Girl Talk

Virginia Graham

My wife sometimes like to tell me that the majority of the ills of the world are caused by men, if we moved over and let women run the show, things might work a bit more smoothly and civilly. I am not sure about this, sometimes women in power tend to get sort of butch a la Thatcher or Rice, or even stone cold psycho, wacko like Elena Ceauşescu, Imelda or Queen Isabella. Evita. Catherine the Great. Indira Ghandi waged a fierce fight against the sikhs and fixed the elections.

Of course, the majority of distaff rulers are cut from a much more sensible cloth than these examples, the actual number of women heads of state greater than one would expect and their stewardship of their domains at least the equal of their male counterparts.

Anyhow, with women at the helm, we probably couldn't do much worse than we are doing with the men and maybe it is time for the guys to get out of the way and give them a turn at bat.

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A couple of things got me focussed on the topic of women. One was in Wisconsin last week, after the report on Supreme Court Justice David Prosser reaching up and trying to strangle Justice Ann Walsh Bradley came out. (He said it was a total reflex.) What I thought was interesting was fellow conservative Justice Patience Roggensack telling Bradley that while she did not condone Prosser's actions during the altercation, but also said "Ann, you do realize you goad him." You do know men, don't you Ann? Don't rile them or you could get choked out. It's really your fault.

This all happened in the light of a February 2010 incident in which Prosser told Bradley's mentor, Justice Shirley Abrahamson,"You are a bitch," and also added,"There will be a war against you and it will not be a ground war."

Justice Prosser certainly has issues he needs to deal with, preferably in a padded room somewhere cutting paper dolls. Why do I find it even more vile for Justice Roggensack to intimate that Bradley had somehow goaded him or charged him or otherwise had it coming?

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I saw another snippet this week, that although dated, gives you a good sense of the conservative view on the place and rights of women. Do you remember Phyllis Schlafly? I don't know how I missed all this but a few years ago in Maine she apparently went on a crusade against prosecuting husbands for rape on the grounds that the institution of marriage gave men carte blanche for this kind of behavior:

 A man’s life has been sacrificed, and three children have been denied their father by malicious feminists who have lobbied for laws that punish spousal rape just like stranger rape and deny a man the right to cross-examine his accuser. They have created a judicial system where the woman must always be believed even though she has no evidence, one in which the man is always guilty. 

A further interview with Schlafly from reporters at Washington State:

Could you clarify some of the statements that you made in Maine last year about martial rape?

I think that when you get married you have consented to sex. That's what marriage is all about, I don't know if maybe these girls missed sex ed. That doesn't mean the husband can beat you up, we have plenty of laws against assault and battery. If there is any violence or mistreatment that can be dealt with by criminal prosecution, by divorce or in various ways. When it gets down to calling it rape though, it isn't rape, it's a he said-she said where it's just too easy to lie about it.

Was the way in which your statement was portrayed correct?

Yes. Feminists, if they get tired of a husband or if they want to fight over child custody, they can make an accusation of marital rape and they want that to be there, available to them.

So you see this as more of a tool used by people to get out of marriages than as legitimate-

Yes, I certainly do. 

 So nasty feminists accuse their hapless spouses of rape so they can leave their failed marriages and move in with their lesbian girlfriends, further undermining the american family. I get it.

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Save The Children

Today the U.N. came out with a report that 80% of the U.N. peacekeepers from Benin had been exchanging food and mobile phones with the native female population in the Ivory Coast for sex. A good lesson in market economics but sleazy nonetheless.

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Interesting timing for the Arizona GOP to auction off a glock similar to the one that shot Congresswoman Jeffords in her district today. Sort of a shot across the bow I think or maybe just a funny coincidence...

Mike Shaw, interim chairman of the Pima County Republicans defended the raffle today. Mr. Shaw said it was the man wielding the Glock, whom prosecutors say was Jared L. Loughner, who is to blame for the tragedy outside Tucson last January, not the Glock itself. As they say, timing is everything.