Why is anyone surprised that right-wing "thinkers" degrade women every chance they get?

"[A]ny woman who levels a charge of sexual harassment at a GOP candidate is going to be pummeled by the conservative media and treated like a cross between a crank and a witch. In the reddest, angriest parts of America, it is best for an aggrieved woman just to shut up."

-- Richard Cohen, in his Washington Post column
"Political bully boys trying to intimidate women"

by Ken

Here's one way of looking at it: When even Richard Cohen gets it, how hard can it be to get?

Last week I ventured a suggestion as to why Herman Cain's accusations of sexual harassment hadn't crippled him as badly as Rick Perry's, er, megagaffe ("Why all the fuss about Rick Perry's 'gaffe'? Is there anyone who didn't already know he's a moron and a thug? Really?"):

I would assume the embarrassing "secret" is that GOP voters not only don't hold sexual harassment against a person, they admire it. It gives them hope for a return to the good old days, when everyone understood that the only way to have your women was barefoot and pregnant.

This by now should be so obvious as to be beyond discussion. The only thing that exceeds far-right-wingers' loathing of women is their stark terror of them. Well, there's one other thing that might exceed far-right-wingers' loathing of women: their loathing of people who are racially, ethnically, religiously, or in any other "-ally" way different from them. That's another story, though in a lot of ways it isn't. It's largely the same story, the only difference being that, alone among these enemy species, the women have the mystical power to ensnare men into consorting and in fact cohabiting with them. I would argue that this only increases their loathing. I suppose some benighted souls will argue that men, far from loathing, worship their wimmins. Jeez, wake up and smell the perfume.

Since I try not to keep too close tabs on wingnut punditry, I admit I was taken aback by some of the stuff I found in Richard Cohen's column -- and I like to think that nothing that comes out of those evil, insane mouths surprises me.

The furious counterattack against the women who in the past had accused Herman Cain of sexual harassment was led by Rush Limbaugh, who occupies a vast electronic locker room, making jokes that would be considered immature in junior high school. When one of Cain's accusers, Karen Krau­shaar, said she'd like to coordinate her remarks with other Cain accusers, Limbaugh wondered why: "Do they want to synchronize their menstrual periods? Why appear together?" You can just hear the towel snap.

As is his custom, Limbaugh accused irate women (and men) of not getting the joke -- of being too PC. Earlier, he had some locker-room fun with the name of Sharon Bialek, another of Cain's accusers. Sharon "Buy-a-lick," he called her. My, my, such a potty mouth. My, my, such a jerk.

Limbaugh was hardly alone in turning on the accusing women. For some reason, Bialek's financial history became public knowledge. She had been in debt. She has had two bankruptcies. The Drudge Report noted that she once lived in the same Chicago building as David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political adviser. As if to ice matters, Bialek was represented by Gloria Allred, who in countless media references is called a "celebrity lawyer." Whether this means that she represents celebrities or is one herself is not at all clear, but it does mean -- lest you miss the import -- that she is a tawdry ambulance-chaser and that her client, in the characterization of the New York Post's Andrea Peyser, is a gold digger.

[You can find the links for Limbaugh, Drudge, and Peyser onsite. I'll be damned if I'm going to send them any traffic. -- Ed.]

In this regard, as in so many others, the loons of the Right have an invaluable ally in the primitive nomadic world view of old-time Judeo-Christianity. I don't think there's any reasonable question at this late date that those desert wanderers were scared so doodyless of women that they built their social order around strict oppressive control. Naturally they made believe it was "for their own good," but authoritarians frequently couch their repressive regimes in that sort of empty rhetoric.

We could launch an endless theological inquiry, or I could just offer you one word: Eve.

(It might then be asked, tauntingly: So what about them Wingnut Wimmins? You know, like Princess Sarah and Wackadoodle Michele. Seriously?)

To return to Richard Cohen:

Peyser, Matt Drudge and Limbaugh somehow forgot that two cases against Cain were settled and not for inconsiderable sums. If they were mere nuisance complaints, then Cain's employer at the time, the National Restaurant Association, would not have made cash settlements of $45,000 and $35,000. This does not prove that Cain was guilty, only that the claims were deemed not frivolous. This is a bit more than just-go-away money.

Cain is clearly one of those guys who learned years ago that bluster, not the truth, will set you free. He trimmed about not even knowing about (1) the claims or (2) the settlements. This, too, does not prove that Cain is a sexual harasser, merely that he is not particularly persuasive. It's hard to believe that, as the president of the association and the target of the complaints, he was unaware of the settlements. Such a man would be an odd choice for chief executive of the United States.

I know that some women (and men) bring false charges of sexual harassment merely to get a payday. Whether any of Cain's accusers did that, I cannot say, but I doubt it. I know also that some sexual harassment claims arise from misunderstandings -- a remark that went sideways or a "victim" whose shoulder is nothing but chips. But I can also say that these charges are not made without apprehension by women who value their careers. They fear not only retribution -- never mind that retribution is illegal -- but also that their claim will make it hard for them to find another job. No one wants to hire a troublemaker.

Sometimes when Cohen "gets" stuff, it turns out that there's a buried personal connection, and perhaps that's the case here.

I worked for an insurance company back in the “Mad Men” days. I saw the way women were treated, the incessant and quite unremarkable harassment of that period. It was, in this respect, an ugly era -- uglier for blacks, for sure, but ugly for Jews and for other minorities and for all women. Some of this ugliness lingers -- for blacks, for Hispanics, for gays and, it now seems certain, for women. The jokes of the infantile Limbaugh, the attacks on women whose claims were treated seriously by their employers, suggest some slippage in the women’s movement.

The aggrieved women have faded. They chose prudence over valor, the comfort of anonymity to a public gutting. Other women must have taken notice. Cain, whose candidacy is without purpose, may yet prove useful. He reminds us of how far we still have to go.

We've pointed it out here at DWT, though perhaps not often enough, but one of the ugliest facets of the monumentally ugly 21st-century evolution of the Republican Party has been its virulently raging war against women. In which, I should point out, they have found all too many allies in the supposedly less extreme Democratic camp -- a truly unholy alliance.

Those right-wingers keep looking in the mirror and seeing utter worthlessness. Is it any wonder they work so desperately to annihilate everyone who's different from them? Because the chances are that everyone who's different from them is better than they are. How could they not be?


ON THE SUBJECT OF WINGNUT WIMMINS (VS. WINGNUT MENS)

The Washington Post's only moderately whacked-out right-wing columnist Kathleen Parker points out in her column "Perry, Cain and a parade of painful moments" that a pretty male dolt like Rick Perry can't get away with "winkage" in the way that a babe like Princess Sarah could, or Herman Cain either. She argues without much backup that "Perry and Cain are both talented men who deserve more than our contempt," but insists:

Nevertheless, it has become clear that they are not now presidential material. We may indeed overlook their faults, but we needn’t excuse what are more than mere lapses. Their lack of knowledge or recall suggests a lack of depth and an absence of seriousness. We expect more from those who pretend to the throne.

And though Americans admire the self-made who have experienced ordinary life, most don’t want an ordinary person to lead the country.

A funny line is worth a laugh, a song may buy you lunch, but in the end, there’s no winking one’s way to the White House.

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