible man (thirty shekels of silver was the going price in Moses' day). This usually requires that the man pass muster with the woman's owner father, since the mating will also impact the father's genetic line. A suitor found wanting by the prospective grandfather may be turned away. This situation might quite rightly enrage a rejected man, but luckily, the Bible has a solution...

To wit: the forced sale (Deuteronomy 22: 28-29) If a rejected suitor can manage to rape a female breeder, her father will then be forced to hand over his property to the rapist. The rapist must then, in addition to the usual price paid for a woman, pay a premium (fifty shekels of silver) to the father for the insult of having robbed him of the ability to choose a son-in-law. This form of Biblical rape is meant for the disadvantaged yet daring man. He may not have much luck securing a wife unless he steals one, so this form of Biblical rape provides the perfect solution to the less genetically-favored men in Bible-based societies. Praise God! He will always provide!

'A womb or two' - or more! - 
'for every man'.
That's the Biblical way!

When large numbers of "wives" are needed for restless armies of (ahem) vigorous young men, God has the solution: Biblical wartime rape (Deuteronomy 20: 10-14, Judges 21: 10-14). God orders His armies to murder all the people (in other words, all of the men) in some ill-favored place and carry off their livestock (including all the virgins) and chattels. Divvy up the spoils evenly among the godly young men, including the virgins, and voilà! Womb-shortage averted!

Yes, the women may be taken against their will and impregnated against their will, but that is not legitimate rape because God wills it. The Biblical God clearly sanctions rape as a method of conception for men who might otherwise be at risk of not having any offspring. Think about it: if given a choice, some women might refuse to have children. Some women might reject the sexual advances of perfectly nice guys. Already, some women actually demand that all women be given the power to control when and if they will become pregnant - literally threatening all men's right to reproduce! - and in some places, there are simply too few women to go around. Women must be prevented from holding reproductive power over men. We are talking about life here - the sanctity of a man's right to continue his genetic line. It is what women were created for and what a Bible-based America will insist upon. Read your Bible.

2. Is there any such thing as "legitimate rape"?

Yes, there is such a thing as legitimate rape.  When a male says he has been raped, that is legitimate rape. The seriousness of this heinous crime should be obvious to all and it is clearly forbidden by the Bible (Judges 19: 20-28). Terrible stories of the abuse of boys and young men by trusted religious and community figures are met with universal outrage and public demands for the arrest and severe punishment of the perpetrators are entirely appropriate. While centuries of Biblical rapes of millions of women and girls were of course unremarkable, the relatively rare instances of legitimate rape against (non-slave) males are quite rightly front page news. This is because it is virtually impossible to legitimately rape a woman, and of course Biblical rape is A-OK according to our Moral Guidebook, but the sexual assault of men and boys is a defilement, an abomination, an outrage against mankind.

Got that, Girl? 
Come on, you know you think I'm hot.
Now use that little ladybrain
and vote for me.
My sex appeal will shut that whole
thinking thing down.

3. What can we learn from God's rules about Biblical rape and how can we apply these lessons to modern Christian life?

The Bible makes it clear that women are entitled to absolutely no rights over their own bodies, over their lives or over their fertility. A woman's destiny is to be a mother, under the control of the father of her children. Every pregnancy is a gift from God, no matter how it occurred. A man is a person and the fruit of his seed is also a person. The vessel into which the man deposits the seed is not a person: it is a mere woman, sinful and fallen. These are the Biblical principles upon which godly men rely when they declare that abortion is murder, but denying an abortion to a woman who will die without one is not. Under no circumstances - not for rape (which never legitimately happens to females), nor incest (Genesis 19), nor to save a woman's life - should abortion ever be permitted. It is a crime against mankind. As soon as we restore its Biblical foundation, the Christian United States of America will re-criminalize all abortion without exceptions.

