Is it really surprising what Congressman Todd Akin said? During an interview, the Congressman remarked that a woman who suffers "legitimate rape" cannot get pregnant "because the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down." It makes sense to me that he doesn't understand how a woman's body actually works. And, it makes complete sense to me that Congressman Akin doesn't understand what rape is or that he could link together the words "legitimate" and "rape."
The indignation and outrage is lovely to bear witness to -- but really, Mr. Akin's words are closer to popular cultural sensibilities than we we would like to admit.
How many men (and women too) really understand the female body? There is more preoccupation with merchandising, legislating, and ridiculing the female body, than understanding it. Few cultural and political spaces exist in which the female body, in pregnancy, in childbirth, in illness, and in its full complexity is contemplated, and with respect for its sacredness.
But it's not just that there is little understanding or care for the female body -- it is also that there are few honest conversations about gendered violence and the pervasiveness of rape.
It is always fascinating to me how the horrors of sexual violation are easily papered over in language and discourse. For example, the word "sexual assault" is frequently used to describe rape or attempted rape. It is such an easier term to use compared to the imagery, emotion, and implications that the word rape conjures up. Not surprisingly, media coverage of sexually violent acts of rape, violation, unwanted penetration and abuse, are often comfortably described as sexual assault.
Consider also the sanitary language to describe children being sold for sex: "domestic minor sex trafficking." Sounds like a traffic violation. Or the very polite, biblical name "John" for the person who purchases a 14 year-old child for sex.
This exceedingly sanitized discourse on sexual violence exists against a larger backdrop of the epidemic levels of violence perpetrated against women and girls. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) recently published the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Among the key findings were:
• Nearly 1 in 5 women have been raped at some point in their lives.
• Most female victims of rape are under the age of 25.
According to the CDC, in another nationally representative survey:
• 60.4% of female victims were first raped before age 18.
• 25.5% of female victims were first raped before age 12.
I am still waiting for the national outrage regarding how commonplace these stats suggest violence is in the lives of American women and girls, regardless of race, ethnicity, or class. Instead, I have read a number of op-eds in response to the CDC's findings penned by rape denialists.
It seems to me then that Congressman Akin's words are a very natural and expected extension of a political and popular culture that often makes a mockery of the female body, and routinely evades the heinous, everyday realities of sexual violence in the lives of American women and girls.
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Melissa Hapke: An Open Letter to Rep. Todd Akin: From a Childhood Incest Survivor
All Akin did was, using bogus pseudo-science, try to explain away opposition to their widely unpopular no-abortion-for-rape-victims anti-choice ideology by inventing "science" showing that such victims don't exist . But the actual extreme policy is part of mainstream Republican politics and part of the party platform to be endorsed in a few days (which will get the attention it deserves from the media for once). Romney/Ryan are just now backing away from it -- for now -- to the point of pre-screening reporter's questions to exclude all questions about Akin and abortion.
But that accidental quality of it all has to do with the media's fascination with sensationalism -- with few things being more sensational than anything sex-related (sex "sells," as advertisers well know) -- even rape and its treatment or mistreatment by society.
So that comment about "legitimate rape" alerted the sensation-seeking media to the anti-choice extremism that has gripped the GOP since the 80's. It is good that it happened -- but if the media were doing its job, it wouldn't be accidental.
Romney hoped that Ryan would be a game changers. So far, he has brought enthusiasm -- but way more baggage (kill Medicare and force women pregnant by rape to bear the rapist's child) to offset it.
Don't think for one second that this comment, "Or the very polite, biblical name "John" for the person who purchases a 14 year-old child for sex," is an accident either. It is meant to draw the connection between religion and rape/juvenile marriage. There is absolutely zero logic by including the word "biblical" to describe the name. It is a calculated inclusion that will get consciously get missed by most in the throes of the article, but will still have the intended impact on the connection people will make, many of which already have a predetermined hatred of religion. "John" and "Jane" are commonly used to anonymously refer to men and women in kinds of narratives
Not to mention that he is absolutely right to point out that killing the child is not a way to make things right. Those who say that in cases of rape it is ok to kill the baby are hypocrites as the point of pro life is that the child is an innocent human, even if the father is a filthy rapist who should be castrated.
This is not a political story, it is a story of mis-spoken ignorance, based on studies by people like Dr. John C. Willke back in 1999, and Bryan Fischer, Director of AMA. But, none the less, it was a really stupid remark to make. It doesn't mean that there is a "WAR ON WOMEN," by the Repuclicans either. It was just a stupid, dumb remark.
But is strikes me as rather hypocritical that the media and the Democrats, jumped on this so rapidly. Aren't they the same people who ignored everything Bill Clinton did regarding forced sexual encounters? The women involved there, actually had numbers (Jane Doe # 5 comes to mind) Where was the same media then? Where was the Democrat outrage then?
Personally, I think Akins should step down, but while Todd Akin has been sent to the woodshed, Bill Clinton is preparing to speak at the Democrat National Convention, and the same women "most greatly offended by Akin's remarks," will be standing in line to cheer Clinton on. Hmmm? Doesn't seem quite right, does it?
And yes, the sanitized language that is used to describe rape is deliberately benign so that men do not have to face the reality of their rapist culture. The terms "child molestation" really annoys me --- why not tell it like it is, that a child was raped?
Sexual violence against women and girls is epidemic in the United States and many other countries. And everywhere, the rapists stand very little chance of ever being caught and punished. Only a few nations like Sweden have actually instituted laws and policies to reduce and eliminate rape and sexual violence.
Seriously... Then what do you call Saudi Arabia?
"Only a few nations like Sweden have actually instituted laws and policies to reduce and eliminate rape and sexual violence."
We don't have laws against sexual violence? This is why people don't take radical feminist seriously. Your are being intentionally delusional in search of some extreme hyperbolic response from your audience. I am sorry you missed the 60's but you can't effectively recreate the experience by taking extreme positions in 2012.
Not his fault. Not Akin's fault for cutting funds for Planned Parenthood and pre-natal care. No, Akin has a nice convenient scapegoat to blame.
A honest conversation would recognize non gendered violence is more prevalent than gendered violence. It would recognize the victims of rape in both genders. It would not use gender as an issue to create division between the genders by focusing on wedge issues like rape and domestic violence to paint men as monsters.
You don't need to demonize men to protect women. This whole approach is now morally bankrupt. After decades of so called awareness campaigns that devolved into the spreading of anti male hysteria we can now see that approach is deeply flawed. The fact a man can't sit next to a unaccompanied minor on a airplane is a good example of that.
The honesty that was lacking in our conversation was on the part of those who wanted to limit the idea of victimization to females.