The Conservative War On Women

I think people are just trying to figure out how you took it, since it wasn't condescending or patronizing. As it is, we still have no idea.

Hypatian wrote:

I think people are just trying to figure out how you took it, since it wasn't condescending or patronizing. As it is, we still have no idea.

This is the case. We would be giving someone the same line of questioning if they said "I get the point Scalzi is making, but he shouldn't be so purple fuzzy starbursts about it."

Hypatian wrote:

I think people are just trying to figure out how you took it, since it wasn't condescending or patronizing. As it is, we still have no idea.

What I took from the article was that Mr. Scalzi was using this satire as a way to explain something that he feels the opposition doesn't quite get. That they obviously lack the intelligence to figure it out for themselves so he decided to use this article as a way to explain it to them for their understanding.

As stated before I've never liked this style of writing because it just comes across to me as ::Edit:: I'll stop throwing words around hah::

It seems pretty likely that Certain Conservative Politicians aren't actually the target audience for Mr. Scalzi's piece.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

It seems pretty likely that Certain Conservative Politicians aren't actually the target audience for Mr. Scalzi's piece.

Agreed, but that doesn't mean that someone who shares similar views to a Certain Conservative Politician aren't. I think it would be rather silly to assume that there's not a single soul out there that wouldn't disagree with that articles direction.

I'm not sure how else he could really point out how hateful toward women these laws are. I mean, he can say 'that's hateful', but it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't connect viscerally. Here, he's showing the hate, showing how it works, what it means.

I think it's very effective.

Malor wrote:

I'm not sure how else he could really point out how hateful toward women these laws are. I mean, he can say 'that's hateful', but it doesn't mean anything, it doesn't connect viscerally. Here, he's showing the hate, showing how it works, what it means.

I think it's very effective.

Ya know, I can see that. That does in fact help me view what he's trying to get across a little differently.

You know, I showed this to some of my extremely pro life friends and they *immediately* wrote it off as some angry liberal who, and I quote "doesn't get the point." The issue of abortion is wholly divorced from other women's equality issues to them; they were dumbfounded that I consider women's reproductive rights closely related to gender income disparity, home chore disparity, etc. Those are apples and oranges to them, which makes it *very, very easy* to say this isn't about women, it's about babies.

In fact one of told me that claiming this fight is about a desire to control women is as ludicrous as saying Obama was born in Kenya. I didn't know what to say.

They're also confusing intent with effect. It does not matter what the intent is of the politicians trying to ban abortion; one of the effects it has is exactly what Scalzi described.

Scalzi is spot on. It's the comparison of control, the parallels between sexual control and social control, how they feed off of one another. How they're connected. How totally and completely offensive (and truly scary) it is for people to want to control women's sexuality and also define what rape is and isn't on terms that are more in line with the mentality of a rapist than their victim.

These are thoughts that have ruminated for a while, and this article illustrates it more elegantly than any spew and vitriol I've tried to muster.

How do rapists view rape? Not trying to comment on your point in either direction, just the phrase struck me as being unsure what you meant. For that matter how do victims view it compared to people that are neither rapists nor victims?

The phrase isn't a thing that feels so it doesn't have the capacity to be unsure. Do you mean that I seem unsure or that the sentence was unclear?

The soundbite version of the War on Women:

That's actually a more consistent stance than allowing exceptions - because if you allow exceptions, then the goal in making women bear children is punishment for being sinful, not saving a child.

It's almost always that anyway. If you dig hard enough with someone, you'll virtually always find a punishment/behavioral control aspect to the idea of not allowing abortion. The rape/incest exception just made it more visible than usual.

How do people not think childbirth is violent in its own way?

clover wrote:

How do people not think childbirth is violent in its own way?

Seriously.

It's probably because not enough of the population at large participates in it. Could use more of that.

I laughed.

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A13Z623CYAA2v_f.jpg:large)

Malor wrote:

That's actually a more consistent stance than allowing exceptions - because if you allow exceptions, then the goal in making women bear children is punishment for being sinful, not saving a child.

