When The "War On Women" Is Just A Talking Point
You don’t have to listen to political debates in America for long these days before you hear some variation of the “war on women” argument. Because conservatives think contraception needn’t be an entitlement with even those who find it immoral forced to pay for it, because conservatives feel the left uses bogus numbers to justify policies addressing the gender pay gap and because conservatives feel a child in utero is a life worth protecting, they’re fighting a “war on women.”
Women who share these beliefs are maligned as traitors to their sex. Called bimbos and worse. Yet, as that is going on, Hollywood has honored and awarded not one but two men who, while not convicted of the crime, don’t seem to be entirely innocent of accusations of child rape either.
“[W]hen I was seven years old, Woody Allen took me by the hand and led me into a dim, closet-like attic on the second floor of our house,” writes Dylan Farrow, Allen’s adopted daughter, for the New York Times. “He told me to lay on my stomach and play with my brother’s electric train set. Then he sexually assaulted me. He talked to me while he did it, whispering that I was a good girl, that this was our secret, promising that we’d go to Paris and I’d be a star in his movies. I remember staring at that toy train, focusing on it as it traveled in its circle around the attic. To this day, I find it difficult to look at toy trains.”
Allen was never prosecuted for these accusations, but he wasn’t exactly acquitted either. A prosecutor in Connecticut at the time said there was ample evidence to move ahead with criminal charges for Allen, but no charges were brought in order to protect the victim.
Clearly, the victim doesn’t feel very protected today.
Allen just received a Golden Globe award for lifetime achievement. Filmmaker Roman Polanski has been on the lam since 1978 for raping a thirteen year old. Since that time he’s collected six Oscars, among other awards. In 2009 US authorities tried to extradite Polanski from Switzerland, but ultimately the Swiss rejected the request.
Earlier this month New York’s Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo told people with pro-life beliefs that they aren’t welcome in his state. I wonder if Cuomo would say the same of Allen, who is one of New York City’s most famous citizens? Or how about former President Bill Clinton, another famous resident, who got caught taking sexual liberties with a 22-year old female intern, but is presently well thought of by Democrats and feminists?
Would Cuomo ask Clinton to leave New York?
Probably not. And therein lays the hypocrisy in the “war on women” narrative.
The left cares about the “war on women,” but only insofar as it is a handy rhetorical device. A useful tool for soundbites and internet memes aimed at stirring anger against conservatives.
When it comes to people who have actually harmed women, sometimes in criminal ways, they are far less judgmental.
