Absolutely Horrifying February 10, 2009
Posted by Evil Bender in Things I Hate, bigotry, wingnuts.trackback
Of late, I’ve been increasingly convinced that snark is a far better weapon for dealing with the wingnuttiest of the wingnuts than anything else: like their Republican overlords who want the economy to collapse in order to help their electoral chances, wingnuts rarely argue in good faith, and responding to crazy people on their own intellectual terms accomplishes little aside from providing a false legitimacy to their counter-factual and odious positions.
So, while I’ll happily have a serious discussion with a thoughtful conservatives, wingnuts are usually best responded to by mocking. Usually.
But then one comes across something like this:
While we must equip both our sons and our daughters to be strong lights in a dark age, our sons are likely to be called to lead and provide for their families, while our daughters are likely to be called to be helpers. Even if they’re never called to marriage, our hope is that our daughters will feel content as a helper in our home (or a relative, if we die) – or even in the church. If God were to never bring them husbands and we were to die (the grand “what-if” question we’re asked), and nobody was willing to take them into their own family, then we are perfectly confident in God’s provision.
Our daughters are much more capable of taking care of themselves than I was at their age and I still managed to find a very good job (without having attended college) when I had to. College and being groomed for independent living isn’t the magic pill so many people think it is. Sometimes it can even make one less equipped for life’s trials. Talk to women who were raped while living alone; indoctrinated by feminist, atheist professors; or duped into putting off marriage or children (for the sake of a degree or a career) until it was too late.
Unfortunately, I’ve known people who think this way–though fortunately they put their beliefs in to actual practice much less than the above family does. Leaving aside the rampant misogyny and what almost certainly amounts to abuse (since, even if one wants to argue their right to raise their children as they see fit, they have no right to pressure an adult child to stay under their “protection”), it is truly terrifying to see this mother admit she has no interest in helping their daughters prepare to survive in the event of their deaths.
And they do it all in the name of protecting their daughters. It’s truly sickening.
Honestly, snark is an inadequate weapon for dealing with evil of this magnitude.
[h/t]
As the husband of a 40 year old woman who’s gone back to school for her graduate degree, I must say I really really dig educated women.
These idiots can hunger for the ultra-conservative ideal of the submissive baby machine who’s good with a casserole all they like, I’ll take a woman who can make a good Utnapishtim joke any day.
I do feel bad for their daughters, though.
Ty,
Well said. You do have to wonder about someone who’s looking for a partner who has been raised specifically to be uneducated and helpless.
1. How on earth did you end up at that site in the first place? (Oh, nur, I just saw the h/t.)
2. To be honest, I can’t find the energy to get too het up about that post. Lack of sleep has something to do with that, I’ve no doubt, but in large part this just strikes me as a variation on a common theme: either women and girls are weaker and more vulnerable and therefore are worthy of contempt and need to be kept in line, or they’re weaker and more vulnerable and therefore need to be cherished and coddled and protected. Those are obviously flip sides of the same coin, but if I had to choose, I’d take the latter over the former. In the original post it seems that the primary daughter under discussion is happy and healthy, in as much as one can tell from such things, and her interests are encouraged and nurtured (within certain parameters, I’ve no doubt, but still). Is a prison less a prison when they treat you nice? No indeed. But is a minimum security prison an improvement over solitary in a super-max? I should think so. (Probably not the best comparison, I imagine — see above comment on lack of sleep.)
3. I did find it curious that in writing about making sure her daughters are protected, the blogger published their names and photos on the internet.
4. The main thing I found problematic in her argument was the sort of self-fulfilling prophecy inherent in it: women are weaker and more vulnerable to attacks in the public sphere (rapes, muggings, etc.), so we have to protect them and keep them at home — but aren’t women at a higher risk because of the perception that they’re weaker and more vulnerable, and because our society accepts that as the status quo? It’s a complex issue, because obviously my going out into the world with the mindset that I’m strong and independent doesn’t make me any safer. Still, it seems more productive to me to try to push back against the status quo, rather than retreating from the world because of it.
Wanted to clarify: I’m not saying I’m peachy keen with this woman’s theology and life/child-rearing philosophies — far from it. It’s just that my reaction was like, “meh, that old saw again…”
Also, I went to the university once known (in the 60s, at least) as the Berkeley of the East, and we still read the Bible (ostensibly as literature, but faith still came up in the related class discussions), and there was a diverse and thriving religious community on campus. So, yeah, she’s been pretty well duped (at best) about what college is like, methinks.
“It’s a complex issue, because obviously my going out into the world with the mindset that I’m strong and independent doesn’t make me any safer.”
It does if you also go strapped.
LQ: Thanks for the insightful comments. I have nothing to add to them.
Ty: You win the internet!
This type of thinking never fails to piss me off, “Talk to women who were raped while living alone.” Instead of holding the rapist accountable for his behavior, the writer suggests that had this independent woman understood her innate vulnerability and not had the audacity to assume that she had a right to be safe in her home, and instead gotten married, or continued to live with her family this wouldn’t have happened. The Taliban got it right, I guess.
T’Ville: very good point. Especially since women are far more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger and that many (perhaps most) rapes are committed by a current or former partner.
But little things [/snark] like the fact that the rapist and not the “victim living alone” is the one responsible for rape apparently aren’t as important as making sure your daughter doesn’t leave home.
Such thinking is thoroughly disgusting. Thanks for pointing it out.