Get a ring on it, beyotches
by digby
Or let's do the time warp again ...
Today the Washington Post published a piece by W. Bradford Wilcox and Robin Fretwell Wilson originally headlined, "One way to end violence against women? Stop taking lovers and get married." The subheadline, even more unbelievably, read: "The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer hitched to their baby daddies."
The headline, after criticism and mockery on Twitter, was quickly changed to "One way to end violence against women? Married dads" and "The data show that #yesallwomen would be safer with fewer boyfriends around their kids."
But still.
As Caitlin MacNeal writes at TPM, "While the Post chose to change the way it framed the piece, the article, which tells women that marriage will solve their problems, is still up on its website."
Let's remember, of course, that editors, not writers, create headlines. But the content of the piece isn't much better. Wilcox and Wilson claim that women and children are "safer in married homes," that married men "behave better," that women who are married tend to live in "safer neighborhoods" -- you get the idea. Why bother addressing misogyny when marriage will fix sexual violence?
Get that M R S ladies and stop yer bitching. If he can have the cow for free he's going to beat the hell out if it whenever he feels like it, amirite?
By the way, where is this throwback nonsense coming from? You guessed it:
Wilcox, director of the National Marriage Project, is part of a growing movement of conservative Christians in the social sciences seeking to reimagine social relations through the lens of their distinctive faith. The lens of Christian patriarchy provides not only different shading to social scientific findings, but also kaleidoscopic distortion—creating patterns and shapes which simply aren’t there.
It's not entirely surprising that conservative Christians are spouting traditional marriage as the best way to "protect" women from themselves. In their minds we're little more than children. It is a bit more concerning that the Washington Post is publishing this drivel as if it has some sociological merit as an answer to misogyny and domestic violence.
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