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This week in the War on Women [1]

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Date: 2023-02-18  

Jill Filipovic has an interesting piece on a recent survey on misogynist beliefs. The best predictor of whether someone holds various misogynist opinions is party identification, followed by gender. That is, Republican men scored highest on misogyny, then Republican women, then Democratic men, and finally Democratic women. (Yes, women can hold misogynist beliefs — and some have learned that they can get ahead in conservative circles by putting other women down.)

For example, just 40% of Republicans agreed with the statement “I want there to be equal numbers of men and women in positions of power in our society.” Fewer than one in five said it would be better if we had more women in political office, and significant majorities agreed with questions that were measures of hostile sexism: Women are too easily offended, women interpret innocent remarks as sexist, and many irresponsible women will decide to have abortions up until the moment of birth. Yes, that last one is so whacko out of touch with reality I don’t really know what to say. But 81% of Republican men agree that, unless the law blocks them, many women will have abortions up until the moment of birth, simply because we are irresponsible….. Very few people are going to flat-out say “I hate women.” But a lot of them, apparently, will associate women with hated behaviors, and if asked in the right way they will signal their general dislike of women, who they see as overly-sensitive, irresponsible and immoral, ruining the natural order of things, and in need of male authority. Republicans are also in denial that gender shapes how women are treated while also being almost comically insecure when it comes to gender and gender roles. They are both more likely to believe that full equality has been attained and are also more likely to react badly if faced with any transgression of traditional gender norms. It is, it seems, a “separate but equal” view of gender, with all of the unequal realities that “separate but equal” models inevitably entail: Women and men are fundamentally different and that’s equality, except that men are actually treated worse, and also I get very upset if someone thinks I am doing something associated with femaleness. Remarkably, 72% of Republican men believe that white men are the most-attacked group in the nation.

It’s hard to know where to start with people who are so thoroughly invested in an imaginary version of reality.

As always, this diary is a group effort. Thanks to elenacarlena, Angmar, SandraLLAP, mettle fatigue, and the WOW crew for links & discussion.

Reproductive Rights:

Jessica Valenti’s daily newsletter is a useful, if depressing, way to keep up with attacks on reproductive rights (and the occasional victory.) Tennessee legislators are considering amending the current no-exceptions abortion ban to add an exception for the pregnant person’s life — and the state’s biggest anti-abortion group is arguing against it. Iowa’s Republican governor is trying to direct funds to fake “crisis pregnancy centers.” And more:

Republicans across multiple states are looking for ways to punish district attorneys who refuse to prosecute abortion cases. You already know about how Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis suspended a state attorney over abortion; and I’ve written how Texas Republicans are pushing a bill that would force civil fines up to $25,000 for each case a district attorney declines to prosecute. Georgia conservatives are trying to create an oversight commission that would discipline any DAs who don’t go after abortion cases; a South Carolina bill would allow the state attorney general to prosecute abortion cases; and Indiana Republicans want to appoint a special prosecutor to any abortion cases that the district attorney refuses to pursue. Definitely something to pay attention to.

The Virginia state senate passed a bill preventing search warrants from being used to seize menstrual data from electronic trackers or apps.

South Carolina is considering a bill with the death penalty for abortion.

In Nebraska, a bill with the Orwellian name of “conscientious objection” proposes allowing anyone connected with a medical procedure to refuse service if it conflicts with their “morals or beliefs.” This includes not just doctors and nurses, but pharmacists, counselors and even insurance providers.

Medscape: Congenital Heart Disease Care Braces for Effects of Roe v. Wade.

Ohio will be the 7th state to put abortion rights before the voters.

Violence:

The Metropolitan Police in London continue to deal with the fallout of multiple predators being exposed in their ranks. Most notoriously, officer Wayne Couzens was convicted of the 2020 abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard. Experts note that his case is an example of how “nuisance” sex crimes — like Couzens’s indecent exposure incident shortly before the murder — are a warning sign that often gets missed. The Met is now holding misconduct hearings against two officers who allegedly failed to investigate offenses by Couzens. Meanwhile, fresh off the rape convictions against former officer David Carrick, the Met is now dealing with allegations that officer Fabian Aguilar-Delgado sexually assaulted a woman during a domestic violence call.