Likewise, female-controlled contraception is unBiblical and immoral. It is woman's role to conceive and bear children. She is a vessel, a breeder of men - but she is also untrustworthy, immoral, licentious and a liar. No woman should ever be permitted to indulge in lustful degeneracy and escape the consequences. She is incapable of moral behavior; she lacks normal human feelings toward life and will murder for convenience; she is a captive to her sexual urges and will sink into promiscuous dissipation which will destroy the American dream unless men regain control and restore order in society. In a Christian United States of America, female-controlled contraception will be banned and women returned to their rightful position of fearful submission to the will of man God (and man).

Our Christian nation must elect godly men who will enforce these Biblical precepts and restore this country to Bible-based righteousness. Finally, we have such men in the Republican party.Gov Mitt Romney (MA), Rep Paul Ryan (WI), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (VA), Sen Todd Akin (MO), Richard Mourdock (IN), Rep Steve King (IA), Rep.Joe Walsh (IL), Gov.Bob McDonnell (VA), Gov Mike Huckabee (NM), Gov Rick Perry (TX), Rep Frank Guinta (NH), Reince Preibus, Gov Jan Brewer (AZ), Gov Dennis Daugaard (SD), House Speaker John Boehner (OH), Sen Marco Rubio (FL), Gov Rick Scott (FL), Sen Rob Portman (OH), Gov Tim Pawlenty (MN), Sen John Thune (SD),  Rep Jim Buchy (OH) and literally hundreds of other state and federal respresentatives are leading the final charge in a war on women that has been brewing for more than thirty years.

These brave crusaders for a Bible-based Christian United States of America are not outliers: this is the Republican party today, on both the federal and state levels.  God's Own Party is strong, revitalized and - after the election - you betcha, they're ready to push women back where they belong - out of the workplace where they currently are stealing men's jobs (for less pay), out of the military and out of college - virtuously married (to a man only) unemployed and forced to bear as many children as possible. That's the Biblical way!

Praise God!

Class dismissed.

Mitt Romney And His "Binders Full Of Women"

Within minutes of the infamous remarks being uttered, this Facebook page was launched. 

“And I—and I went to my staff, and I said, ‘How come all the people for these jobs are—are all men.’ They said: ‘Well, these are the people that have the qualifications.’ And I said: ‘Well, gosh, can't we—can't we find some—some women that are also qualified?’ And—and so we—we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet. I went to a number of women's groups and said: ‘Can you help us find folks,’ and they brought us whole binders full of women.” Mitt Romney, October 16, 2012.

There are good reasons why the interweb was abuzz last night about Mitt Romney's "binders full of women", all of them pointing to a bad, though perfectly justified, debate outcome for the Republican candidate. While it was hardly the only misstep in Romney's testy, truth-challenged performance, it was the distillation of everything that he - and the Republican party - believes about the intrinsic inequality of women to men that makes him the worst possible candidate for women voters.

Before we take a closer look through the window into Mitt's attitude toward women, let's look at what he did not say in his remarks.

Katherine Fenton, a participant in the Town Hall audience, asked this question:

In what new ways do you intend to rectify the inequalities in the workplace, specifically regarding females making only 72 percent of what their male counterparts earn?

In response, Governor Romney had this to say:

Thank you. And important topic, and one which I learned a great deal about (but not nearly enough, apparently), particularly as I was serving as governor of my state, because I had the chance to pull together a cabinet and all the applicants seemed to be men.
And I — and I went to my staff, and I said, "How come all the people for these jobs are — are all men." They said, "Well, these are the people that have the qualifications." And I said, "Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some — some women that are also qualified?".

"Well, gosh, can't we — can't we find some
— some women that are also qualified?"
Gee, Governor, can we?

(Fact check: Governor Romney succeeded a woman governor, Jane Swift;  his lieutenant governor was a woman, Kerry Healey, and his opponent in that gubanatorial race was a woman, Democrat Shannon O'Brien - (fun fact!) whom Romney portrayed literally as a dog in his ads during that campaign. His claim of not being able to "find" qualified women rings particularly hollow in light of his equally false claim of bi-partisanship).

And — and so we — we took a concerted effort to go out and find women who had backgrounds that could be qualified to become members of our cabinet.
I went to a number of women's groups and said, "Can you help us find folks," and they brought us whole binders full of women.

