# Once Republicans have killed off all the wimmens, who do we target next? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 9, 2011, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755 "2011-04-09T03:45:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/181 "2011-04-13T21:48:40Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So there was no way to change that but to create a country where drugs and crime and STDs and a screwed up educational system and single-parent births ran rampant? No drugs? Check with Billie Holiday and Gene Krupa. No crime? When I was a kid the adults were up in arms about juvenile delinquency. No STDs? Suuure. Lenny Bruce had a very funny bit about The Clap in his 1962 Carnegie Hall Concert - it revolved around people’s ignorance of it. As for the educational system - well, back then Republicans supported our schools, and weren’t trying to destroy them because our “gasp” taxes were too high. So I kind of give you that one. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/182 "2011-04-13T21:49:20Z")
Plus, your father’s permission was needed because he would be on the hook in case she wrote any bad checks. (Sorry for the segmented posts; I’m busy right now and posting between bouts of doing other stuff.) ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/183 "2011-04-13T21:50:51Z")
> [@Lynn\_Bodoni](#): > > So you think that forced teen marriages are BETTER? The marriages weren’t that great, or that lasting. Or forcing girls to give up the babies. That was another wonderful alternative. In New York it was nearly impossible to get a divorce without lying or going out of state, so we had loads of disfunctional families. Another winner. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/184 "2011-04-13T21:53:41Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Yeah let’s go back to that kind of thinking. > > When my own mother – a grown woman working full time – wasn’t allowed to open up a bank account in her name without my father’s permission because she was married. > > :rolleyes: In 1978 Louisiana my wife wasn’t allowed to either because of the wonderful head and master law. She had the real job, I was in grad school. She discovered this when she was shopping, and wanted to get a check cashing card to pay for the groceries. She was told that it was impossible unless I was there to sign it. She left the groceries and walked. ---
**Author:** ![Starving\_Artist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/aeb1de/32.png) [@Starving\_Artist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starving_Artist)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/185 "2011-04-13T21:54:32Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > No drugs? Check with Billie Holiday and Gene Krupa. > No crime? When I was a kid the adults were up in arms about juvenile delinquency. > No STDs? Suuure. Lenny Bruce had a very funny bit about The Clap in his 1962 Carnegie Hall Concert - it revolved around people’s ignorance of it. > > As for the educational system - well, back then Republicans supported our schools, and weren’t trying to destroy them because our “gasp” taxes were too high. So I kind of give you that one. Oh, give me a break! Do you really interpret what I said as no one anywhere in a country of 150 million people was doing drugs or getting an STD? The point is they were nowhere near as commonplace as they are today. Exceptions don’t prove the rule and you perfectly well know it. And it wasn’t Republicans who decided that the right thing to do for a kid’s self-esteem was to pass them whether they learned the subject or not, and it wasn’t Republicans who put the teacher’s unions and the federal government largely in charge of running the school system. Plus you could discipline kids in those days. You can’t nowadays and they perfectly well know it. Ask any school bus driver. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/186 "2011-04-13T21:56:07Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Plus, your father’s permission was needed because he would be on the hook in case she wrote any bad checks. > > (Sorry for the segmented posts; I’m busy right now and posting between bouts of doing other stuff.) A married woman did not need her father’s permission, **LavenderBlue** ’s post clearly outlined that she needed her HUSBAND’s permission. Comprehension is really not your strong suit, is it? ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/187 "2011-04-13T21:57:43Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > So there was no way to change that but to create a country where drugs and crime and STDs and a screwed up educational system and single-parent births ran rampant? Yeah back then they had no drugs, crime or STD’s. No. That’s just a liberal delusion if you point out otherwise. > [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > I should probably add that women were somehow able to get the vote without all that having to happen. I would think that checking accounts would be a relatively small accomplishment compared to that. > > And besides, those practices weren’t born of a desire to oppress women. In those days, by and large, women took care of things on the home front and men took care of earning the money needed to support the family. Thus men had property and the likelihood of a continued income. Many women, if they worked, didn’t stay on the job as long as did men due to pregnancies and so forth. Plus in those days people were largely kept track of and identified by their names, and a woman could completely avoid a bad credit history by marrying or remarrying. So it was a risk to grant women credit in those days. Those practices had nothing to do with the common feminist fantasy that men were out to oppress women and/or deny them their rights. The fact that you can find justification for the historical practice of treating a grown woman like a child solely on the basis of her gender makes me glad that those times are indeed largely long past. It wasn’t just about checking accounts. Legally married women were not considered equal to men. Go look up the [laws of coverture](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coverture) and educate yourself on this topic. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/188 "2011-04-13T22:02:02Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > The point is they were nowhere near as commonplace as they are today. Exceptions don’t prove the rule and you perfectly well know it. Here is [one take on the reason behind that.](http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ECE4/html/falling_and_rising_std_rates.html) And it does not involve the beatles, or liberals: > [@](#): > > Many medical and political authorities feared that, once “the wages of sin” had been eliminated, men and women would turn to promiscuity, debauchery, and vice. As a result, marriage, the family, and society as a whole would face ruin and decline. In that sense, “the cure would be worse than the disease”. > In any case, in the early 1950s, the U.S. government, in part also misled by the apparent simplicity of a cure, began ever more drastic cuts in its STD prevention programs. At the same time, the social and political climate made the open discussion of sexual issues more and more difficult. Unfortunately, and predictably, the infection rate rose again. So it seems that one explanation for the rise in STD’s in the United states is that it is the fault of those who cut the STD prevention programs because of the prudes who did not want anyone to talk about sex, and the fear of people having sex without the consequences of getting a disease. In other words… the rise in STD’s is the fault of the Conservatives. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/189 "2011-04-13T22:02:03Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And besides, those practices weren’t born of a desire to oppress women. In those days, by and large, women took care of things on the home front and men took care of earning the money needed to support the family. Thus men had property and the likelihood of a continued income. Many women, if they worked, didn’t stay on the job as long as did men due to pregnancies and so forth. Plus in those days people were largely kept track of and identified by their names, and a woman could completely avoid a bad credit history by marrying or remarrying. So it was a risk to grant women credit in those days. Those practices had nothing to do with the common feminist fantasy that men were out to oppress women and/or deny them their rights. Those practices were put in place to ensure that ONE person, the MAN, had most of the rights. The effect was to make sure that women NEEDED to be married to survive. And some men long for the days when women pretty much needed to be married, because women can afford to be pickier about who they marry. Today, women can usually make a living without needing to be married, so if their alternatives are being a single woman, or being stuck in a loveless marriage to some slob who is content to get drunk in front of the TV, they’ll choose being single. And guess what? If they have kids, it’s probably better for the kids if they don’t have to see Daddy passing out in front of the TV every night, and possibly beating Mom and the kids before he passes out. Single parenthood is not always inferior to married parenthood. I think that most kids do better with at least two adults in the household…but those adults don’t need to be married, and in fact they don’t even need to be in a sexual relationship. But sometimes, the choice isn’t between a good marriage and single parenthood. Sometimes, the choice is between an abusive marriage and single parenthood. ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/190 "2011-04-13T23:28:38Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Here is [one take on the reason behind that.](http://www2.hu-berlin.de/sexology/ECE4/html/falling_and_rising_std_rates.html) But, er, it should be noted that those figures are quite old. Rates of both gonorrhea and syphilis are down from the fifties—see Table 1 in [the 2009 HHS STD surveillance report](http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats09/surv2009-Complete.pdf). Chlamydia’s up; chancroid is down; HIV wasn’t even around (hey, I’m a poet). Yadda yadda yadda. The problem with focusing on STD prevalence as an indicator of widespread social malfeasance is the number confounding factors. STDs can be prevented or cured some by vaccines; some by antibiotics; some by condoms or other barrier prophylactics. Thus rates can decrease irrespective of the level of sex being had—this is probably why we had such a steep drop from the forties to the fifties—_not_ because people all of a sudden developed a stricter kind of sexual morality. On the other hand, we can increase the rate of STD transmission simply by creating new STDs and throwing them into the mix. Something like, say, the introduction of HIV/AIDS will hoist up STD rates even holding constant the level of sexual activity./ If someone wishes to argue that we as a society are _in the crapper_, he’ll have to do better than pointing to historical STD rates. (He might need an actual argument.) ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/191 "2011-04-13T23:38:24Z")
Boy the way Glenn Miller played, Songs that made the Hit Parade … ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Fight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/90ced4/32.png) [@Cat\_Fight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Fight)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/192 "2011-04-13T23:40:15Z")
People, people, relax! They’ve got it covered. You can, apparently, get a Pap smear at Walgreens now. [Wait… wait… no you can’t.](http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104110009) ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/193 "2011-04-13T23:51:12Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > No, but at least it gives me a chance to try to get people to think about how society operates these days, and about the kind of thinking that caused it. Who knows? Maybe someday things will actually start to change for the better. Let me phrase it this way: Do you have any evidence that conservative states, or conservative households, are significantly less likely to experience the social ills you’ve listed so much? If not, why are blaming it all on “liberal permissiveness”? [Why do Red States have a higher divorce rate than Blue States](http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/weekinreview/14pamb.html)? ---
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/194 "2011-04-14T01:03:57Z")
> [@Cat\_Fight](#): > > People, people, relax! They’ve got it covered. > > You can, apparently, get a Pap smear at Walgreens now. > > [Wait… wait… no you can’t.](http://mediamatters.org/blog/201104110009) Now there’s a mental picture. “Excuse me, where are they doing the pap smears?” “Aisle Five.” ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/195 "2011-04-14T01:22:03Z")
> [@pohjonen](#): > > Now there’s a mental picture. > > “Excuse me, where are they doing the pap smears?” > > “Aisle Five.” An even better mental picture is Stephen Colbert’s take on it then going in to how they offer colonoscopies too. > **[Comedy Central Shows & Movies - Watch on Paramount+](https://www.paramountplus.com/brands/comedy-central/)** > > Watch the Comedy Central shows, including The Daily Show, Chappelle's Show, Strangers with Candy, RENO 911!, Drawn Together, and more. starts at 3:20 ---
**Author:** ![stretch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a6a055/32.png) [@stretch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stretch)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/196 "2011-04-14T15:26:13Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > And besides, those practices weren’t born of a desire to oppress women. In those days, by and large, women took care of things on the home front and men took care of earning the money needed to support the family. Thus men had property and the likelihood of a continued income. Many women, if they worked, didn’t stay on the job as long as did men due to pregnancies and so forth. Plus in those days people were largely kept track of and identified by their names, and a woman could completely avoid a bad credit history by marrying or remarrying. So it was a risk to grant women credit in those days. Those practices had nothing to do with the common feminist fantasy that men were out to oppress women and/or deny them their rights. FFS, read a fucking book! The 50s that you so cherish are an aberration in human history; a very brief period of time when a relatively large number of US women were not required to work and were able to be “stay at home” moms. Most of history sees the majority of women working in some capacity to support themselves and their families. Maybe not what you consider work since women weren’t allowed careers, but work nonetheless: menial labor to rich folks while their own children are raised by others, working out on the farm while the oldest kids care for the youngest, taking in laundry, etc. You have zero idea what it has ever been like for women or any other minority, so