General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMIKE PENCES MARRIAGE AND THE BELIEFS THAT KEEP WOMEN FROM POWER
By Jia Tolentino at the New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/jia-tolentino/mike-pences-marriage-and-the-beliefs-that-keep-women-from-power
SNIP.............
Prophylactic gender separatism can be found in conservative strains of other religions, of course. In framing extramarital interaction with women as categorically dangerous, Pence has something in common with fundamentalist Muslims and Orthodox Jews. And the basic idea isnt just the province of the devout or conservativeor even, really, the province of men. Gender essentialismand, more specifically, the abiding sense that women are sources of sexual dangeris so entrenched that people of all political orientations, including women, get married and then semiconsciously shrink their social lives so that only friends and close colleagues of the same sex remain.
By and large, theres nothing wrong with living by whatever works for your marriage, your temperament, and your principles. And the outrage directed at Mike Pences chastity-belted Google calendar stems in part from many liberals unfamiliarity with conservative religious moresas well as a gleefully voyeuristic interest in the striking details of Pences marital life. (The two that keep resurfacing: he calls his wife Mother, and she engraved a gold cross with the word Yes and stashed it in her purse in preparation for his proposal.) Infidelity can be corrosive in marriages worth preserving, and guarding oneself against sexual deceit is a bipartisan practice. The revered progressive writer Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote, in 2012, that he believes in guard-rails when it comes to his marriage, and in being absolutely clear with myself about why I am having a second drink, and why I am not. This quote, naturally, has been circulating among conservatives on Twitter as proof that liberals are hypocritical, and that Coates and Pence are essentially the same.
But its one thing to avoid a particular situation involving a particular woman who makes you feel a certain way; its another entirely to avoid all women as a group and as a rule because of the abstract possibility of sexual temptation. Its telling, and extremely disheartening, that many people cant tell the differencethat knowing the best thing to do for your partnership and subscribing wholesale to an idea about gender that calcifies woman as secondary could plausibly seem like the same thing. The Pence approach rules out a lunch meeting or a professional dinner with a woman. It also included requiring that any aide who had to work late to assist him be male. As National Journal reported two years ago, other congressmen had similar policies, in some cases to avoid the appearance of improprietya policy that, the Journal noted, may very well violate laws against discrimination in the workplace. Certainly, this approach is likely to lead to more all-male meetings of the sort we have seen so frequently in the early days of the Trump Administration. And, outside the professional world, it seems well nigh impossible to view a group of people as fully human if you refuse, categorically, to have them as friends.
One can imagine some version of these rules that applies equally to both genders and exists in a utopia where men and women have the same share of governmental power. But that is not where these rules come from, and that is not the world we live in. At play here are two basic evangelical ideas. The first is complementarianism, which finds beauty in the idea of men and women holding rigid, separate roles: men lead and women provide support for men. In complementarianism, women are intended to find worth and agency through obedience and submission. There are plenty of women, as well as men, who believe that this is a fundamental truth about human life, and they are free to do sobut when that conviction is allowed to shape public policy the result is a repressive and theocratic state. The second evangelical idea here is that Pence and his fellow hard-liners are simply making the most honest attempt possible to reckon with human sin. The problem is that women always end up bearing the burden of that reckoning. If we are framed as temptresses, our only power is sex. Its remarkable, and depressing, that the top two people in American government agree so colorfully on this matter. Trump may be blatantly irreligious and Pence exotically devout, but our President and Vice-President come together quite well in their stated inability to resist women. Trump bragged about grabbing them by the pussy. Pence merely prefers to eat alone.
..............SNIP
northoftheborder
(7,572 posts)Doreen
(11,686 posts)psychiatrist tell my mother that it was entirely her fault that my father sexually molested me. She was supposed to follow him EVERYWHERE all of the time when I was home. My dad was not religious he is just an asshole.
applegrove
(118,659 posts)Just........damn.
Did the asshole Psych ever lose his license? He should have.
Doreen
(11,686 posts)I was not the one he told. He told my mother. He was actually my fathers court appointed psychiatrist except my father got to choose him.
dhol82
(9,353 posts)I have moved on though. I just will always get mad when the abusers ( men in this situation ) are putting the responsibility of all bad things on women. If it was not done it is women's fault, if it was done it is was women's fault. We get damned if you do and damned if you don't. These assholes keep crying about Sharia law when they are in the process of trying to create something no different except in the name of an extremely hateful right wing god of some sort.
Dudes: you're not that irresistible.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Pence is one disturbed man.
He needs long term psychological counselling.