When the Rubber Meets the Road
May 29, 2009
by Janis
The New Agenda welcomes first-time contributor Janis, who expresses her own views, not necessarily those of The New Agenda.
It’s been a hot topic here and elsewhere lately: why did The New Agenda bother to defend Nancy Pelosi, who went out of her way to sabotage a politician who was probably one of the most qualified candidates for President in recent history?
We’ve been dancing around the answer. And the answer can be put as a series of questions for all of us:
Is it ever OK for a woman to be sexually humiliated?
Although even that’s just dancing around the elephant in the room. Let’s just rip the euphemism off, shall we? Deep breath now, it’s like taking off a band-aid. Just one fast rip!and it’ll all be over with:
Do some women deserve to be raped, or not?
Do some men get a free pass for rape, or not?
Is sexism okay sometimes, or not?
Would the world be a better place with half women in charge, or not?
I can’t believe the need to pose these questions to women or any woman’s organization, but apparently I do. Ladies, let’s be frank here. In 2008 and now in 2009, the chips fell, okay? Push came to shove. The rubber met the road.
And it’s time for us to take a long, hard look in the mirror, and answer those questions honestly. Where do you stand on them? What do you believe? “Feminist” organizations like NOW and most second- and third-wave feminists have been mouthing all the right answers to these questions for years: no, no, no, and yes.
But when the rubber met the road, it turned out that what many of us said and what we truly, deep down believed were two very different things.
It’s time for the hard questions. Where do you stand?
No more “yes-but.” No more screaming “BUT I DON’T CARE!” No more simpering, “I just can’t.” No more, “But I just hate her guts!” No more, “She’s a BITCH!” And no more backpedaling with, “Only the right KIND of women!” Grow the hell up.
I’ve said it in comments here, and I’ll repeat it: are you really willing to tolerate a rabid dog loose in your neighborhood because, on occasion and completely at random, it happens to bite someone you don’t like? More to the point, do you really trust the dog to tell the difference?
Hard questions. So in the near future, when you’re unable to sleep at 2am and staring at the dark ceiling over your bed, go get your mirror, look into it, and answer them. Let The New Agenda know what you hear back. They’ve got the lights on for you.
You go girl Janis!
Thanks. :-} I was pondering it on the way home from work yesterday, and when I read the comments at No Quarter on TNA’s Pelosi post, it struck me hard in the face what I was reading:
“I need to know who got raped before I determine whether the rapist was wrong.”
bzuhWHAT?
If this is what feminism has degenerated into, it needs help.
Great post! Made me cheer out loud!
I differentiate, though, between attacks I feel are sexist, and attacks on women that I feel are justified. I don’t agree with TNA’s opinion that if she’s female we should support her. I will support any woman who is being attacked in a sexist manner, but I will not defend her politics or vote for her if I disagree.
To be clear, I’m thinking of Sarah Palin here. I was angry with remarks about her looks, her kids, that she was dumb, etc. But I fundamentally disagree with her politics, would never support a man with the same politics, and felt no reason to vote for her. I know TNA would hold a different position, but I’m not convinced.
I happen to like Nancy Pelosi, and don’t understand how defending her from sexist attacks would ever be in question, but I didn’t understand why people refused to defend Palin either. You don’t have to LIKE a woman to defend her right not to be attacked in a sexist manner. If you don’t like a politician, you vote for the other candidate, but as you say, you don’t sit idly by while one is run down by a pack of rabid dogs.
Janis! You hit it out of the park- those are exactly the right questions- It’s kind of like the Obama speechwriter groper- It’s okay for him to have his hand on Hillary’s cardboard breast but would it be okay for him to have his hand on your daughter’s? your mother’s? Your own?
Not even Nancy Pelosi’s!
Hope to hear more from you -you brought such clarity to the issue-
We’ll have to keep reminding ourselves -as someone said-if it were easy it would have already been done.
thanks!
