At a speech before the Center for Reproductive Rights last Wednesday, actress Tina Fey said what many women have been thinking: “If I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m gonna lose my mind. I watch these guys and I’m like: what is happening? Am I a secretary on ‘Mad Men’?”
For many women who have been sexually assaulted or raped – including me – listening to these gray-face men is stomach-turning. But what’s worse is realizing that there may well be those who believe Republican Rep. Todd Aiken when he talked so authoritatively and ignorantly about how the body of a women subjected to “legitimate rape” would automatically prevent pregnancy. Or Indiana Senate candidate Richard Mourdock who argued that since he believes life begins at conception, “even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair John Cornyn released a statement defending Mourdock: “Richard and I, along with millions of Americans – including even [Mourdock’s opponent] Joe Donnelly – believe that life is a gift from God. To try and construe his words as anything other than a restatement of that belief is irresponsible and ridiculous.”
On ABC’s “This Week” this Sunday morning, President Obama’s deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter noted that Mitt Romney has not taken down his ad supporting Mourdock. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich responded by doubling down:
“My response is, if you listen to what Mourdock actually said, he said what virtually every Catholic and every fundamentalist in the country believes, life begins at conception…..He also immediately issued a clarification saying he was referring to the act of conception, and he condemned rape. Romney has condemned — I mean, one part of this is nonsense. Every candidate I know, every decent American I know condemns rape. Okay, so why can’t people like Stephanie Cutter get over it? We all condemn rape.”
What these patronizing gray-faced men don’t know or apparently care about is that many of us still can’t “get over it” and these casual cavalier comments about rape can serve as a trigger, like the back-firing of a car can trigger PTSD for a war veteran. That’s why some prominent women such as Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore and MSNBC host and professor Melissa Harris-Perry are starting to come out about their experiences being raped or sexually assaulted. Moore told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews (see the full transcript below):
“Rape causes post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal attempts, visceral reactions. I can tell you that as a rape survivor, every time one of these buffoons opens their mouths, Chris, it really — I really recoil, physically recoil with how disgusting this is. And it brings up terrible memories.”
Melissa Harris-Perry, or MHP as she is known to her fans, wrote a public letter to Mourdock (See the transcript below)
Richard Mourdock is the Republican nominee for Senate in the great state of Indiana — and as Mitt Romney has said, if he wins, he could be one of the 51 votes needed to overturn “Obamacare.” But this week, Richard Mourdock found a way to stand out from the pack, so much so, that I thought I’d send him a note.
Dear Mr. Mourdock,
Sometimes I still flinch when I’m touched a certain way, even if it’s the loving embrace of my husband. I can’t stand to watch TV shows where rape is the central plot line. Even some seasons of the year are harder for me. Those of us who are sexual assault survivors call these triggers. We spend our lives — the lives we lead after the attack — avoiding and managing these triggers…..
Rape and sexual assault are complicated experiences for survivors. Some of us fight, kick, scream, and resist at every moment. Some of us eventually give in to save our own lives or to manage the horror. Some of us know that what is happening is rape, others of us just know it is wrong, but don’t have the words to describe why. Some of us push the memories down and try to forget, others of us battle openly with the nightmares and scars every day. There is no one right way to survive. There is no one right way to feel.
As we heal, we learn not to judge ourselves or to judge our fellow survivors, because we learn that judgment can wound as deeply as assault. If a woman finds herself pregnant after a rape, we do not judge the choices she makes.
Some of us just shut down sexually. Your world changes after you’ve experienced the penis as a weapon. Oh, we’ll go through the motions if we can stand it and love the other person trying to make love to us. But the pain and shame still silently shiver inside – a secret we dare not share for fear of being silly, weak or tainted. As bright as we are, we still often wonder if somehow the rape was our fault – buying the old ploy that we “asked for it,” especially if the assault was during a planned date. And many of us still get twisted wondering if we could have done more to fend off our attackers, or if somehow we “deserved it” – though we’re not clear why. And no matter how strong and powerful we might become, when we feel these triggers – all the pain and shame and self-doubt flash back and we’re covering our faces wishing everything would just go away.
We’ve heard these political platitudes before about how “we all condemn rape.” If that was so – why is there still a silent epidemic of rape in this country and why does the US military, for all it’s mighty emphasis on following orders and good military discipline, still have a serious rape and sexual assault problem? See The Invisible War if you have questions about this.