(Fact check: 'What actually happened was that in 2002 -- prior to the election, not even knowing yet whether it would be a Republican or Democratic administration -- a bipartisan group of women in Massachusetts formed MassGAP to address the problem of few women in senior leadership positions in state government. There were more than 40 organizations involved with the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus (also bipartisan) as the lead sponsor.
They did the research and put together the binder full of women qualified for all the different cabinet positions, agency heads, and authorities and commissions. They presented this binder to Governor Romney when he was elected'. David S. Bernstein, The Phoenix, October 16, 2012.)

I was proud of the fact that after I staffed my Cabinet and my senior staff, that the University of New York in Albany did a survey of all 50 states, and concluded that mine had more women in senior leadership positions than any other state in America.

(Fact check: a UMass-Boston study found that the percentage of senior-level appointed positions held by women actually declined throughout the Romney administration, from 30.0% prior to his taking office, to 29.7% in July 2004, to 27.6% near the end of his term in November 2006. (It then began rapidly rising when Deval Patrick took office. Bernstein)

Or, let's have pay equality and improved
access to decent child-care for families
so that parents (usually mothers)
are less burdened and can actually
focus on the careers they love without
being forced to "choose" work or family.

Now one of the reasons I was able to get so many good women to be part of that team was because of our recruiting effort. But number two, because I recognized that if you're going to have women in the workforce (like, if you really, really, must have women in the workforce and not, you know, at home with 5 or 6 children, right, Mitt?) that sometimes you need to be more flexible. My chief of staff, for instance, had two kids that were still in school.
She said, I can't be here until 7 or 8 o'clock at night. I need to be able to get home at 5 o'clock so I can be there for making dinner for my kids and being with them when they get home from school. So we said fine. Let's have a flexible schedule so you can have hours that work for you.

(For this nugget of horse hocky, Romney plumbed the depths of cultural gender discrimination by conflating two popular myths about the reasons for wage inequality: the myth that female employees are inherently less reliable and not "team players" like their male counterparts and the myth that unless an enlightened employer hands out special privileges and accommodations, women won't even try for demanding, highly-paid jobs, so they don't deserve them. This is a corollary to the ever-popular "women don't ask for equal pay" myth which studies have proven are false).

We're going to have to have employers in the new economy, in the economy I'm going to bring to play, that are going to be so anxious to get good workers they're going to be anxious to hire women. In the — in the last women have lost 580,000 jobs. That's the net of what's happened in the last four years. We're still down 580,000 jobs. I mentioned 31/2 million women, more now in poverty than four years ago.

This is not a "women's issue". Bad Republican policies
hurt women, men and the families that both women and
men are trying to support. 

(Indeed. The Great Recession caused by the Bush administration and the financial policies - which both enriched Mitt Romney and continue to be the foundation of his financial vision for the country - have been hard on both men and women. Women, who typically have been relegated to the poorest-paying and least secure jobs (except, at least for now, those in the public sector) have always suffered greater job insecurity. In both single-parent families and in families where women and their partners are struggling together to make ends meet, this is a serious issue for both men and women, and for most American families. Legislation such as the Lilly Ledbetter Act and the Paycheck Fairness Act might have helped prevent thousands of women and their families from slipping further into poverty, but the Republican candidate, Mitt Romney, does not support these efforts, and his party blocked them in Congress).

What we can do to help young women and women of all ages is to have a strong economy, so strong that employers that are looking to find good employees and bringing them into their workforce and adapting to a flexible work schedule that gives women opportunities that they would otherwise not be able to afford.

(Got that, American women? The Guv promises that if you will just quit asking awkward questions about fair pay and reproductive security and let him get back to business, he will create such a great economy that all those employers out there will overlook your deficiencies and special needs and hire even you! Awesome.).

This is what I have done. It's what I look forward to doing and I know what it takes to make an economy work, and I know what a working economy looks like. And an economy with 7.8 percent unemployment is not a real strong economy. An economy that has 23 million people looking for work is not a strong economy.