Claire, you said: To be clear, I’m thinking of Sarah Palin here. I was angry with remarks about her looks, her kids, that she was dumb, etc. But I fundamentally disagree with her politics, would never support a man with the same politics, and felt no reason to vote for her. I know TNA would hold a different position, but I’m not convinced.
TNA never advocated voting for Palin because she was a woman. Individual members of TNA voted for various candidates/parties based on their own personal calculus of what was important to them.
TNA defended Palin from sexist attacks, but never, ever advocated voting for her. I challenge you to find me a link or a quote that proves otherwise.
Claire, I guess I feel that the sexism that Palin endured was so important to slap down that it was worth voting for her even if I disagreed with her on some things.
And it’s not like women haven’t been instructed to dutifully hold our noses and vote for horrible MEN in the past, often by feminists who tell us that even an anti-choice (male) Democratic candidate is better than any Republican. If we’re going to cut slack like that for men, why not cut it for women? Why do we praise (and prize) half-assed non-support from men so much and then hold women to so much higher standards?
I was at the point where I was running myself ragged defending women… Some of whom don’t even want to be defended.
So, I’ve decided that I need to pick my battles. I’m not going to be able to do much about the Pelosi’s of the world who bed down with our abusers, and then expect the self same abusers to defend them when the next abuser comes along. That is a lost cause. (And some folks just plain need to learn the hard way.)
I am triaging at this point. Backing women who are out there fighting for the rights and recognition of other women. (Like Hillary, Sarah, and now Sonia.) That is all I have the energy for.
My plate is plenty full, thank you. Nanbama will have to fight her own battles. Or..maybe she can get Obie and Jimmie (Carville) to defend her??? You know… the same way they defended Hillary and Sarah…..
Sorry. Maybe I’m just tired???
Stop thinking of it as whether the women you defend are worth it. The qusetion is whether the men you attack DO.
And the nonpartisan message you send by attacking men who attack women regardless of the political stance of their victims will go far in bringing women together, finally.
As long as they CAN Balkanize us, they will.
” …whether the women you defend are worth it.”
Are worth it == deserve it. Sorry. Blasted text browser …
Also, the message you send to men will be heard by them loud and clear, and acted on instantly: You can get away with rape scot-free if you pick your victim right.
Is that a message you want to send? Better for them to be slapped down across the board, without regard for the state of their victim, or else they will suss out real fast when they can get away with it.
In fact, they already have. Pick her up at a bar. Everyone knows women at bars are sluts.
Find a stripper. They’ve had sex for money before probably, so no one will defend them.
Date her — she already agreed to sex with you when she let you buy dinner, so no one’ll hold you responsible for a damned thing.
They already make those sorts of mental judgments about whether they’ll get away with it, all the time. Your decision to punish a man for sexually humiliating a woman based on the state of his victim only sends that message again.
Can you punish every rapist, abuser, and humiliator in the world? No, we don’t have the time or the energy to do that. So, how do you determine when to do it?
Pick a card out of a hat. Roll a die. Flip a coin. Whatever you want, do it — but under no circumstances must you use the state of the victim.
SYD,
It’s not for us…it’s for our daughters and the next generations. So in 15 years when a girls gets nominated for SC, she is judged on her rulings – not shredded with the typical hard to get along with, not too bright, etc.
So don’t give up SYD – we’ve got your back!
Amy, ITA. As long as they think they can get away with it, they’ll try. Only when they dion’t know for sure whether the hammer will come down on their heads will they begin to think twice about pulling that garbage.
SYD I hear what your saying. I have 3 Daughters to raise and they range from age 14 to 6 and one son. Girls today from what I see a more brutal to each other then I ever was years ago.( I’m only 40).They are so cruel to one another it’s crazy. They treat each other like crap. I don’t see that with boys. They need to have some sort of classes in school to talk about this. I think it would help.
