This is where books with good intentions go wrong.
From Margaret McGuire's The Quotable Douchebag...
Keep in mind, though, that this book is condemning (and not endorsing) these quotes. Also keep in mind that I had to specify that (I'll bring it up later in Problem #3).
From Margaret McGuire's The Quotable Douchebag...
Keep in mind, though, that this book is condemning (and not endorsing) these quotes. Also keep in mind that I had to specify that (I'll bring it up later in Problem #3).
Problem #1: The "Ignore Him, He's Just Stupid" Take
I know, right? We can thank Clayton Williams, the Republican candidate for governor of Texas in 1990, for this gem. There's not much I can say about the quote itself, except for the fact that twenty years later, we still hear this kind of hopeless stupidity from people in positions of authority that really can't afford it (actually, we're the ones who can't afford it). The danger here is the Just Another argument: it's just another racist, it's just another misogynist, or it's just another crazy and misinformed person. That may be true on an individual scale, but these ideas are reflective of the cultural climate that we live in, and the widespread availability of misogyny. These attitudes towards rape weren't plucked out of thin air, but were readily available and purchased by Williams from the cues that we drop and the equations that we write about women. Williams is responsible for the articulation, but the rest of us are neck-deep in a society that produces and endorses the blueprints of his logic.