And those concerned about male rape in prison – something to which government officials turn a blind eye but allow to be used as a deterrent on TV shows such as Beyond Scared Straight – that issue will never be seriously addressed until those gray faces who make public policy understand rape as more than a two-cent word to be tossed around so casually.
And surely, someone will draw a through-line from the gray faces’ attitudes towards rape and their attitudes toward women and equal pay for equal work. The Bible says women should submit to their husbands. Freud said women were born for better things than wisdom. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said all his affairs while married to Maria Shriver were merely “mistakes.”
Whether they are gray faces of religious men or men of science or just cads, men still think women are less-than and irrelevant, other than for reproduction – which is why these gray faces want to control our bodies. Interestingly, as modern feminists discovered, one of those who linked women’s rights to the economy was Fredrick Engels who wrote in his treatise on the family, private property and the state in 1884 that women were the first slaves because of our reproductive capacity.
128 years later we’re still having the same argument about a woman’s right to control her own body – including that rape matters.
In 1971, 343 famous French women signed a manifesto saying they’d had an abortion, which was against the law there as it was in the United States at the time. Nonetheless, women such as actresses Catherine Deneuve, Jeanne Moreau, film director Agnes Varda, and writers such as Francoise Sagan, bisexual philosopher Simon de Beauvoir and lesbian Monique Wittig all signed – risking criminal prosecution. Two years later, 331 doctors declared their support in their own manifest, saying “We want freedom of abortion.” By the beginning of 1975, abortion was finally legal in France.
America went another route – through the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973, enabling women like me to get an abortion – though my neighbor in New York City died from a botched abortion on a kitchen table. The same gray faces who talk so indifferently about rape also want to overturn Roe v. Wade – which Mitt Romney says he wants to do, if elected on Nov. 6.
I can’t help but wonder what might happen if – instead of creating a manifesto – women, bisexual women and lesbians of America came out about being raped or sexually assaulted or having had an abortion. Just like coming out about sexual orientation or gender identity, it takes courage to tell family, or friends or to post on Facebook or Twitter: “I’ve been raped and I won’t be silent anymore!!” But maybe, just maybe if those gray faces see that someone they love – their mothers, daughters, grandkids, friends or co-workers have had to deal with this terrible situation – they might become more compassionate human beings and not impose their religious beliefs on the rest of us. And maybe, just maybe, more of us will feel empowered and challenge them for public office so we can start writing public policy that makes sense to more than half the country’s population!
Here’s the exchange between Chris Matthews and Rep Gwen Moore:
REP. GWEN MOORE (D), WISCONSIN: Well, all I can tell you, as a survivor of rape, legitimate rape, whatever kind of rape you want to call it, I just caution the women of America to not allow Mitt Romney and these senators to take over our government. They will totally eviscerate the rights of women to control their own destiny.
I can tell you, rape is not rare. And you know, I differ with Michael Steele and others who say that they have just been inarticulate. They are really articulating the views of people who — of members of Congress and the president who believe that there should be no exceptions to abortion.
Their belief is that rape is just yet another form of conception.
They believe that rape is sort of an excuse or loophole that women use in order to get an abortion. And I can tell you that 95 percent of all rape victims are women, 25 percent of all women in their lifetime will experience rape. That means your niece, your daughter, your granddaughter.
And if we start forcing women to have babies when they have raped, it will cause such social chaos. And these men who would seek to be in charge of our White House, our Supreme Court, and our United States Senate are a danger to the health of women.
Rape causes post-traumatic stress disorder, suicidal attempts, visceral reactions. I can tell you that as a rape survivor, every time one of these buffoons opens their mouths, Chris, it really — I really recoil, physically recoil with how disgusting this is. And it brings up terrible memories……
MATTHEWS: Let me ask the congresswoman — Congresswoman Moore, these guys are all dancing away from this guy because he`s embarrassed them. But it seems like, as you point out, their platform (INAUDIBLE) running away from the platform. They`re running away from what Paul Ryan has said about personhood.
How many times can they make deals with the hard right to get the support of the base on the Republican side, and then dance away from it when the lights go on?
MOORE: I just hope women of America are seeing that this is the dirty little secret inside of the Republican Party. They have no respect for women, no regard for women. They want to give rights to an embryo at the expense of women`s health and women`s lives.
And they just want to get elected. You know, believe us for these 13 days. But I believe Mitt Romney and these senators — I believe them for what they have said the first time.
