Tornado Alley (PROG)

[arizona1]

WI war on Women - Legislator: "in abusive relationships, there are other options than divorce"

LaFeminista wrote a great diary last week about Senator Glenn Grothman's and Rep. Don Pridemore's bill in Wisconsin to define single parenthood as a contributing factor towards child abuse.

In the face of media attention, Grothman and Pridemore are doubling down. Pridemore has even expressed his opinion that "he thinks even in abusive relationships, there are other options than divorce."

"If they can refind those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help"

Why should they stay together?

Pridemore says he thinks a single woman can take care of a family in some situations -- but he thinks fathers are usually the disciplinarians and without that, "kids tend to go astray."

I refrained from analyzing Pridemore's statement above the squiggle and figured I would let his words speak for themselves. And, OK - I think that most of us would concede that, in some cases, counseling and intervention might be able to put a marriage back together... (can you tell I'm reaching?)

But - holy excrement. Women should stay in abusive relationships? For the kids, so they can be "disciplined" by an abuser?

And Grothman's doubling down, too:

Senator Grothman claims there's an epidemic of single parenthood, and he's pointing a finger at women for it. "There's been a huge change over the last 30 years, and a lot of that change has been the choice of women," said Senator Grothman.

Uh-huh. That may be true. It has been the choice of women. Several female relatives of mine have chosen to get out of abusive relationships. And I and they are thankful that they had that option.

This is getting some airplay here in Wisconsin - I recommend WTMJ's coverage from Friday (sorry, proprietary server, no embedding, unless someone else can direct me how.). They also have a text summary which is the source of many of the quotes here.

I'll finish with a bit of Cognitive Dissidence's righteous rant on Pridemore - it's worth a read in its entirety (you have to go down a bit in his column to find it). I quote it because he has done a better job than I possibly could and expressing my anger. Give him some traffic.

What it does show is that they perceive women as something less than human and thus not deserving of the same consideration. While the right is chock full of misogynists and sexist buttheads who objectify women and see them only as a means to meet their physical needs, it's actually a sign of considering them as property and not as people. It might go back to the days where they thought women should only be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. It might be just their own insecurity and subsequent need to bully someone they think is weaker.

I have news for them. These are our wives, our sisters, our daughters, our girlfriends and our friends, who they are trying to control. They are not chattel for them to push around and control. They are as free as the rest of us to make their own decisions, especially in regards to what happens to their bodies.

I'm not a woman, but I'm married to one. My children are women, as are my sisters and about half of my cousins and their children. They are no one's chattel.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/12/1073573/-WI-war-on-Women-in-abusive-relationships-there-are-other-options-than-divorce-?via=siderec