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or, this rant brought to you by Cadet Sarah Lowry, of USAFA.
I'm all going with the liberal flow of, like, everyone else that I'm friends with, and then I'll get an email like ( this, about Ohprah's recent show on rape at the Air Force Academy )
From my sister at the Air Force Academy. And instantly I'm channeling all of the pro-military indignation of a Republican-raised Navy brat.
I, being in Ireland, haven't seen the show myself, but that doesn't stop the desire to rant about it (yet another common conservative trait--ranting about things one hasn't seen).
I'm tempted to snarl at the women involved for stirring up trouble, but that would trivialise what happened to them, or even imply that they deserved it somehow, which would be wrong and unfair. So instead I'll snarl at Oprah and the Vanity Fair woman for presenting a biased and one-sided view of the situation.
Did they mention all of the measure the academy has put in place since then to prevent that sort of thing from re-occurring? Apparently not. Did they mention that the Air Force itself is one of the more women-friendly branches of the service? Probably not, if they were going on about some fucking ridiculous "War Against Women." Did they mention the sexual assaults that occur on University campuses across the country every year? No, because that would be addressing the issue of rape on campuses as a whole, possibly in such a way as to provide safety information for female college students, instead of just singling out a military academy so that they could slam the military.
I'm surprised they didn't find some way to bring up Tailhook, for all that it was a Navy scandal and not an Air Force thing (hey, it was evil "military" pilots).
It really makes me angry when people use things like sexual harassment and rape to get attention or pursue a political agenda (like slamming the military for being anti-women). It diminishes the credability of rape and harassment victims, and often creates a backlash against women for "stirring up trouble."
The sad thing is, Oprah's one of the less trashy daytime tv shows. Note the use of "less trashy" as opposed to "not trashy."
I'm all going with the liberal flow of, like, everyone else that I'm friends with, and then I'll get an email like ( this, about Ohprah's recent show on rape at the Air Force Academy )
From my sister at the Air Force Academy. And instantly I'm channeling all of the pro-military indignation of a Republican-raised Navy brat.
I, being in Ireland, haven't seen the show myself, but that doesn't stop the desire to rant about it (yet another common conservative trait--ranting about things one hasn't seen).
I'm tempted to snarl at the women involved for stirring up trouble, but that would trivialise what happened to them, or even imply that they deserved it somehow, which would be wrong and unfair. So instead I'll snarl at Oprah and the Vanity Fair woman for presenting a biased and one-sided view of the situation.
Did they mention all of the measure the academy has put in place since then to prevent that sort of thing from re-occurring? Apparently not. Did they mention that the Air Force itself is one of the more women-friendly branches of the service? Probably not, if they were going on about some fucking ridiculous "War Against Women." Did they mention the sexual assaults that occur on University campuses across the country every year? No, because that would be addressing the issue of rape on campuses as a whole, possibly in such a way as to provide safety information for female college students, instead of just singling out a military academy so that they could slam the military.
I'm surprised they didn't find some way to bring up Tailhook, for all that it was a Navy scandal and not an Air Force thing (hey, it was evil "military" pilots).
It really makes me angry when people use things like sexual harassment and rape to get attention or pursue a political agenda (like slamming the military for being anti-women). It diminishes the credability of rape and harassment victims, and often creates a backlash against women for "stirring up trouble."
The sad thing is, Oprah's one of the less trashy daytime tv shows. Note the use of "less trashy" as opposed to "not trashy."