Extreme anti-abortion rhetoric and "grab em by the p***y": The right's ugly fantasies about women
Kevin Williamson is no outlier. Violent fantasies about punishing women over sexuality are endemic on the right
AMANDA MARCOTTE
04.12.2018•5:00 AM
It's been a week since Kevin Williamson, a conservative columnist who had recently been hired by the Atlantic, lost his job after it became clear that he sincerely believed that women who get abortions should be executed by hanging. Still, fury in conservative media has not abated, as evidenced by the constant stream of articles defending Williamson, who had argued that abortion is "worse than your typical murder."
Few of Williamson's defenders will come right out and say what it is, exactly, that Williamson believes (which is that nearly a million women — roughly 20 percent of all women who become pregnant — should be put to death in gruesome fashion). Still, the rabid defenses of Williamson may give us some insight into why so many conservatives were ready to vote for Donald Trump, even after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape where he was caught bragging about kissing and groping women against their will.
What connects the religious right to Trump's sexual objectification of women is not just misogyny. It's the willingness to use violence against women to dominate them and deprive them of sexual autonomy.
Anti-choice activists, it should be noted, understand that the public at large is squeamish at the idea of using overt violence against women to dissuade displays of sexual autonomy. That's why so many people on the religious right insist that they are not in favor of punishing women who have abortions. Instead, they go with "for their own good"-style arguments, portraying women as soft-headed children who are incapable of making health care decisions for themselves and need the state to gently but insistently force childbirth on them.
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https://www.salon.com/2018/04/12/extreme-anti-abortion-rhetoric-and-grab-em-by-the-py-the-rights-ugly-fantasies-about-women/