Janis- we seem to agree a lot and this is no exception- great article- but i will go one step further Claire- you are incorrect. The” right” woman will never come along for everyone at once. If you choose to wait for your right one, it may be wrong for someone else. Sometimes the long term goals are so important that in the short term you must put aside your issues, your political agendas, and politics, hold your nose and take the medicine. This is true of the Supreme Court nominee, Whitman’s campaign next year here in Calif to be the first female governor and, yes Palin in 2012. To me the goals of parity in office, superceedes political ideology. You must use the rocks you ave to break the glass ceilings and that means setting aside issues for the long term need to break those ceilings- I realize to some here I am the male troll- but I have been in this battle since 1972 and it is time to win this war. Men can not be truly free until women are fully equal- I’d like to be free in my lifetime
Bruce, as long as you vote for women, you can have three horns on your head, live under a bridge, and eat billy goats for all I care. Seriously.
Janis, I’ve been following your comments on The Confluence and The New Agenda for quite some time. Excellent to see that you’re now a contributor!
Balkanization- good word for it- divide women up into camps, give them “other things” to put on their agendas- tell them that they should only vote for the” right” woman, woman who agree with those “other things” and if they( the female candidates) dont agree with those “other things” , well those candidates are” bad” and are “fair game” and its ok( for both men and women- especially women) to attack them using everything in the book- hm- sounds like the last election to me.-Palinizing – My old friends at NOW need to see what is happening to them-
And while we’re all waiting for the perfect woman candidate, we’re told to “hold our noses” and vote for Democratic men like Joe Lieberman and the raft of anti-choice dipshits the Democratic party ran in the deep south last year.
When women say they would never vote for a man with Sarah Palin’s policy positions, they are being disingenuous. We vote for men to the right of her all the time, as long as they’re wearing donkey jackets.
We vote, campaign for, and contrinbute to men who are a lot more right-wing that Sarah Palin ALL THE TIME, because we’re begged to cut Junior slack and reward his every burp and fart so he’ll learn better.
I can hold my nose for a woman who may be anti-choice, but who at least walked the walk when the chips fell. I can’t think of a single other pro-”life” person who didnt’ instantly turn pro-choice REAL FAST when the amnio came back with Down Syndrome and she was over-40. Sometimes I think part of the female rage directed at her was that she couldn’t be so conveniently accused of hypocrisy.
In fact, I should get a list of all the Democratic male candidates that NOW has ever endorsed and take a close look at their policy positions. When they say, “We’d never endorse a man with Sarah Palin’s positions!” it’d be so satisfying to whip it out and say, “Really? How about these turkeys?”
I think a nice long bout with Google over the weekend should turn up some fun stuff.
britgirls: what is confluence?
Can people here please stop saying “anti-choice”? I mean, how would you feel if you were called “pro-death” or “anti-life”?
Please, let’s only use the terms “pro-choice” and “pro-life”…
Bruce, the Confluence is a liberal blog run by Riverdaughter.
I love your post, Janis. It goes well with the other post about 6th graders. Women’s rights has always applied to all women, not just certain women. The suffragettes NEVER said, “Give us the vote! But not the antis!”
Karen- thanks
Janis, what a wonderful post. I particularly like your picture with the rabid dog. yes the rabid dog and the rapist don’t choose victims “who deserve it’. “we don’t trust their choices.” that is such a strong picture.
also imagine back when lynching was happening. imagine any black person would have said some of them deserved to be lynched.
and be sure not every victim was a perfect person. how come that we are so insensitive what rape does to a female person.
More of my thoughts on the subject:
http://syd4.blogspot.com/2009/.....efend.html
Good work, TNA.
I am glad you can do what I can’t!
This is a very principled stand that sets the standard for everyone else especially the netroots and Third Wave which lost their Democratic, progressive and feminist principles to elect Bush III. Good job!
My reason for standing behind Pelosi right now is different. Republicans and Democrats are trying to take her to get her out of the way to privatize Social Security. Notice Rahm Emanuel started the attacks. This is why Wall Street elected Obama.
The Third Wave is not questioning Sotomayor’s stand on Roe v Wade even though they kept telling us that’s was why we had to vote for him. I am starting to wonder, is Sotomayor a feminist? We know she belongs to La Raza groups but not much else.
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