(Really? "I know what it takes to make an economy work" What is that, exactly? The question was "How are you going to address inequalities in the workplace?" and you have neither answered that question, nor explained how you expect to create your "new economy". Governor, you're a little too long on "just trust me, you don't need to know what I know",  and much too short on specifics).

Actually, Governor, women already know what they need
to succeed: affordable education, wage parity, reproductive
freedom and social support for American families.
Wait, we already have a president who understands that! 

I'm going to help women in America get good work by getting a stronger economy and by supporting women in the workforce.

(You still haven't answered the question, Governor. How are you going to float this "stronger economy" within which, we presume, all boats (even those with flighty female skippers) will be lifted? And, again, what are your new ideas to address pay inequity?).

Mitt Romney may or may not actually "know" what needs to be done to fix the economy and to address the inequalities in the workplace, not just for women but also for millions of men who have also been denied a level playing field in the workplace. He may know, but he has no intention of doing what it will take.

Working toward economic equality for women - and for most men, too - is not Mitt Romney's goal. It never has been his goal, and it certainly is not the goal of his backers in the moneyed elites. This is a continuation of the 47 % narrative. Romney believes that like his 47% who will never "take personal responsibility and care for their lives", women are not getting good jobs because they don't try hard enough to get them. Romney thinks that like the 47% whom he says "believe they are victims...who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing", women want everything handed to them. He barely hid his opinion that women demand special treatment in the workplace - like the right to leave the office before 7 or 8 in the evening to care for small children; forcing employers to provide "flexibility" like fewer than 60 or 70 hours of time spent in the office each week. "See?" the Governor seemed to say, "I did everything for them, while they did nothing to help themselves."

Romney's blindness to the qualified women who surrounded him during the Gubanatorial race itself and then in the office when he was presented with the "binders" containing resumes of a long list of qualified women - gathered proactively by women's groups in Massachusetts and not by his own people at his request as he claimed - speaks to his apparent habit of neither seeing nor hearing women as peers in his professional life. His claim that his record of hiring female staff was due to his efforts to "recruit" women, not to the initiative and qualifications of the women themselves, and his whining that one of his female staffers asked for what he clearly considered to be special treatment (shockingly, she wanted a workday that ended before 7 or 8PM!) speaks to both Romney's disrespect for women's abilities and his dismissal of the workplace challenges of parents. Presumably no male staffer would have dared to talk about family obligations at all, of course. In the conservative Romney culture of rigid patriarchal roles for women and men, it is women who annoyingly demand special treatment to balance work and family, while men at work must behave as if they have no family obligations at all.

Mitt Romney did not misspeak at that private fund-raiser for his wealthy supporters. He really does believe that at least 47% of Americans are lazy takers who sit around waiting for their government to bail them out of their sloth. Last night, as he struggled to sugarcoat his disdain for women and his disinterest in the question Ms. Fenton asked, everything about Romney - his halting, careful remarks, his patronizing demeanor, his refusal to actually answer the question - pointed to a deeply contemptuous attitude not only toward women, but toward all Americans who are being crushed between the competing demands of scarcer job opportunities (thanks Mr. CEO of Bain, et al) and family responsibilities.

The final irony is that, in a bid to secure more women's votes, Romney threw out the bone of pointedly boasting that he "recruited" women for great jobs in his Massachusett's administration. Such affirmative action goes against not only the Governor's own professed views, but it flies in the face of the ideology and agenda of the conservative right wing that supports him. Mitt Romney has attempted to dodge the issue recently, in the latest of his notorious "flip-flops" - although to be fair, his silence on affirmative action (except when holding it out as a carrot to lure women voters) cannot really be called change.  In this case, it is more like concealment of his true intentions while hoping the issue will go away. Too bad that glib tongue ran away with you last night, Governor!

Why the Republican gender gap mirrors women's pay disparity, Moira Herbst, The Guardian, September 6, 2012.

Mind the Binder, David. Bernstein, The Phoenix, October 16, 2012.

Presidential debate transcript, questions, October 16, 2012. Politico staff, October 16, 2012.

Mitt Romney to Gubanatorial Staff: "Find some women that are qualified", Christina Wilkie, HuffPost Business, October 17, 2012.