Prevent, a program aimed at addressing extremist behavior and preventing terrorism in the UK, noted a rapid rise in the influence of incarcerated misogynist and accused trafficker Andrew Tate.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimates there are 4200 unsolved cases of missing & murdered Indigenous women & girls.

We need to kill the myth that “real” rape equals stranger rape.

The CDC reports that teenage girls are experiencing record high levels of sexual violence ---nearly 1 in 5 (18%) the past year, a 20% increase from 2017, with 14% saying they had been forced to have sex ---and feeling persistently sad or hopeless including suicidality, nearly 3 in 5.

Delaney Ruston, MD, an internal medicine specialist in Seattle and creator of "Screenagers," a 2016 documentary about how technology affects youth, said excessive exposure to social media can compound feelings of depression in teens — particularly, but not only, girls. "They can scroll and consume media for hours, and rather than do activities and have interactions that would help heal from depression symptoms, they stay stuck..."



...One approach that can help ...is behavioral activation . "This is a strategy where you get them, usually with the support of other people, to do small activities that help to reset brain reward pathways so they start to experience doses of well-being and hope that eventually reverses the depression. Being stuck on screens prevents these healing actions from happening...."



Moira Donegan also looks at the CDC report:

These are not issues that can be solved by simply hiring more guidance counselors. They will require cultural shifts – ones that the United States, and many of its most influential policymakers, have been unwilling to initiate – that will discourage boys and grown men from attacking and raping these girls, and punish those who do. This better world, one that inflicts less violence on women and girls and endows them with more dignity, does not seem to be forthcoming. Since the survey was conducted, in 2021, Roe v Wade has been overturned; public schools and colleges have become pawns in the cynical culture war plays of the right; a backlash to #MeToo has left sexual abuse as culturally accepted and institutionally entrenched as ever. Maybe it is no surprise that LGBQ+ teens and teenage girls are now facing such high degrees of violence and psychic distress: the reinforcement of gender conformity and gender hierarchy, through both violence and the law, has rapidly become the focal point of our politics.

More on the harms of online “gender trolling.”

Months after being banned from Twitter, the British extremist group Patriotic Alternative has been reinstated by Musk, despite their history of recruiting young men into dangerous alt-right fascism.

AARP reports on a stunning story from Dallas: a serial killer was recently convicted of two murders, but the actual number of victims may number in the hundreds. The victims, almost all women, were all over age 75, living at upscale retirement communities. The murders continued unchecked because police and medical examiners routinely attributed the deaths to natural causes, despite evidence of robbery in every case. Every time, the retirement home staff failed to warn residents of robberies and suspicious deaths — and the killer returned multiple times to each complex. One victim, Mary Annis Bartel, survived the attack and had her sons summon police to the ER:

The first officer, skeptical, told her sons that Bartel’s weird story about being suffocated by a guy wearing green gloves seemed more like an old lady’s delusion than a real-life robbery. “She probably hit her head and became confused,” he said to them.

Homophobia:

In most states, if a married woman gives birth, her spouse is legally the child’s parent. In Oklahoma, however, a judge just ruled that this didn’t apply to same-sex couples, and transferred Kris Williams’s parental rights to her (soon-to-be ex) wife’s sperm donor.

Middle East:

Top Iran chess player exiled for refusing headscarf.

China and Iran(!) urge Afghanistan to ease restrictions on women in employment & education.

Good News:

Ellie Abdelfatah: Meet the Syracuse woman scooping up your old couches to help families start over in America:

"I started reaching out to the community more and ... they would drop off stuff at the mosque ... and we kind of flourished from there, I guess," said Ellie Abdelfatah, the founder and director of Community Care of Syracuse.

Spain passes laws on trans rights, abortion, menstrual leave:

"The new laws expand transgender rights and abortion access, as well as give workers paid menstrual leave. The approval comes ahead of scheduled elections later this year."

Uncategorizable:

In the US, women’s underwear gets taxed at a higher rate than men’s. (And yes, the article does refer to women getting shorts-changed.)

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/18/2152795/-This-week-in-the-War-on-Women

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