So The Donald was caught on tape saying something egregious about what he wants to do with women. This has caused much ire among those in his party of choice. Not most of the other egregious things he has said, alleged, alluded to, implied, or otherwise allowed to exit from his mouth. We have witnessed basically a year-long example of escalating reaction not to the content of his pronouncements but to the manner of their expression.
Paul Ryan has weighed in with an egregious bit of condescension of his own which adds to the evidence that he is a “classic” conservative who seems not to Get It.
As bookends showcasing the problem they could not be more apt.
The basic privilege the self-appointed “ruling class” has always tried to keep to itself is just this—that they are allowed, by virtue of their own money and power, to treat those not in the club any way they choose. The whole idea of equality and respect is anathema to one of the main reasons they act and think as they do. Trump is spilling the secrets of the inner sanctum by speaking the way he does. He is being supported by people who have long chafed under the requirements to matriculate from the high school locker room.
So why is what Ryan said just more of the same?
Mr. Ryan said:Â “Women are to be championed and revered, not objectified.”
Now, on its face you might see nothing wrong with that statement. But remember, this is coming from a man who has consistently opposed women’s right to self-determination where it conflicted with his conception of morality. (To be clear, he never actually said “rape is just another vector of conception.” But he made it clear that he has a moral and ethical framework which would demote women’s ability to determine life choices to secondary status in the case of unwanted pregnancy)
This suggests that he sees women as having a role to fill. A role which under certain circumstances supersedes their position as individuals.
Women are to be championed and revered…
Why? Because they can’t champion themselves? And how do you revere something without putting it in a special category? Reverence is akin to a religious appreciation. We can revere life but it becomes trickier to revere an individual without bringing to bear expectations that merit such reverence. The first—life—is a concept not a person. It’s easy to revere ideas, beliefs, works of art. These are not people, they are categories of object. People are revered only when they are removed from the daily grime of actual living. Saints are never made so until they are dead and for good reason. A person cannot—nor should—fulfill the expectations of such status. And it is not a status one seeks but one that is imposed.
Women are not objects of reverence. He contradicts himself in the next phrase, “not objectified.”
This is the problem at the center of this whole issue, which is difficult to parse for some folks.
And the reason that what Ryan is saying is not much better than what Trump says. Only different.
Trump is saying out loud what has been implicit in a certain mindset among self-styled “conservatives” for a long time. They want their privilege. They want things made available to them and denied to the general public, because these things constitute the trappings of power.
Not all of them pushing this program. Some, I suspect, are just neurotic and insecure. Trump is neither. Ryan is just shallow. But the arrogance of a Trump has found a home in the shallow waters of what has become conservative philosophy.
Other Republicans, in response to Trump’s comments, have opted for the word respect, but given the repeated, consistent assault on women’s health care options, the concerted opposition to equal rights legislation, the open misogyny toward female politicians, and the general inability to understand the driving essence of the women’s movement for, well, forever, these pronouncements carry little weight outside the fact that they fear for their privilege because a loudmouth is talking out of school. They want to impose a style of respect on women that will push the real issues back into the box wherein they’ve been residing all along. These same people have had many gracious and pleasant and approving things to say about the late Phyllis Schlafly and given her quite unvarnished statements about what she thinks women (of a certain class, of course) ought to do rather than try to live lives of personal fulfillment, I take their repudiation of Trump for what it is—an attempt to put the lid back on that box. From time to time many of them have said things about women that demonstrate a vast disconnect—lack of understanding and lack of empathy and a total disregard for women as people.
They like women to be objects of reverence. Why can’t they just climb back up on that pedestal where they “belong” and smile?
I don’t want to beat up too much on them, because I also believe that they believe they’re speaking from conscience. I just wish they had taken the trouble to examine that conscience a few decades ago, before they laid the groundwork for someone like Trump, who has yet to say one thing that has not been part of the conservative playbook since Goldwater displaced liberal Republicans and started us on this road in 1964. They only say these things in well-turned, polite, and convoluted ways so the average person won’t understand that they basically want to turn this country into a “gentlemen’s club” where they can get what they want without having to respect those who are expected to provide them their services.