Mitt Romney's "Binders Full of Women" Comment Sets Internet Ablaze, Marlow Stern, The Daily Beast, October 17, 2012.

ETA:

Mitt Romney's Binders Full of Women is a Trapper Keeper Full of Lies, Sarah Jones, PoliticusUsa, October 17, 2012.

In Debate, Romney Struggled on Substance, Ezra Klein, Washington Post, October 17, 2012.

Romney and the Women Who Still Don't Love Him, Stephanie Mencimer, Mother Jones, October 17, 2012.

The frat boy bully Mitt Romney is coldly furious that he was schooled by that ... oops!  Is that a camera?

Economic Specifics - Reproductive Rights Are An Economic Issue

The Republican War on Women:  It's real.

This election could literally be pivotal for women.

9 Clues That Reproductive Policy is Economic Policy, Valerie Tarico, HuffPost Politics, October, 11, 2012.

Anybody who says that talking about reproductive rights is a distraction from talking about economics is not running the numbers. On October 4, a study of 9,000 women showed that access to free contraception radically dropped the rate of unintended pregnancies, two-thirds of which according to the Guttmacher Institute are paid for on the public dime. Unintended pregnancies cost U.S. taxpayers an estimated 11 billion a year in obstetric costs and neonatal care. But that's just the beginning...  Valerie Tarico.

For Women, Reproductive Rights Are Economic Issues, Christine Adams, The Baltimore Sun, September 17, 2012.

Even when times are good, a woman who faces multiple unwanted pregnancies during her child-bearing years has little time to appreciate the security that a burgeoning economy with good jobs promises. There is no factor that more strongly correlates with rising educational attainment and economic advancement among women than the new availability of birth control in the 1960s, along with access to safe and legal abortion since the 1960s and 1970s. For most women, contraception is our greatest health concern and expense during our childbearing years. Again, what is more "real" than that? Telling women that their health insurance will cover everything except birth control is like telling a diabetic that her health insurance will cover everything except insulin and the other necessities of diabetes care and then berating the patient when she becomes seriously ill from a lack of access to insulin. Christine Adams.

Contraception is an economic issue, Amanda Marcotte, Slate, September 27, 2012.

The reality is that, for women, reproductive rights and protection from discrimination cannot be separated from "jobs and the economy and raising their families." Women need their rights protected in order to hold down jobs and raise their families. Two recent news items show how it's more important than ever for women to have their rights protected, for economic reasons above all... Amanda Marcotte.

Hiding Pregnancies: Reproductive Freedom is an Economic Issue, Robin Marty, RH Reality Check, October 8, 2012.

Birth control is expensive. Day care is expensive. Children are expensive. Yet somehow people continue to argue that reproductive rights aren't an economic issue—like unemployment, household debt, or housing...Those who can least afford to get pregnant unintentionally are the ones who most need access to contraception. When being pregnant affects your ability to find work, how can you see reproductive health care as anything other than an economic issue? Robin Marty.

Romney/Ryan Too Extreme on Women's Health, ENews Park Forest, Fact Check, October 12, 2012.

As Congressman Ryan highlighted last night, he and Mitt Romney are too extreme on the critical issue of women’s health. In the House, Ryan worked with Todd Akin to narrow the definition of rape and outlaw abortion for rape and incest victims. And Romney-Ryan believe women’s health care decisions should be put into the hands of their employers, would defund Planned Parenthood, and endorsed the Republican Party platform that includes a constitutional amendment to ban abortion even in cases of rape and incest.

Veep Debate Reveals Hints of the GOP War on Women, Amy Gehrt, Gatehouse News Service, October 16, 2012.

Whomever wins the White House will hold the fate of a host of other women’s issues in his hands, too. In the past two years alone, there have been nearly 2,000 anti-choice provisions introduced in legislation. Among other things, Republican lawmakers have attempted to redefine rape, supported a bill that would let hospitals watch a woman die rather than perform a needed abortion and tried to take away all federal funding for Planned Parenthood. South Dakota GOP members even attempted to make it legal to murder doctors who provide abortion care. Even the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act has been stalled in Congress — all because protection was expanded to include gays and American Indians. Amy Gehrt.

