This piece couldn't be more ridiculous. While its seeming purpose of being a "calling out" of the large number of New York politicians who have been accused and convicted of rape and sexual harassment, it does anything but:
Dennis Gallagher, the Queens councilman recently indicted on charges of raping a 52-year-old grandmother he met at a Middle Village bar, is just the latest in a long line of New York City pols to have been accused of behaving badly.At the turn of the last century, a cigar-smoking, hard-drinking, womanizing Tammany insider named Murray Hall was discovered upon death to actually be a woman. When Hall died in 1901, a friend who knew him, er, her, through her work in the State Senate remarked, "A woman? Why, he'd line up to the bar and take his whisky like any veteran, and didn't make faces over it, either."
Ninety-one years later, Sol Wachlter, chief judge of the state's highest court and a presumed front-runner for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, was busted by the FBI for harassing his ex-mistress after he mailed her threatening letters and sent a condom to her teenage daughter.
So what exactly does the second paragraph have to do with this story? Oh right, those rapists and trans folks are all the same! A deviant is a deviant, right?? Blech. And it only get better with its "expert's" quote:
'In Albany everybody is sleeping with everybody,' said Dr. Bernie Katz, a noted relationship expert. 'Plus, men have this stupid idea that they picked up in middle school that no really means yes. Let's face it we men never grow up.'
Wow. I mean, wow. Not only does rape mean "sleeping around" and boys learn about rape in middle school, but all men never really get rid of that ole rapist/school boy mentality!
What a waste of a decent story. Thanks to MAC for the link.
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: More trans-ignorance (veiled in anti-rape rhetoric).
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.feministing.com/cgi-bin/movabletype/mt-tb.fcgi/5899
Weekly Feministing Newsletter
Feministing RSS Feed
not about trans hate, but something slightly odd: anyone notice that gallagher's rape victim is referred to as a grandmother? does she not have a profession? can't she just be referred to as a 52-year old woman? does the fact that she has generations of offspring make her rape SOOOO much worse?
and yeah, the rest of the article is crap, but i just wanted to point that out.
I have to wonder what field Bernie Katz got his doctorate in--dumbassery? What kind of "relationship expert" reduces rape to "boys will be boys, even when they're fully grown?"
You called it, Vanessa. This trivializes rape and harassment by lumping it in with, sexual shenanigans and crossdressing.
You called it, Vanessa. This trivializes rape and harassment by lumping it in with, sexual shenanigans and crossdressing.
Er, actually transsexuality.
I don't get the second paragraph-- maybe it's there because he was a womanizer. It seems pretty unlikely that he was one of the most notable womanizers in the history of NY politics though. But, yeah, we're assuming he had a vagina, so therefore we should all think that it's super creepy and important. The author and editor are both asshats.
...and more to the point, if Murray Hall was a womanizer, that's not quite the same thing as being a rapist.
Yeah--the boys will be boys attitude disgusts me. If I ever have sons, I will be teaching them that no, it's NOT okay to punch a girl in the arm/pull her hair/do other physical harm to her "because you like her." Because it's disrespectful, that's why. Boys who aren't taught that from a young age grow up to learn that girls' opinions don't matter as much as boys' opinions do, and possibly learn that rape is 'okay.'
The 'grandmother' thing seems like a way to make people have a stronger visceral reaction to the article--a "what if this happened to my grandmother" sort of thing, especially in men--but in my mind "don't rape people because they're somebody's grandmother" is NOT a strong enough message/thought process.
Not just that, but he's also pushing the sexist stereotype that every boy/man a girl will meet is a potential rapist. That's no different from assuming that every black man you meet on the street will be a mugger.
It does sound horrible. I wonder if it's possible, though, that he was misquoted? (I don't know anything about him at all, so I'm not defending him - just wondering.) He could have said 'In Albany everybody is sleeping with everybody,' and then gone on to talk about the apparent over-sexed Albany. He could have then transitioned into a discussion of rape, with other information before his "no means yes" comment.
I only mention this because I've been quoted in newspapers before and, while I didn't come across as saying something offensive or completely unintelligent, my quote seemed like a total non-sequitur, because the writer cut out (A LOT) of what I said in between.