Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

This really is a full service blog.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

We will not go back.

The revolution will be supervised.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Second rate reporter says what?

Republicans in disarray!

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Come on, man.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Strumpet Alert

Strumpet Alert

by | 49 Comments

This post is in: 

I can’t embed this video of the first Mad Med episode where Peggy goes to the gynecologist, but I had forgotten just how exactly it mirrors the latest freak-out over contraception until I saw it again the other day. The dialog for the gynecologist is pretty much the current Republican attitude towards contraception: you can have it, but you have to pay for it, and if you use it “too much” you’re going to be called a whore and we can take it away. That episode was set in March, 1960. The Obama team should hire Matthew Weiner and have him edit it down to a 60 second ad to emphasize just how retrograde the last couple of months have been.

Reader Interactions

49Comments

  1. 1.

    JPL

    MSNBC online has a timely article about the economics of the pill.

    A new study may add tinder to the debate over whether the federal government ought to require health insurance plans to pay for contraception. New research shows that access to birth control pills over the past 50 years has translated into higher pay and better careers for women.

    The entire article is worth reading but most of us will say well, duh!

  3. 3.

    Dian Murasso

    I would like to see a livestream of you guys playing some old school games like Ocarina of Time. Even though i live in New Zealand and wont see it xD Cant wait to see what happens with your guild lol

  4. 4.

    RedKitten

    A new study may add tinder to the debate over whether the federal government ought to require health insurance plans to pay for contraception. New research shows that access to birth control pills over the past 50 years has translated into higher pay and better careers for women.

    Which is why the right-wingers are against it, no doubt. All them wimmenfolk, trying to take a man’s place in the world! It’s unnatural, I tells ya! Why can’t they just go back to being secretaries (until they get married and pregnant, of course)?

  5. 5.

    lonesomerobot

    OK completely OT but I know you’ve followed Fukushima developments, mistermix

    1st: “Radiation levels inside Fukushima’s reactor 2 have reached fatally high levels, and levels of water are far lower than previously thought, experts say today. The current radiation levels are so high that even robots cannot enter.”

    2nd: “While traveling in Japan several weeks ago, Fairewinds’ Arnie Gundersen took soil samples in Tokyo public parks, playgrounds, and rooftop gardens. All the samples would be considered nuclear waste if found here in the US. This level of contamination is currently being discovered throughout Japan.”

  6. 6.

    lonesomerobot

    GOP waging a war on women, immigrants, blacks, liberals, the poor, the elderly, unions, practically all non-Christians, science, alternative energy, proof of climate change, viable healthcare access, hoodies, …

  7. 7.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @lonesomerobot: Maybe we could carve out part of the US and move the Japanese here. Just make it its own country over here. They’ve wanted to be part of the West more than other Asian countries anway. While were at it, we could move Taiwan as well. That would just leave us defending South Korea.

  12. 12.

    Hill Dweller

    In other news, House Republicans are about to pass Ryan’s radical budget and a transportation bill that Secretary LaHood(a Republican) called the worst transportation bill he’s ever seen.

    If a transportation bill isn’t passed before the end of the month, approximately 70,000 people will be laid off immediately, and thousands more later.

  13. 13.

    Hawes

    Isn’t Mad Med that new reality show where they lock 12 drug reps into a mansion in La Jolla and see who can sell the most Viagra to Catholic priests?

  15. 15.

    Valdivia

    @Hill Dweller:

    as I understand it the bill they have to pass for Transportation is not that awful one cooked by Boehnor but the one passed already by the Senate which is different (though probably not great)

  16. 16.

    Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity

    New research shows that access to birth control pills over the past 50 years has translated into higher pay and better careers for women.

    @JPL: You see this as a good thing. Republican will point to this exact same sentence and say “yeah, that’s the problem right there!”

  18. 18.

    Rick Massimo

    As Digby pointed out a few days ago, Peggy may have gotten a lecture from her doctor, but even she didn’t have to bring a note to her boss.

  19. 19.

    David Hunt

    @Democratic Nihilist, Keeper Of Party Purity:

    You see this as a good thing. Republican will point to this exact same sentence and say “yeah, that’s the problem right there!”