The Hits, They Keep on Coming, Stephanie Schriock, HuffPost Politics, October 16, 2012.

Forcible rape. I don't think many people would have guessed that it would be one of the defining phrases of the 2012 elections. But, there's not much about today's Republican Party that any one of us could have seen coming.
Todd Akin, House Republicans, New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez. The hits, they keep on coming.
For the sake of American women I wish I could say these instances were outliers. But they're just not. This is a Republican Party that has more than 200 members who co-sponsored a bill to redefine rape so that some are worse than others, and continues to support a constitutional ban on abortion - with no exceptions - in its national platform. So it's getting harder for them to argue that the Todd Akin's of the world don't fall right into line with their political views. Stephanie Schriock.

The Faux Mommy Wars, Dahlia Lithwick and Jan Rodak, Slate, April 20, 2012.

A few precatory observations on this language of choice: For one thing, it has become so bound up with the fight over reproductive rights in this country that it never really means just “choice” anymore. You can almost hear the silent “unfortunate” that precedes it every time it’s mentioned in political discourse. For another, not all women have all the choices they are alleged to be pondering. Most of us simply don’t have the luxury of a “choice” to stay home, or a choice to work part-time. Most women, like most men, do what they have to do. “Choice” is usually a misnomer, especially during a recession, for women as much as it is for men.
But talking about women in the language of choice is also a political trap. Because it suggests that while men are free to optimize their lifestyle decisions, women are always forced to “choose.” Men may design their lives. Women’s lives are a sequence of impossible trade-offs, made even more complex when they must mesh with the custom designs of the men with whom they marry and co-parent. Dahlia Lithwick and Jan Rodak.

Ann Romney Stumps For CHIC Position - ChillGirl-In-Chief!

Hey girls! Ann Romney is A-OK with the war on women!  But, then, she is rich, protected and post-menopausal.
Unlike you people.

And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it?

It's how it is, girls, so 
take a chill pill and learn
to appreciate subservience!

Ann Romney's speech at the Republican convention on Tuesday night should forever put to rest any ideas anyone had that this is a woman who just doesn't get it. Mrs. Romney gets it all right. She knows exactly how disrespected and disempowered women still are in our society, but she is fine with that. And she wants other women to be fine with it, too. In fact, her speech last night signalled that she expects all of you moms out there (other women need not be considered, being non-existent) to take a chill pill. Patriarchy is. the way. it. is. and if you don't already like it, just follow Ann's lead. She is stumping for ChillGirl-in-Chief. She knows that most women are treated as barely human, but she is going to show us all how to pin on a pretty smile, remind ourselves of our mom-power (which totally is better than actual power) and - whenever the inevitable disrespect and abuse of cultural misogyny is directed our way - how to lie back and enjoy it. Ooh lå lå!  Ann, is trés CHIC!

There are at least two flavors of ChillGirl - I'm thinking of icily-angry and coolly-collected right now - and both flavors feature misogyny with a spicy little drop of misandry. Both of them are unpleasant and both undermine feminist causes, but the recklessly immature individuals who pop up occasionally to hang out with MRAs and sneer at other women are far less dangerous than the disciplined ranks of the second kind of ChillGirls.

The important thing about 
this ChillGirl is that she can 
feel superior to everyone!

Popping up more often in these roiling times is the icily furious misanthropic ChillGirl - the woman who thinks she's achieved independent success simply through her own hard work and initiative. She refuses to acknowledge that her current (though limited) freedom to pursue her own interests is largely thanks to a century of hard work by feminists who paved the way before her. She sees that gender equality is unlikely to be achieved in her lifetime, so she is uninterested in working toward that goal for future girls who matter not a whit to her. What matters is what she can personally get out of a cruelly discriminatory culture, and she feels perfectly justified in throwing other women under the bus to get it: life is unfair, she reasons, so other women had better get used to it. She gleefully slams feminists who work for positive social change while she, ever so cool and chill, hangs out with and entertains misogynist men with ChillGirl stories about how lame and weak other women are. She dresses how she wants, she speaks how she wants, she does what she wants and she intends to get what she wants. She runs with the misogynist guys, because she is cool like that, unlike those pathetic losers who call themselves feminists.

