All links and all men

My new And column concerns the myth of rape as biological necessity (related blog posts here and here with more posts linked to both). Annoyingly, I don’t think I said it as well as EJ Graff: “Rape culture,” as young feminists now call this, isn’t limited to India. It lives anywhere that has a “traditional” vision of women’s sexuality. A culture in which women are expected to remain virgins until marriage is a rape culture. In that vision, women’s bodies are for use primarily for procreation or male pleasure. They must be kept pure. While cultural conservatives would disagree, this attitude gives men license to patrol—in some cases with violence—women’s hopes for controlling their lives and bodies.”
Graff also includes this quote from a Tennessee senator: “Rape, ladies and gentlemen, is not today what rape was. Rape, when I was learning these things, was the violation of a chaste woman, against her will, by some party not her spouse.” taken from Jessica Valenti’s article here.
The idea that rape was somehow clear-cut a generation ago is nonsense. Or to be more precise, it was clear-cut—it was clearly understood that most women who “cried rape” hadn’t really been “legitimately” raped (in the words of Todd Akin).
•People have long mocked trend stories for taking one or two people (or a half-dozen friends sitting in a bar together) and extrapolating them into a trend. Here we have a writer who claims Internet dating is destroying romance, based on a total sample of one. Another writer breaks the story to bits.
•I vented last week about a white conservative politician lecturing other people on how political power won’t make you happy. Slacktivist suggests that even someone who isn’t bigoted per se can feel uncomfortable because someone of another “tribe” is winning equality (I express similar thoughts here).
•No, Hobby Lobby being required to provide an insurance plan that covers birth control is not martyrdom. Nor is a hospital requiring nurses get vaccinated.
In case you were wondering, current First Amendment law states that the government is free to pass laws restricting religious freedom unless the law specifically targets religion. Various state and federal acts impose the older (for about 20 years preceding 1990) principle that laws can only override religious opposition with a compelling reason. I’d say Hobby Lobby and the nurses both lose under that one.
•Roy Edroso looks at right-wing post-election efforts at a culture war.
•The War on Terror is not coming to an end.
•Digby looks at the continuing arguments liberals should learn to meet the Republicans half way. She’s not impressed.
•Patent-lawsuit threats are now aimed at businesses using contested equipment instead of the manufacturers. More money that way.
•Corey Robin argues that it’s in the government’s interest to keep us afraid. LGM adds some thoughts.
•So why is it the right thinks we should spend money to give poor people the right to privatized schools but not say, money for medical bills?
•In the continuing list of Republicans Are Wrong points, Newt predicted almost 20 years ago that raising taxes during the Clinton years would bring on recession. He was wrong.
•Bullshit arguments against a treaty on the rights of the disabled.