From what I've read, many people who favor an abortion ban with exceptions do so because of the following reasons:

1. They see the exceptions as a reasonable compromise (because not all pro-lifers are adamantly opposed to compromise, if it stops the vast majority of abortions. Also, punishing raped women is distasteful to some pro-lifers as well, even if they do believe life begins at conception.)

2. They see exceptions for the mother's health as permissible because it's effectively self-defense on the part of the mother.

I don't get the sense that many people favor abortion bans because they want to punish the mother.

Crispus wrote:

I don't get the sense that many people favor abortion bans because they want to punish the mother.

And yet, many do oppose measures that are proven to decrease abortions. That's kinda what the 80-odd pages of this entire thread have been about.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
Crispus wrote:

I don't get the sense that many people favor abortion bans because they want to punish the mother.

And yet, many do oppose measures that are proven to decrease abortions.

I don't disagree with that. But I guess I view that as more of an unfortunate confluence of separate, unrelated beliefs rather than some sort of diabolical conspiracy. When conservatives decide that life is sacred, and also decide that sexual activity outside marriage is wrong, they paint themselves into a corner with no real way out.

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

Or drinking alcohol, or talking out of turn, or going to college, or walking to and from work...

edit: and to be clear, I find it very sad that this sarcasm is not entirely hyperbolic

Crispus wrote:

I don't disagree with that. But I guess I view that as more of an unfortunate confluence of separate, unrelated beliefs rather than some sort of diabolical conspiracy.

So? Even if I agreed, I bet to the Americans being punished by the laws these people propose, the idea that they're only being punished by an unfortunate confluence and not a diabolical conspiracy is of very little comfort.

Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

...Oh, you mean that rape thing? Never occurred.*

*The trivializing language in Edwin's link is the real ugly in the story, in my view.

Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

I honestly don't think there's an answer to that. Even IF you take the proper steps to try and prevent rape there's always going to be some pig psychopath man who will still do so. You can't predict someone just snapping and doing something horrible. It's the same with some crazy man opening fire on a school or church, there's always those people out there who just want to hurt others because it feels right to them. I think if you want to be realistic just be safe, travel in groups, be with friends, raise your kids with morals etc. This wont abolish rape, but it is sure as hell a good start to be safe.

The Conformist wrote:
Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

I honestly don't think there's an answer to that. Even IF you take the proper steps to try and prevent rape there's always going to be some pig psychopath man who will still do so. You can't predict someone just snapping and doing something horrible. It's the same with some crazy man opening fire on a school or church, there's always those people out there who just want to hurt others because it feels right to them. I think if you want to be realistic just be safe, travel in groups, be with friends, raise your kids with morals etc. This wont abolish rape, but it is sure as hell a good start to be safe.

This is the "there's no perfect solution so obviously nothing can be done" problem that a lot of people use to prevent having to seriously think about a subject they don't like. It's true that there is probably not a 100% perfect solution to prevent rape, but that doesn't mean that we should throw our hands in the air and do nothing. Your offered solutions are mostly what Demyx's edit predicted: telling the potential victims how to act to not get raped (and even then it's not a sure-thing) instead of trying to change the potential perpetrators behavior. I'd imagine including a segment on consent in sex-ed/ health classes would help at least a little (particularly for date rape). Breaking the media's/society's habit of blaming the victim would be another place to start. There's no need to find something the victim did wrong or didn't do that could have prevented it, because it's the rapist's fault, not the victim's. What the victim was wearing, or where they were isn't important, why the rapist felt their desire for control/sex was more important than the victim's autonomy is.

The Conformist wrote:
Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

I honestly don't think there's an answer to that. Even IF you take the proper steps to try and prevent rape there's always going to be some pig psychopath man who will still do so. You can't predict someone just snapping and doing something horrible. It's the same with some crazy man opening fire on a school or church, there's always those people out there who just want to hurt others because it feels right to them. I think if you want to be realistic just be safe, travel in groups, be with friends, raise your kids with morals etc. This wont abolish rape, but it is sure as hell a good start to be safe.

