Why voting matters for women, where the Democratic candidates stand on reproductive rights going into the primary, and how Marc Rudov is trolling to be fired. Also: men need translation?

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Links in this Episode:
Sex Is Fun
Obama at Compassion Forum
Clinton at Compassion Forum
The "man translator"
Marc Rudov is a homophobe

 

Transcript:

 

This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Martha Burke on her new book on women voters, looking at the Pennsylvania primary through the reproductive rights lens, and giving the Today Show more beef over their relentless promotion of tired gender stereotypes. Also, Wisdom of Wingnuts starts a Marc Rudov firing watch.

On the haphazard shout outs to other podcasts thing I've got going here, I thought I'd plug another favorite: Sex Is Fun. Most of their show is sex and dating advice, but they got political recently with a program on abstinence-only sex education.

• insert sex is fun

So, check ‘em out.

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With the Pennsylvania primary happening tomorrow, and the two Democratic candidates being neck in neck, every single issue could be a dealbreaker, even if there's only slight to nearly invisible differences between the candidates. The issue of reproductive rights is one where there's been a lot of fussing, even though a sober assessment of the candidates shows that they're basically the same on the issues. There was a recent "Compassion Forum" that appeared to be all about religion, which irritated me, because I'm not religious and I have compassion to spare, and many religious people I can think of don't. Still, the issue of abortion was bound to come up, so here's a review of the media traps and political answers that resulted.

First off, Barack Obama gets presented with the pointless question.

• insert barack obama abortion

He does pretty good with it, but I think a pro-choice politician would be better off saying, "I can't know that," like he does here and then starts in by saying, "But what's really at stake is not so much when life begins, but whether or not a woman has a right to control her body." As long as you let the anti-choicers determine the frame of the argument, you're needlessly giving them ground they don't deserve.

And this is about a woman's right to control her own body more than it could ever be about when life begins. After all, most of us don't think life begins before you put the condom on, so why are anti-choicers hostile to the use of condoms?

Then some really creepy dude gets up and talks up an abstinence-only program as some sort of magic bullet that improved things in Uganda, in terms of HIV. That's something of a sleazy thing to say, because he neglects to mention that while it did have some effect, it wasn't as good as a more comprehensive approach. Obama's answer:

• insert barack obama aids

Sorry to quote at length, but he made some really great points about how useless abstinence-only is. I think everyone agrees that behavioral education that puts the emphasis on safer sex practices, which include some monogamy and abstaining, is good. But refusing to teach about condoms doesn't do anything but keep people from using them when they do have sex.

Okay, now onto Hillary Clinton having to deal with the red herring question.

• insert Clinton abortion

Again, it's about as good an answer as you can give outside of calling out the question for being a red herring, and pointing out that the real issue is whether women have a basic right to autonomy. But she doesn't compromise on this issue much, which I appreciate.

She then makes me really really happy and points out that there's a link between forcing childbirth and forcing abortion. Again, this isn't about life or respecting it, but about controlling women's bodies and fertility, and who gets that right—-women? The state? Their families? Clinton draws this line to clarify that it's about women's rights.

• Clinton abortion 2

It's important to make these links. I highly recommend a politician just replying, "When life begins is a matter of personal belief, but a woman's right to control her body belongs in the realm of public policy."

Interestingly, and this is completely an unscientific observation, there seems to be a lot more anti-choice material out there lately denouncing Obama for being pro-choice than Clinton. I'm not sure why anti-choicers are focusing their energy on him. Maybe it's because Clinton's views have already been well-publicized, and Obama's less so? I doubt anyone could actually view Obama as anything but pro-choice, but you never know. Maybe the anti-choicers just really hate him because he made a fool out of Jill Stanek when she testified in front of the Illinois legislature years ago.

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• insert interview

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After all the hefty political talk, I figured you the listening audience deserves a laugh. So what better to laugh at than the book world's version of snake oil salespeople, those who write books on sex and relationships? I don't mean actual sex-positive types like yours truly or Dan Savage or Lynn Harris. No, it's not advice I have a problem with, but the whole thing about how men are from Mars and women are from Venus and how we can be judged as groups instead of individuals. It's sexist and it's heterosexist, and it contributes to conservative views that are bad for improving sexual health, and it's fun to mock.

And where better to find this sort of thinking than "The Today Show"? I knew I'd hit gold when they had a woman named Alison Grambs who calls herself the "man translator". If you thought men spoke languages like Spanish, Russian, or English, think again. Apparently, they speak another language called "Man", and Alison has to translate for women.

• insert manspeak 1

Ha! Ha! Because god knows no man would actually lower himself to listen to a woman and find what she says interesting. What I never get about these sorts of dating advice books and columns is that they never explain why, if men think women are stupid and silly, women should ever spend our time with them. For sex? I think you can probably get sex without having to get into a relationship with someone who thinks that you have nothing to say worth listening to.

• insert manspeak 2

Women are fully capable of being broke and having to rely on their parents, so I don't get why these are only man things to say. Maybe they think it's only important for men to have jobs? Maybe. They need to join the 21^st century, then, because being an underemployed and dependent woman is only considered attractive in Bible-thumping communities.

• insert manspeak 3

Dude, that didn't even make sense. Would it have been fast if it were the right breast? It's a non-joke. It's like saying, "Okay, let's marry two stereotypes together, that men are the only gender that likes sex and that men are liars. Sure, it doesn't quite follow that a man would lie to you about his sexual intentions right before pushing for sex, but your problem is you expect jokes to make sense."

• insert manspeak 4

Hey ladies, did you know that men who want to buy you drinks in a bar are hitting on you? Um. No? Yeah, no's not the right answer. No one would say no. Carry on.

• insert manspeak 5

It breaks my heart because it's so unoriginal. But now I'm feeling guilty, because I've got a new book out that's a similar humorous guide thingie called "It's A Jungle Out There". It's possible I have jokes in there that are this tired. I know writing jokes is really hard, and the temptation to go for the "I'll call you" joke is strong. But I dunno. Since I'm working this new territory where I believe men and women are actually from the same planet and speaking the same language, I like to think that freshens it up a bit.

Also, I have jokes about singing fetuses in my book, which probably permanently pre-empts me from getting a plug on "The Today Show".

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts. Now that Bill O'Reilly has odious woman and gay hater Marc Rudov on his show, I feel that Rudov's going to be a ripe source of wingnut wisdom, at least until he crosses a line and finally gets his ass fired.

• insert marc rudov *

I love the logic of these arguments. The problem with treating gays and lesbians as equal is that kids will grow up thinking gays and lesbians deserve equality. Can you imagine making that same argument with race? That bringing kids up in mixed race neighborhoods is bad because it teaches them not to be racist? There's no other way to understand Rudov's comment than to say that he thinks gays and lesbians should be second class citizens because he just thinks so nah nah.

Not that it should matter, but there's no reason to think that having gay parents makes you more or less likely to be gay. Most gay people come from straight parents, of course, so if preventing a new generation of kids from turning gay at the steady rate of 2-10% of the population is Rudov's goal, then he needs to agitate for a ban on the existence of children completely, just to be safe.