Hobby Lobby Misogyny

I have a lot to say about the Hobby Lobby case -- piercing the corporate veil, favoring one religion over another and thus de facto establishing religion, entering a minefield, corporations being granted rights that our forefathers intended to be given to flesh and blood humans, our flawed system of obtaining healthcare coverage through our employers -- but I find the reaction of many men to be rather offensive.

The comments after various articles and blogs about the topic have included gleeful statements along the lines of:

-- Women need to go back to putting their legs together.
-- Women will have to do as my grandmother used to say and put an aspirin between their knees.
-- Women will have to stop spreading their legs.
-- If women don't want to become pregnant, why should I have to pay for it? Let the whores/tramps/sluts buy their own birth control.

And the very disturbing:

-- "If they want to have sex, women will have to start taking it in the mouth or the butt."

He seemed just too delighted with this idea. A statement like that reeks of a man who wants to debase women for his own sick pleasure. This wasn't written as a suggestion for an alternative to pregnancy prevention, but in a violent "take this, you sluts" way. I wonder how many women he has raped.

Women as angels or evil temptresses. The old dichotomy. No room for a whole woman--including her sexuality--in religion, literature, art, music, or, apparently, Hobby Lobby and the minds of five old guys wearing bathrobes.

I acknowledge there are many, many men who are as outraged, shocked, and appalled at this decision as I am.

But those men who are dancing in the aisles, delighted that women are going to be forced to choose between abstinence or risking an ill-timed pregnancy -- who do they think these whores/tramps/sluts are having sex with?

I've got news for them, which seems too obvious to even have to state -- so maybe these guys aren't the sharpest knives in the block: they need to take a look in the mirror.

Sex is a two-way street. If they want women to keep their legs closed, put an aspirin between their knees, stop spreading their legs, and have the total financial responsibility for preventing a pregnancy -- which, if it happened to their partners, these same men would probably be driving them to the abortion clinic post-haste, so there's nothing pro-life about their joy in the Supreme's Court ruling -- they need to realize that they aren't going to be getting it much.

Or maybe the ones delighting in this just a little too much don't score too well in the "getting it" department, and blame women for that. The "taking it in the mouth or butt" guy sounds like he's one step away from going on a shooting rampage to make the woman who turned him down most recently pay for having the audacity to just say no.

Even though, apparently, that's what we're supposed to say.

I guess those who have tossed off the types of comments listed above -- and I have seen hundreds of them phrased in various ways, but all laced with the same "women won't be able to have sex anymore -- woot, woot!" delight -- better start figuring out who they're going to have sex with, since apparently it's supposed to be off limits for women.

And those who say the ruling affirms their Christian values -- they better not start taking care of business themselves, because the Bible says that's a no-no too. Spilling the seed and all.

Isn't it ironic?