Only one of your solutions actually addresses the rapist and not the victim. Your last suggestion is fair and something I do hope gets better over time, but I'm not really convinced it will.

As for the rest, I don't think you realize how many cases of rape are not perpetrated by psychopaths and are in fact by what you would likely call normal people.

SixteenBlue wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

I honestly don't think there's an answer to that. Even IF you take the proper steps to try and prevent rape there's always going to be some pig psychopath man who will still do so. You can't predict someone just snapping and doing something horrible. It's the same with some crazy man opening fire on a school or church, there's always those people out there who just want to hurt others because it feels right to them. I think if you want to be realistic just be safe, travel in groups, be with friends, raise your kids with morals etc. This wont abolish rape, but it is sure as hell a good start to be safe.

Only one of your solutions actually addresses the rapist and not the victim. Your last suggestion is fair and something I do hope gets better over time, but I'm not really convinced it will.

As for the rest, I don't think you realize how many cases of rape are not perpetrated by psychopaths and are in fact by what you would likely call normal people.

Most cases of rape are with friends or family members, so ironically enough traveling alone, or surrounded by strangers, may be a better way to avoid rape.

Stengah wrote:
The Conformist wrote:
Demyx wrote:

And somehow there's never any discussion on how we might prevent rape.

Funny, that.

EDIT: Well, no discussion on how to prevent rape that doesn't hinge entirely on women never showing skin or going outside.

I honestly don't think there's an answer to that. Even IF you take the proper steps to try and prevent rape there's always going to be some pig psychopath man who will still do so. You can't predict someone just snapping and doing something horrible. It's the same with some crazy man opening fire on a school or church, there's always those people out there who just want to hurt others because it feels right to them. I think if you want to be realistic just be safe, travel in groups, be with friends, raise your kids with morals etc. This wont abolish rape, but it is sure as hell a good start to be safe.

This is the "there's no perfect solution so obviously nothing can be done" problem that a lot of people use to prevent having to seriously think about a subject they don't like. It's true that there is probably not a 100% perfect solution to prevent rape, but that doesn't mean that we should throw our hands in the air and do nothing. Your offered solutions are mostly what Demyx's edit predicted: telling the potential victims how to act to not get raped (and even then it's not a sure-thing) instead of trying to change the potential perpetrators behavior. I'd imagine including a segment on consent in sex-ed/ health classes would help at least a little (particularly for date rape). Breaking the media's/society's habit of blaming the victim would be another place to start. There's no need to find something the victim did wrong or didn't do that could have prevented it, because it's the rapist's fault, not the victim's. What the victim was wearing, or where they were isn't important, why the rapist felt their desire for control/sex was more important than the victim's autonomy is.

I'm in no way trying to lessen the importance of the situation or just dismissing it as "Welp, can't do much about it so oh well". I'm simply saying that nothing is 100% when it comes to situations like these. I agree we must ALWAYS look into ways to prevent this from happening, it must be discussed and evaluated. I've noticed a trend on this board, people tend to talk in circles, over analyze everything and get nowhere. You can't just dismiss taking the proper safety measures that I stated, or point at someone when they state the obvious and say "See it's that kind of attitude that will get us nowhere", you're always going to have to protect yourself when dealing with people you may not know. I don't like the idea that I can't just go running around my neighborhood at 1:00am and not possibly get mugged, but that's the world we live in, and I don't go and do it. And if for some reason I had to, I would take someone with me to help reduce the chances of me being harmed. Now I can sit and analyze what makes a mugger tick, and how we can prevent and teach our children on how to not become a horrible person, but I'm certainly not going drop my defenses and assume just because we've taken up ways to teach this that all is safe and good. You can think, teach, and work on ways to improve life for yourself and others and still stay within the realm of realism.