Lorena Bobbitt

Stereotypical "Feminists" Who Weren't

Posted by figleaf | Tags:

Thu, 2008-01-10 06:28

So yesterday in my women’s studies class we were doing a group exercise listing routine stereotypes of feminism. Perhaps not surprisingly for a group that’s been largely unexposed to feminism, many items, though not all, were cliché and negative.

So towards the end someone mentioned Lorena Bobbitt who, in 1993, cut off half her passed-out husband’s penis after he came home drunk and violently sexually assaulted her. Which he evidently frequently did.

The story of the Bobbitts was widely celebrated at the time for its luridness. For instance there was a widespread hunt for the severed parts, which Lorena Bobbitt had thrown out of the car window as she drove to turn herself in to the police. And once found the part was successfully reattached. And finally, maybe a year later the story resurfaced when the by-then former husband, John Wayne Bobbitt, appeared in a porn video.

At any rate, my professor wryly pointed out that while her story is often linked to feminist stereotypes Bobbitt herself wasn’t a feminist at all. In particular, if she had been a feminist, or in any kind of contact with feminism, she would have had access to many less violent ways out of her situation.

Pretty good point. And pretty interesting to think that if Lorena Bobbitt had been a feminist we’d never have heard of her or her husband.

Repost or Like this

Louisiana values vs. Massachusetts values

Posted by figleaf | Tags:

Tue, 2007-07-10 20:38

Humorist Jon Swift quotes the disgraced and disgraceful then-candidate Senator David Vitter in 2004:

We need a U.S. Senator who will stand up for Louisiana values, not Massachusetts’s values.

Source: Jon Swift

And when it comes to Louisiana values one could always snark that Sen. Vitter was a perfect match…

Moral benchmark	Louisiana	Massachusetts
Teen pregnancy rate per 1000 (source)	58.1	23.3
Reference STD/VD rate per 1000 (source)	485.7	205.8
Divorce rate per 1000 (source)	3.6	2.4
Reported rapes per 100,000 (source — scroll down))	31.4	29.1

...though this would be grossly unfair to the fine people of Lousiana. Who are just stuck with a bunch of supercilious liars like Mr. Vitter. And, it must be said I think the actual hypocrite in this situation is, Wendy Vitter, who’s (still) married to the Senator.

How does that work? Well, David Vitter could be accused merely of parroting the sort of lies that need to be told to be elected in a socioeconomically disadvantaged state that’s desperate to do something/anything about their in-their-own-terms morally wretched condition… even if it’s the wrong thing. He didn’t have to believe it. And the evidence suggests he didn’t believe in it. But he could have just been saying what needed to be said in order to advance his own, personal well being.

Wendy Vitter? She wasn’t running for anything when, in response to a previous revelation about her husband’s dalliances with prostitutes, she said

Asked by an interviewer in 2000 whether she could forgive her husband if she learned he’d had an extramarital affair, as Hillary Clinton and Bob Livingston’s wife had done, Wendy Vitter told the Times-Picayune: “I’m a lot more like Lorena Bobbitt than Hillary. If he does something like that, I’m walking away with one thing, and it’s not alimony, trust me.”

I got it from Matthew Yglesias. Follow his links to their ultimate source starting here.

As far as one can tell Ms. Vitter has neither castrated nor divorced her (serially?) philandering husband.

Which, of course, most people don’t do when confronted with a partner’s infidelity. But by talking phony macho bullshit she, as much as her husband, contributed to a culture of extreme and largely domestic violence that is also part of Louisiana values (13.9 murders per 100,000 pre-Katrina) vs. Massachusetts (only 2.7 murders per 100,000)!

Don’t get me wrong, in a small way I’m glad that neither Vitter practiced what he or she preached because both preached from unsustainable, uncreditable pulpits. But it would have been better for the country, for their state, and for their families had neither preached at all.

Repost or Like this