please don’t speak for any but yourself. I strongly doubt you are even remotely curious as to what life was really like for the people you think were so happy to be held back… ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/197 "2011-04-14T15:45:39Z")
> [@Paranoid\_Randroid](#): > > But, er, it should be noted that those figures are quite old. Rates of both gonorrhea and syphilis are down from the fifties—see Table 1 in [the 2009 HHS STD surveillance report](http://www.cdc.gov/std/stats09/surv2009-Complete.pdf). Chlamydia’s up; chancroid is down; HIV wasn’t even around (hey, I’m a poet). Yadda yadda yadda. > > The problem with focusing on STD prevalence as an indicator of widespread social malfeasance is the number confounding factors. STDs can be prevented or cured some by vaccines; some by antibiotics; some by condoms or other barrier prophylactics. Thus rates can decrease irrespective of the level of sex being had—this is probably why we had such a steep drop from the forties to the fifties—_not_ because people all of a sudden developed a stricter kind of sexual morality. > > On the other hand, we can increase the rate of STD transmission simply by creating new STDs and throwing them into the mix. Something like, say, the introduction of HIV/AIDS will hoist up STD rates even holding constant the level of sexual activity./ > > If someone wishes to argue that we as a society are _in the crapper_, he’ll have to do better than pointing to historical STD rates. (He might need an actual argument.) Very good point. Perhaps next we’ll hear about how Liberal attitudes are actually responsible for creating new variants of microorganisms. But we’re using Starving Artist logic here. Let me explain this sort of logic: 1. If STDs are cured, more people might be tempted to fuck. We don’t want people to fuck for enjoyment – that’s bad and against God’s will. 2. If people are educated about sex, and become knowledgeable about how to avoid STDs, they might want to fuck. We don’t want people to fuck for enjoyment – that’s bad and against God’s will. THEREFORE: 3. We should cut funding to STD Prevention programs, because this will cause fewer people to fuck for enjoyment. God will be pleased. FINALLY When the result of your policy of cutting funding to STD Prevention programs is that shockingly, the incidence of STDs goes up: Then blame the Liberals/Hollywood/Negro music. This sort of logic works in a variety of ways: 1. Cut taxes on the wealthiest portion of society 2. Start expensive wars, and keep the funding for these wars off-budget 3. Ignore any deficits, because they don’t matter Then: When the economy tanks and the deficit is skyrocketing, blame the party that has just been elected to the presidency. Now deficits are the most important thing in the universe. Bonus: If you can blame the deficit on social programs that make up a tiny, tiny portion of the spending (cough, planned parenthood, cough) ---
**Author:** ![RedFury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ec9cab/32.png) [@RedFury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RedFury)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/198 "2011-04-14T16:11:33Z")
Obviously drinking [**Bitter Beer**](http://beerbent.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/bitter_beer_face1.jpg) has long raging effects. Beyond the horrid wrinkles it appears to alter one’s sense of reality and long for a time that never was. Lesson: stay away kids. Get laid instead. ---
**Author:** ![Enderw24](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ba9def/32.png) [@Enderw24](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enderw24)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/199 "2011-04-14T16:45:24Z")
> [@Starving\_Artist](#): > > Exceptions don’t prove the rule and you perfectly well know it. Then why in the fuck do you fucking keep talking about two fucking second graders as if that fucking anecdotal blip has any statistical significance over the question of increased kid fucking nationwide? ---
**Author:** ![Paranoid\_Randroid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paranoid_randroid/32/18_2.png) [@Paranoid\_Randroid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paranoid_Randroid)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2011, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755/200 "2011-04-14T17:23:22Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > Then why in the fuck do you fucking keep talking about two fucking second graders as if that fucking anecdotal blip has any statistical significance over the question of increased kid fucking nationwide? Yes. I made a point like this earlier, and **Starving Artist** completely ignored it (as well as all my other _actual citations_ that demonstrate he’s off base). Disappointing performance overall. I prefer giving people the benefit of the doubt but he’s quite clearly _utterly ignoring_ all evidence contrary to his beliefs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/once-republicans-have-killed-off-all-the-wimmens-who-do-we-target-next/577755.md?page=11)