    I disagree. Most of them know better than to say this. They’ll just think it real load. Then they’ll running it through the Dogwhistle 2012.4 coding machine and start sending out the message to those that understand it.

  20. 20.

    Schlemizel

    @Belafon (formerly anonevent):
    I have long been in favor of the Bartcop proposal to give Oklahoma to the Israelis, they could move everything there & the whole ME situation would be cleaned up. Heck, they could probably do a whole lot better with the space than what we currently have.

  21. 21.

    Schlemizel

    @Hill Dweller:
    Can someone explain to me how the GOP can pass anything in the House that is supposedly controlled by Dems? Why is this happening, I must have missed the memo.

    Name one bill the Dems got through the House when the GOP owned it.

  22. 22.

    bemused senior

    This clip sounds pretty much like my first visit to the gynecologist to get the pill in the late 1960s. Add more prurience and less moralism. Mortifying.

  23. 23.

    catclub

    I think a Mad MED episode that starts with a gynecologist appointment is not going to end well.

  29. 29.

    Hill Dweller

    @Valdivia: Boehner doesn’t have the votes to pass the Senate’s version, so he is trying to pass a 3 month extension today. Unfortunately, he doesn’t seem to have the votes for the temporary extension, either.

  30. 30.

    Mnemosyne

    @Schlemizel:

    Can someone explain to me how the GOP can pass anything in the House that is supposedly controlled by Dems?

    I think you’re having an early morning brain fart. The House went back to Republican control in November of 2010 after the disastrous (for Democrats) midterm elections.

  31. 31.

    Joy in FL

    I just got hooked on Mad Men (thanks to this blog). My blu-rays of seasons 2 & 3 arrive today from Amazon.

    I watched that first episode a couple days ago and thought just what you have said.

    I am also finding my respect increasing for what progressives have achieved. I was 3 years old in 1960, so I do not remember the repression and condescension first-hand.

  32. 32.

    Deb T

    I got my firsts birth control pills in 1968 or 69, and went to Planned Parenthood. It was my first gynecology exam and it was free (I was a ‘poor’ student). Everyone was very pleasant and nice. There was no shaming. I continued to use PP for my exams although after I graduated and got a job I had to pay a nominal fee. I did not have regular healthcare till I got a good full-time job in 1973.
    God bless Planned Parenthood.

  33. 33.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @lonesomerobot:
    That is one truly, massively dishonest and deceptive site. Yes, radiation levels INSIDE A NUCLEAR REACTOR are fatal. I wouldn’t stand inside an industrial smelter’s furnace, either. He didn’t give his actual results on the so-called ‘nuclear waste’ claim, but the page he waved at high speed across the screen showed one positive, one negative, and three barely detectable results. Further down he presented cancer levels without reference to background radiation and normal cancer rates in a community. Have you ever heard of being lied to with statistics? That is what that site is trying to do to you.

  34. 34.

    Brachiator

    @Narcissus:

    Patriarchy dies hard.

    Especially when it’s propped up by women.
    __
    I don’t know if it has been mentioned here before, but a recent NY Times article about Santorum’s appeal to women is illuminating (On the Right, Santorum Has Women’s Vote, Mar 23)
    __

    There is no mistaking the bond that Mr. Santorum has with conservative women — particularly married women — a group that has formed a core of his support since the primaries began in January. He has handily carried the votes of women in primaries that he has won, including those in Mississippi and Alabama. And where he has lost, in Arizona, South Carolina and Illinois, he has enjoyed a higher level of support among women than men. …
    __
    How did Ms. Verdi explain the attraction?
    __
    “I like that he’s been married only once, and that he has character and faith; that’s what touches me,” she said.
    __
    The Web site ricksantorum.com attracts more women than men, 60 percent of its visitors, a larger share than for the Web sites of other candidates, according to Nielsen ratings that were released last week. Among other things, there may be an empathy factor at work: A New York Times/CBS News poll taken this month found that 73 percent of Republican female voters said Mr. Santorum understood the needs and problems of people like them, compared with 52 percent who said the same about Mr. Romney….

