Over the last 48 hours, we have watched many members of the GOP try to distance themselves from Donald Trump due to the video tape that surfaced showing him making outrageous and lewd statements about women. The truth is that many of them are just as bad as he is--and in fact, have done much more harm to the women of this country than Donald Trump ever has--in fact, they--along with the Religious Right--have embraced and perpetuated the culture wars in an attempt to "restore" America to its former cultural state--a state in which men ruled the roost, and women and children were little more than property to be treated in any manner the man of the house saw fit. Indeed, the culture warriors of the right seem to believe that if only they could strip women, children and minorities of the civil rights they have gained in recent decades, America could return to the former state of glory in which, they would have us believe, there was almost no crime, all families were happy, the world was just peachy, and all of America was Mayberry.
Of course, we know that Mayberry was a myth, an America that never was. The desire to return this country to the previous cultural norms in which white male patriarchs ruled is not born of a desire to make the United States a better place--it is, instead, a desire to give men the power and control over women they feel they lost when we gained the right to vote, to work outside the home, to use birth control and obtain abortions, and the myriad other ways we women have gained many of the freedoms men have always enjoyed.
Terms such as "rape culture" or "the culture of violence" against women are really ways of describing the culture of male entitlement which has invariably resulted in widespread abuses against women since time immemorial. There is no such thing as a patriarchal culture that values women, regardless of what excuses are used to justify giving men control over women, whether these are religious or philosophical--or how they try to dress it up, claiming it is "God's will" or that they simply want to protect "family values." Make no mistake about it, when right wingers talk about "taking back America" what they are really talking about is stripping women and minorities of their civil rights--in essence, creating a culture in which women can be abused and exploited in any way men--in particular rich white men--see fit. It is no secret that spouse abusers and sex offenders tend to hold conservative views of gender roles and women's rights, and so it is a given that men (and women) who hold misogynistic views are more likely to gravitate toward the Republican Party.
1 out of every 5 women will be a victim of sexual assault in her lifetime. 38 million American women have been physically assaulted by an intimate partner--and three women a day are murdered--in fact most mass shootings are the result of violent men who kill their wives and too often children as well. And this is just the worst cases--many more millions of women will be subjected to emotional or financial abuse by an intimate partner. Given the sheer numbers of women who are subjected to sexual violence in this country, the numbers of men who are likely sex offenders or spouse abusers in this country are staggering--and this does not take into account the number who, while they might not commit criminal acts of abuse, most certainly hold bigoted views toward women, and might mistreat women in other, less obvious ways. Other men, while not abusive toward the women in their own families, can certainly be abusive toward co-workers and other women.
Right wing culture is the culture of abuse. There is no gentle way to say it. And the methods used by many right wing lawmakers and culture warriors--such as the forced birther movement or anti-gay groups--almost precisely mirror the strategies an individual abuser might us to control his victim, just on the population at large, with the same goal as that of an individual abuser--to force women to do what they want.
An abuser might keep his victim from getting a job or having her own money in order to keep her from being able to leave him--the GOP also uses financial abuse tactics in order to make women more reliant upon men--by refusing to pass equal pay legislation, and making it harder for women with children to get paid leave or even affordable daycare for their children. Opposition to TANF, food stamps and other anti-poverty measures are yet another way the GOP attempts to keep women dependent upon men. How many women have stayed in abusive relationships because they could not get the financial resources together in order to leave?
An abuser might coerce or trick his victim into getting pregnant against her will so he can use the resulting child to tie her to him, and make it harder for her to escape the abusive relationship. The entire anti-choice movement is reproductive coercion writ large, with the same goal as an individual abuser--to limit women's choices and force them into the role they want for them. This is why they are against providing financial assistance to single mothers after the child is born--in the hope that women with few financial resources will marry as a matter of survival.
A sex offender might rape his victim using an object in order to humiliate her and shame her into compliance--the GOP does the same thing when they force women to get transvaginal ultrasounds before obtaining an abortion.
An often overlooked form of physical abuse is medical abuse--in some instances, an abuser might keep his victim from going to the doctor to either help keep his abuse a secret--or in some cases cases involving religious abuse, denying his victim needed medical care in order to force his own religious views upon her, regardless of what she might believe herself. The GOP engages in the same kind of behavior when they pass legislation that denies women access to therapeutic abortions or birth control--their sense of entitlement is so great they feel that even forcing women to die as a result of complications of pregnancy is an acceptable outcome if it allows them to force their ideology on others. Republicans' opposition to the Violence Against Women Act makes it quite clear they do not consider physical abuse against women much of a problem.
An abuser might call his victim names or humiliate her in public in order to destroy her self-esteem and keep her from sticking up for herself and asserting her rights. The anti-choice movement engages in their own brand of emotional abuse when they call women who get abortions "baby killers" with the same goal--to shame women into giving up their right to decide what they will do with their own body. "Slut-shaming" women such as Sandra Fluke is another example of right wingers trying to shame women into silence and compliance.
Abusers often want to keep their victims in the dark about what their real options are in order to keep them under control. An abuser might lie to his victim to keep her away from her family, who might help her escape, or keep her isolated in other ways, such as only allowing her to read certain books or be around certain people. The intellectual abuse the right engages in is also a way to keep women isolated and away from information and groups that might help them assert their rights--such as legislation that forces women to obtain biased anti-choice counseling, or more broadly, the non-stop propaganda networks such as Fox News, conservative christian churches, and right wing radio. Abstinence only sex education is also another way the right attempts to control he flow of information available to young women in particular.
Abusers frequently threaten their victims or stalk and harass them in order to keep them afraid and constantly looking over their shoulders. When the Supreme Court overturned the Massachusetts “buffer zone” law, they ruled to allow anti-choice protesters the right to harass and intimidate both patients and workers entering and leaving abortion clinics, they are doing the same thing. Harassment of female online writers is an attempt to intimidate and silence them by various individual right wing men and operatives.
When confronted with the fact that they are behaving in an abusive manner toward their victims, abusers will often try to blame the victim for their behavior--such as claiming a woman was raped because she was wearing a short skirt, or that a man hit his wife because she did not cook his bacon the way he likes. Even when they admit they did something wrong, they often try to minimize the impact of their abuse--"I was only playing around" or "It was an accident." The GOP also engages in such minimizing and blaming behavior--when they absurdly claim that the cure for poverty is for poor people to get higher paying jobs, or quit engaging in behavior they deem immoral, or when they claim a pregnancy as the result of rape is a "gift from God."
When all else fails, both abusers and the right will often fall back on the oldest excuse in the book in order to justify their controlling behavior--male privilege, such as the right wing religious leaders who claim "male headship" is just the way it is, or men who claim women should not be allowed to do certain jobs or hold certain roles in society.
Republicans who act shocked by Donald Trump's behavior are hypocrites of the highest order--the only difference between him and many of them is that they are less crass and crude, and attempt to hide their misogyny behind a false front of morality and religiosity.