MATTHEWS: Yes, it seems like 14th Amendment…
MOORE: They have said that they would repeal…
MATTHEWS: Congresswoman, you`re an African-American. You know, the 14th Amendment came out of the Civil War. It was an attempt to make sure that the freed slaves had the rights of citizenship and all those rights of life, liberty and property.
Now to take the 14th Amendment and exploit it for this ideological battle of craziness — as you said, the fertilized egg has the rights over the woman, who`s supposed to have control of her body under the law, and doesn`t under this thing.
MOORE: And it does. And you know, and for Mitt Romney and these senators to say that — I mean, this is a woman`s entire life. I mean, it`s her physical health, her mental health, her economic status.
I can tell you something, Chris. As a mother of three, it`s hard enough to raise children when you plan a pregnancy, much less to have these men thrust pregnancy upon you. I can tell you that the Jerry Sandusky — that`s the reason why we can`t pass the Violence Against Women Act, for example, because these men do not take the violence against women
seriously. They perhaps think that rape is just a sort of a rite of passage.
But rape is pandemic. It`s a pandemic disease in this country. And despite what Todd Akin says, you can become pregnant. And what is so cynical is that once you become pregnant, these Republicans don`t want you to have food stamps. They don`t want you to have WIC. They begrudge you a safety net.
And so I am hoping that the women of America will believe these people for what they are telling you. These are not misstatements. They are stating what they actually believe.
Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Here’s MHP’s full letter to Mourdock:
Richard Mourdock is the Republican nominee for Senate in the great state of Indiana — and as Mitt Romney has said, if he wins, he could be one of the 51 votes needed to overturn “Obamacare.” But this week, Richard Mourdock found a way to stand out from the pack, so much so, that I thought I’d send him a note.
Dear Mr. Mourdock,
Sometimes I still flinch when I’m touched a certain way, even if it’s the loving embrace of my husband. I can’t stand to watch TV shows where rape is the central plot line. Even some seasons of the year are harder for me. Those of us who are sexual assault survivors call these triggers. We spend our lives — the lives we lead after the attack — avoiding and managing these triggers.
A congressional debate shouldn’t have to come with a trigger warning. But apparently, Richard, yours should. Because in Tuesday’s debate for Indiana’s U.S. Senate seat, you said this Tuesday night during a debate in New Albany, Indiana.
“I believe that life begins at conception…The only exception I have, to have an abortion, is in that case of the life of the mother. I’ve struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Rape and sexual assault are complicated experiences for survivors. Some of us fight, kick, scream, and resist at every moment. Some of us eventually give in to save our own lives or to manage the horror. Some of us know that what is happening is rape, others of us just know it is wrong, but don’t have the words to describe why. Some of us push the memories down and try to forget, others of us battle openly with the nightmares and scars every day. There is no one right way to survive. There is no one right way to feel.
As we heal, we learn not to judge ourselves or to judge our fellow survivors, because we learn that judgment can wound as deeply as assault. If a woman finds herself pregnant after a rape, we do not judge the choices she makes.
I am descended from American slaves. I have foremothers who found themselves pregnant with children whose birth increased the wealth of the very man who enslaved and raped them. Somehow, through the angst and misery of that experience some of those women found a way to love and embrace the children they bore from rape. So I do not doubt the compassion or judge the choice of a survivor who carries a rape pregnancy to term.
But the whole point is choice. Consent. You see, Mr. Mourdock, the violation of rape is more than physical. Rapists strip women of our right to choose, of our right to say no, of our right to control what is happening to our bodies. Most assailants tell us it is our fault. They tell us to be silent. Sometimes they even tell us it’s God’s will. That is the core violation of rape– it takes away choice.
Richard, you believe it is fine to ignore a women’s right to choose because of your interpretation of divinity. Sound familiar?
Let me explain something to you. When we survive sexual assault, we are the gift. When we survive, when we go on to love, to work, to speak out, to have fun, to laugh, to dance, to cry, to live, when we do that, we defeat our attackers. For a moment, they strip us of our choices. As we heal, we take our choices back. We are the gift to ourselves, our families, our communities, and our nation when we survive.
Now let me say this very clearly to you Mr Mourdock, and to all of your shameless endorsers: we did not survive an attack on our consent just to turn around and give up our right to choose to you. Not without a fight.
Are you sure you want to have that fight?
Sincerely,
Melissa
Recent Comments