The Week in Women

Another week, another much-needed roundup of the news stories concerning women you may have missed. SPOILER ALERT, but this week, the War on Women continued. Take, for example, one judge in Indiana, who decided that a man convicted of drugging and raping his then-wife didn't require any jail time. You read that right: David Wise, who was convicted of drugging his wife, raping her, and filming said rapes, won't be going to prison. Indianapolis prosecutors wanted Wise to serve 40 years, but Marion Superior Court Judge Kurt Eisgruber decided that no jail time was necessary.

What was necessary, the judge suggested, was that rape victim Mandy Boardman — who discovered her husband had been drugging and raping her for three years when she came across videos of it on his cell phone — FORGIVE her ex-husband.

Before announcing that Wise's sentence wouldn't include any jail time, Judge Eisgruber turned to Boardman and said, "I hope that you can forgive him one day, because he’s obviously struggled with this and struggled to this day, and I hope that she could forgive him." (No word on whether she's gotten on that yet.)

Oh, don't worry, it gets better: The judge is running for reelection in the fall. And no one is running against him.

Abortions Clinics! They're just like Auschwitz!

Meanwhile this week, California Mega Church pastor James L. Garlow implied he can't wait until abortion clinics are closed ... and reopened as tourist attractions. Garlow shared his dismal prediction for the legacy of abortion.

"I hate to think how people are going to be cast by history itself when they realize," Garlow foreshadowed, not at all melodramatically. The pastor then recalled how when he took people to visit concentration camps in Germany (I'm not sure why that was happening), the visitors would remark, “How could this happen?.... Where were people? How could the church be silent?” And, you guessed it, Garlow is sure “that’s what we’re going to say” about abortion clinics.

“Sometime there are going to be tours in the future through abortuaries — the killing centers of America — and say, ‘Where was the church? Where were you grandpa when this was going on? Were you silent?”

abortion access under attack, still

Of course, not everyone uses ahistorical hyperbole to challenge abortion. The latest anti-choice trend, which as we all know is raging in the South, is to not overtly attack the legally-guarded procedure, but instead pretend you are considering the well-being of women by passing bills which mandate burdensome things clinics can’t do or provide.

When those clinics are shut down, there goes the abortion access! In case you’re having trouble visualizing what this might look like, the handy gif above gives you a good idea. And it’s pretty scary.

This jail sentence will teach women not to get their breast grabbed by a cop!

On Monday, a judge sentenced 25-year-old graduate student and former Occupy organizer Cecily McMillan to three months in jail and five months probation for her response to getting her breast grabbed by a cop and then having a seizure. Of course, officially, the crime for which she was convicted and sentenced was Second Degree Assault.

McMillan never denied elbowing Police Officer Grantley Bovell. But she says she did so as a reflex after feeling someone grab her breast from behind hard enough to leave a hand-shaped black and blue mark. (Also, did we mention she had a seizure after?)

The cop had a history of violence and using excessive force, which the judge somehow decided had no relevance to the case. The jury that convicted McMillan was shocked and outraged that her sentence would include any jail time and asked the judge not to incarcerate her. After all, he had already denied her bail, so she has already been in jail. But the judge decided to sentence McMillan anyway, because justice.

Apparently, women only think they're being raped

This week, two conservative women explained that the real problem with rape is that it's not actually a real problem. Christina Hoff Sommers, AKA "The Factual Feminist" of the right wing American Enterprise Institute, released a podcast this week about the feminist hysteria behind rape allegations and false statistics. "Sexual assault on campus is a serious problem — but, "rape culture" is not the answer," Sommers said.

Though Sommers stands firmly against sexual assault and emphasizes the need for a "vigorous response," she takes issue with the oft-cited statistic that one in five women are a victim of college sex assault. "Conspiracy feminists are at the forefront of this movements," Sommers says in the video. "Feminist activists have persuaded many young women that a foolish drunken hookup was actually a felony rape."

But the more serious scholarship on the issue came from A.J. Delgado's piece in the Right Wing National Review . To get an idea of the intellectual heft of the oped, see the title and tag line: "Crying Rape. Is there really a rape epidemic? Probably not."

To get a sense of the top-notch analysis, see one of the best and most up-to-date sentences in the piece: "Watch the Designing Women episode concerning the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill controversy. The show’s theme? Only a sexist Neanderthal would question Hill!"

Tune in next week for more of the latest news on your crybaby vagina.

Image: Wikimedia Commons