This kind of ChillGirl is an equal-opportunity hater: she is also contemptuous of men, whom she sees also as her inferiors and she is proud that she is slyly laughing at them as she pretends to laugh with them while they disrespect other members of her gender. The coldly angry ChillGirl hates men for believing that she women are less than they are, but she hates women more for what she sees as their weakness and failure to have overcome the cultural oppression of women to make the world a safer, better place for her. She is furious that she has to put up with sexist bullshit when she is clearly smarter and stronger than both men and women, and she hates both genders equally for their part in making life more difficult for her.

We've seen a number of women like this in recent years - attacking other women, undermining feminism and generally expressing the suppressed rage that growing up female in an oppressive patriarchal culture causes.

It's how it is, isn't it? 
Invisible, dehumanized - a thing
inhabiting the role of "mom"
and it had better be wrapped
 up in a pretty package,  if
it knows what's good for it.

Then, there is the second kind of ChillGirl; conservative, anti-feminist women whose numbers have swelled fantastically with the rise of fundamentalist religiosity in the USA. These are the outwardly calm, coolly-collected, playing-the-patriarchy game ChillGirls. These are the women like CHIC hopeful, Ann Romney.

I am not sure if men really understand this, but I don't think there is a woman in America who really expects her life to be easy. In our own ways, we all know better. You know what, and that's fine. 

This ChillGirl believes - probably correctly - that gender equality will not be achieved in her lifetime, and she assumes - probably incorrectly - that gender equality will never be achieved. Not in her lifetime, not in her daughters' lifetimes, nor in her granddaughters' lifetimes either. But, you know what? That's fine. Fighting for equal rights is hard and there is no personal payoff likely. Going along to get along is easier. And much more rational. Why fight for a better future that she will never get to enjoy? Why fight to change things for the better for all women, when she can play the game, master the system and quietly enjoy all of the personal comfort and security - and yes, a measure of power, though derived from the men in her life, and only enjoyed at their pleasure (but she thinks she knows how to manipulate them, the sly minx!) - that her good, Christian heart desires?

The calm, cool ChillGirl may or may not have had a brief period of believing that she could pursue hopes and dreams like the boys all around her before she grew up and learned "the truth". She may or may not have briefly resisted the vicious misogyny of our patriarchal culture and tried to pursue those dreams, until the constant, exhausting, emotionally-draining effort of dealing with daily attacks simply wore her down. She may or may not have experienced the soul-killing realization that although she knows she is equal, though she knows she has talents, abilities, even brilliance to offer the world, she will be forever less than men in society and may never be allowed the chance to develop those abilities, especially if she is ugly, poor, or not white.

Whatever her earlier hopes and dreams may have been, the coolly collected ChillGirl is a pragmatist. She has figured out a winning strategy: accept the humiliation of degradation and undeserved inferior status, lie to the men in your life about how much you admire and respect them and only want to defer to them, keep yourself attractive because that is your only stock in trade - and in return, enjoy some measure of comfort and security - as long as you are pleasing to your man. You know that even that paltry benefit for selling yourself short is denied to nearly all poor women and many women of color and even to any white, middle-class woman who will not bow to patriarchy, so read the writing on the wall and get yours - whatever it takes! To be a coolly collected ChillGirl - to have a choice between suffering the indignities and deprivations of a misogynist culture publicly and daily, or suffering the indignities and deprivations privately while outwardly enjoying a comfortable life -  is a luxury reserved for a select minority of women. And, you know what? Ann says that's a good enough choice for women. She's so CHIC!

Listen to Ann, ladies: It's how it is...

... Don't try to change society; that is too exhausting. More important, it just isn't smart. Fighting against misogyny can be dangerous. Challenging the status quo will make men - and women like Ann who benefit from pleasing men - very angry and cause social discord. Do you want to be responsible for causing a gender war? If you do that, don't say you were never warned; any harm that comes your way will be totally your own fault. Demanding to be treated as a respected, adult human being can get you harassed, attacked and even raped and it definitely reduces your chances of finding a rich husband. Amirite, fellas?

