September 26, 2005

Eve Ensler: Violence Against Women Can Be Blamed on W

For those who would quibble with my headline, just read this excerpt from an interview in the Connecticut Post (in the "Woman Wise" section, where else?):

"My life is devoted to ending violence against women," she said.

The task is a difficult one because, she said, "we're living in a very, very, very violent society with a very violent president, who is [espousing] a very violent agenda: occupation, domination and invasion. Those are words of rape, those are words of assault.

"That's a military paradigm, that's a machismo paradigm, that's a patriarchal paradigm that then gets repeated and mirrored on the local family level," Ensler said. "You can't tell young boys, 'Don't go and take a women's body against her will,' when we are dropping bombs and occupying people's nations without their permission. It's the same mentality," she said.

No, it's not. In case she hasn't noticed, the majority of Iraqis appreciate what we have done for them. Their former "president," Saddam Hussein, had a history of violence against women, and he encouraged his sons in that mindset. I suppose the rape rooms of Uday and Qusay just slipped Ensler's mind, seeing as she's so busy looking for "vagina warriors."

She goes around encouraging women who have experienced violence to shout out "vagina" (and other words I won't print here) as though it was a cure-all. Is she a licensed therapist? Would she appreciate men going around shouting out the various names for their genitalia in the name of empowerment? Somehow I don't think so.

Ensler is concerned that our military is desensitizing men to the needs of women. I find it laughable that she doesn't have to think twice about saying the ridiculous things she does because our military (and some of them are women!) fight and die for her to have the right to say them. What the hell, they're just a bunch of rapists and bullies, right?

Was Ensler worried about the violence against the women in the World Trade Center on 9/11? What about the women who were on the planes that crashed into the buildings, as well as those on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania on that fateful day? (I'm not mentioning the violence against the men that day, since Ensler doesn't seem to think men merit any positive attention whatsoever.)

Why isn't she worried about the gangsta rapper/hip hop culture that has become enormously popular? Violence against women (that's ho's and bitches to you) in rap songs is the norm.

Why isn't she worried about the growing acceptance of women as sex objects? Not only are we seeing more and more scantily clad women in the media and on the street, but we're seeing Paris Hilton's star rise because her videotaped sex session with an ex-boyfriend hit the Internet. And what about the girls who take it all off for those "Girls Gone Wild" videos? Brent Bozell has much more on the topic of porn chic here. As I like to say, if you dress like a skank, men will treat you like a skank. Why should they respect you if you let it all hang out like a display in the butcher's window?

Wanting to end rape and other violence against women is a noble cause. But using that cause to bash a president whose policies she doesn't agree with is not only shabby, but deceitful.