    __
    These women find comfort and support in their view of what country and family is supposed to be. Maybe they find great value in their view of themselves as mothers and the bulwark defender of the home. And just as many Tea Party People are afraid that the country is turning into something that they do not understand, these women cling to a narrow, rigid, safe (for them) vision of what family is supposed to be.
    __
    .

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    By the way, for those who can or want to view the entire Santorum and Women story, here is a reference.
    __
    Having problems adding links through edit.
    __
    .

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    @Brachiator: Not only that; they have chosen this path. Or had it chosen for them… but this is what they have and they will defend its rightness at this point to avoid cognitive dissonance.
    __
    My mother loves her children; but would be the first to admit that she was not cut out to be a full-time mother and housewife, and if she had been given opportunities, she would have taken them.
    __
    And everyone involved would have been happier.

  37. 37.

    SuperHrefna

    This is one of the reasons why I find Mad Men so depressing: I know Draper is meant to be an antihero and they are portraying the sexism/racism/ismism of the time for us to be horrified by but I think a lot of people find Don Draper to be a Real American Hero and watch the show and long to be a Master Of The Universe like him. Especially younger people like my youngest brother (a 20 something): on the one hand he’s horrified, on the other he’s intrigued… Raised by a feminist he didn’t even know that kind of relationship between men & women was a possibility.

    If you put out a ad like that a lot of people would watch and think, yeah, that’s the way things should be.

  38. 38.

    JenJen

    Love, love, LOVE Mad Men and I’ve probably seen the first season three times now. Without seeing the video, correct me if I’m wrong… wasn’t the doctor smoking a cigarette in that scene, as well?

  39. 39.

    Inkadu

    @Frankensteinbeck: fukashima is the best thing to happen to nuclear energy: an almost completely contained worst case scenario. The only argument against it I have left is regulatory capture and complacency deteriorating what have been proven to be extremely effective safety measures.

  40. 40.

    lonesomerobot

    @Frankensteinbeck: you should maybe read up a little on Arnie Gunderson’s background before you discount what he has to say. I’ve found him thus far to be about the most accurate source of info on what’s going on at Fukushima.

    But you know, believe what you want to believe.

  42. 42.

    shortstop

    @Hawes: Silly, they don’t have to sell it. It’s covered under the priests’ church-administered health plan.

  44. 44.

    Maus

    The irony, of course, being that Peggy’s actress is a Scientologist, which is both publicly anti-abortion while having a history of forcing their paramilitary officers to get abortions.

  46. 46.

    Hob

    @bemused senior: The other thing about that scene is that the doctor has also been providing BC (and at one point, an abortion referral) for Peggy’s co-worker Joan, who used to be sleeping with him. He doesn’t give Joan the moral lectures because he doesn’t consider her a “good girl.”

  47. 47.

    Hob

    @Maus: I’m always sorry to hear that anyone is a Scientologist, I don’t think there’s a single good thing about that outfit. But as far as the show goes in this case, I couldn’t give less of a crap; Moss isn’t using the show to advocate for her church and she’s a damn good actor.

    Frankly I don’t see any irony there at all, because (a) Peggy isn’t getting an abortion, she’s getting birth control, which AFAIK the Hubbardites have no objection to (so OK, there’s one good thing about them); and (b) playing characters who do things you personally wouldn’t approve of is an actor’s job, it happens all the time– the only reason you know about it in this case is that Moss’s religious affiliation has been talked about a whole lot (someone feels compelled to mention it in just about every Mad Men discussion I’ve ever seen), which isn’t the case for most actors.

  48. 48.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @sharl:
    No, I was just as or more disgusted by Arnie Gunderson. The blatant use of deceptive statistics renders it impossible to take a merely unexplained rating on trust. Context is everything. When you catch an ‘expert’ misrepresenting the context in one case and leaving it out entirely in another, both leading to sensational and scary sounding conclusions, it’s time to ditch that expert as dishonest.

    The ‘radioactive waste’ bit was vile. He picked a quote out of context to make it sound like the nuclear industry never thought about contamination until now, he spent a huge amount of time driving home to you that his samples represented all of Tokyo, then gave you a rating he didn’t explain with the ridiculous subtext that this must be caused by Fukushima.

Comments are closed.