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Is Hatred for Mike Pence’s Marital Code Driven by Feminist Resentment?
The Rage Generating Machine went into overdrive when word got out that Vice President Mike Pence goes out of his way to avoid even the appearance of inappropriateness with women. A reporterette with Canada’s National Post says that Mike Pence’s commitment to remaining faithful to his wife is because he’s a part of … I am not making this up… “rape culture.” She writes, “The implicit reason is that he must avoid alone-time with women lest his stringent religious moral code fall apart in the presence of a little lipstick and décolletage. That is rape culture.”
How much of this hate, I wonder, is driven by feminist jealousy that Mrs. Pence has found a good, decent, loyal man?
I mean, if you’re a woman of the left, consider your dating pool is made up of men in the model of Bill Clinton. Anthony Weiner. Elliot Spitzer. Al “Release the Chakras” Gore. John Edwards. Chris “Waitress Sandwich” Dodd. Ted Kennedy. Gary Hart. Jesse Jackson. former NY Gov. David Paterson. Gary Condit. Jim McGreevey. Gavin Newsom.
You can kind of see how women on the left might resent a marriage where the man respects his wife so much he chooses to avoid even the appearance of inappropriateness.
Published in Culture
Unfair. Jim Greevey was scrupulous about avoiding late night drinking and alone time with other women.
… and by refusing to meet women without a chaperon, Mike Pence confirms it!
Kafka would be proud.
Where this argument breaks down, I think, is in your claim that men are expected to be honourable. They may be commanded to be honourable, but that’s hardly the expectation. If they could be expected to be honourable, then there would be no reason to command them to be.
Instead, men are expected to be predators. Knowing this to be true, an honourable man will do his utmost to signal his honour by doing the opposite of what a predator would do, i.e. seek out arrangements to meet women unchaperoned.
Yet to read any reaction from administration critics Schwarzenegger, McCain, and George Will.
I think he’s more worried about “accused of rape or sexual harassment culture”, then he is about suddenly finding himself lusting uncontrollably.
Yes, but…
In the modern world, does this mean that no one should ever have lunch or coffee with just one other person ever? Meaning no more one-on-one interactions at all.
(I’m mostly being facetious.)
I haven’t either. But National Review did have at least 4-5 pieces on it, perhaps more (I lost count), all of which defended Pence.
To answer that question we first need to know whether you are conservative or Republican.
1.) As an academic, this is why I have an open door policy (well, as a practice it’s a “cracked door” policy). Caesar’s wife must be above reproach, and conservative academics must be even more so.
2.) I’ve seen a pastor forced to retire for eating lunch in public with a woman friend of his daughter -basically because it started a rumor-mill that no amount of correct information could stop. The entire leadership of the church agreed it was stupid, but the pastor couldn’t do his job. He agreed to retire as he was getting close anyway.
3.) How much worse would it be for Mike Pence? He already has a thousand rumors about his sexuality flying around from the left. If we’re making a ranking, Caesar’s wife is down at the bottom, I’m somewhere in the middle, and Mike Pence is taking pointers on how not to track dirt into the pearly gates from St. Peter himself.
4.) I have long wondered how, after 20 years where the rules were fairly explicit (every woman is a sexual harassment threat waiting to happen, so don’t make off color jokes, flirt, or do anything that could be even remotely construed as controversial or a come-on), that so many men still managed to get themselves trapped in he-said-she-said sexual harassment proceedings. I now know -they’re idiots who haven’t been paying attention.
Don’t give them ideas, guys.
Any word on what this reporterette had to say about President Trump’s, er, cat-grabbing remarks?
The most manly of male failings. They don’t believe it will happen to them.
All you describe seems accurate. Of course today this is not the norm anymore. So Mike Pence just seems like a weirdo in admitting this. Kind of like admitting you eat a burger with a knife and fork.
Conservative-leaning libertarian.
The Reticulator
Billy Graham had a similar policy. Any time spent alone with a woman not his wife, whether for counseling or planning or whatever, would be seized on to attack him, or would be an opportunity for rumors. So he just didn’t do it.
Some other, lesser known pastors have the same policy.
Last year my wife and I visited The Cove, Graham’s retreat center in North Carolina. Though he is nearing 100 years old and Ruth has passed, a docent told us Graham always has two nurses on call, continuing his long established policy.
I see what you’re saying. Nonetheless, it would remain true that a man might defend his honor by merely asserting he had it, while a woman would still be expected to defend it with a chaperone. Part of it is, in cultures where it’s expected that women be chaperoned, a man’s honor is not as damaged by taking advantage of a woman as a woman’s is by getting taken advantage of, and it’s easier to give others the benefit of the doubt over small matters.
In that case, no one-on-one interactions for you.
Well I was just being facetious given their marital mishaps.
Actually groups of 4 or more are safest. It is best to maintain at least 2 females in the group. Still there is risk but all risk can not be avoided.
Sorry, didn’t know about that.
Uh, Midge, Which western cultures might these be? Certainly not the USA in recent memory.
Certainly not the USA in recent memory – and not even in Tocqueville’s day, really, at least according to him. Although in Tocqueville’s day, France was like this.
Certain portions of Central and South America evidently retain vestiges of chaperone culture, though. (See also machismo/caballerismo/mariansmo.) Men are supposed to protect women’s sexual honor, but also be more sexually experienced than women – doing both means navigating social cues to locate the women who apparently don’t care about their honor the way good girls are supposed to (cues American girls may apparently send without realizing it unless they’re cautioned).
The Spanish teachers I had in high school remarked it was still normal for girls from nice families to have dueñas (chaperones) within their lifetimes, though it varies by region, and in many place the custom has been dead a long while now. Even when it’s no longer normal, though, the more recently it’s been normal, the more likely a young woman’s willingness to be alone with a guy without shyness may be misconstrued.
Hahahahahahaha!! Too effing funny! The Left went crazy about Trump’s pussy comment–and now they’re upset by THIS?
Are the Lefty Progs prudes? Or are they prurient, after all?
Can we all get real, just for one brief shining moment?
Heterosexual attraction is what makes the world go ’round.
I think we’re supposed to be in a state of Victorian denial about that.
If a man does or says or thinks or feels something, anything, in the middle of the forest and there is no woman there to perceive it … Is he still a vile, oppressive, misogynistic rapist?
[Edited for brevity.]
And the answer is: If he has gone somewhere off by himself to avoid doing his part to bring down the patriarchy, then he is a vile, oppressive, misogynist rapist.
In Islam a man can not sit next to a woman who is not his wife.
You guys and gals should hang your heads in shame, each and every one of you (except Douglas who posted the faux Volkswagen ad).
The heteronormativity you all display is sickening.
For Shame.