Let's face it: patriarchy isn't going anywhere - not while so many are committed to preserving it. But women can use patriarchy, too! You just need to learn to play the game. Forget about your intellectual needs: channel that energy into your children and home! Forget about your emotional needs - how can you be so selfish when there are men and children who need you to look after their needs? Forget about your physical well-being and autonomy: you possess a uterus and you are the property of men until it can no longer be used for its god-given purpose. Every woman is on her own unless she accepts that this is how it is. Got that, gals? Either you join the congregation with outward enthusiasm, or you will be ejected from the congregation and then the devil take you. You can't beat this system, so you may as well join it. And you know what? Ann says it will be fine!

It makes perfect sense to keep the
 "smarter" people in domestic servitude!
Amirite, ladies?

There are compensations for utterly denying your own humanity and that of your daughters and nieces and granddaughters. There will be rewards in heaven. Invisible, intellectually-unverifiable afterlife rewards for invisible, intellectually-erased living women - what perfect symmetry! While men naturally should enjoy rewards both while living and after death, women suffer now to be rewarded later because we are smarter than those goofy men. Amirite ladies? This nonsensical little crumb is thrown out to traditional women everywhere: being "smarter", yet subservient, is obviously way better and far more satisfying than actual status, respect or personal power. Can I get an "Amen", sisters?

Just look! Even the most powerful men out there listening to Ann's speech chuckle tolerantly and cheerfully agree. Everyone agrees that women are the truly smart ones - even our men will let us say so! That is totes not an empty bubble of "feel good" blown to obscure our view of the blackhole of self-denial that all of us ChillGirls must force ourselves down. Sure, any society that truly believed that one gender is "smarter" would rationally have that group well-represented in every avenue of power in the culture, not marginalized, diminished and condemned to a lifetime of domestic servitude, but thinking like that would be just looking for reasons to attack traditional values. Ann coyly points out that women are the smart ones, Republican men tolerantly let her say it as long as they can still control women, and everyone is happy. It's how it is, isn't it? And you know what? That's fine.

Ann has it all figured out: Moms, revel in your subordination! (other women don't exist) Learn to love the uncertainty and insecurity of living a life entirely dependent on whether a man continues to think keeping you around to cook, clean and raise his children is worth his time and pocketbook, because that is what the future of women under Republican rule will be. It's just how it is! Why fight what is biologically, culturally and Biblically mandated?  Sure, humankind could be better than that, but why should we be? This is working - for the wealthy, the protected, the godly and the wise...

The only role for women in a
Republican USA:  Mom

Ann's stump speech was apparently directed only at mothers married to men of means, since nearly everything she said is far outside the experience of poor women, single mothers, women of color or any other women who are not white, Christian, middle-class mothers married to men. The unspoken message was clear though: You people who are not wealthy and protected are clearly not godly or wise so you deserve all the trouble you get. Ann tells it like it is!  They don't come any more CHIC than that!

FYI, Amanda Marcotte summed the speech up nicely:

"Last night the RNC made its appeal to female voters, and Ann Romney's speech really was an exemplar of the form, putting a sorority girl grin on a description of women's lives that, stripped of sentimentality, reads like a laundry list of the daily injustices women face for no other reason than being women...In sum, she offered up a description of what feminists call "systemic sexism," a list of the very injustices feminists have worked, with some success, to eliminate. "

And if you listen carefully, you'll hear the women sighing a little bit more than the men. It's how it is, isn't it?

"So how does Ann Romney get away with this? Because she framed it not as a problem to be fixed, but a trial that women have to endure. She put a positive spin on it, claiming that these extra struggles make us women extra good. Instead of demanding equality, she encouraged her female audience instead to take their payment in martyrdom."  Amanda Marcotte, Ann Romney Acknowledges, Embraces Sexism, Slate.com.

One question, Ann. If the Republicans succeed in gaining control of the country, which Christian sect gets to rule?