Support (some of) the (male) Troops!

[Content/Trigger Warning: sexual assault, misogyny, misandry]

Oh anti-feminists. I love it when your uninspired, made-up narratives collide.

In the red corner, we have Fox news contributor Liz Trotta attacking female servicemembers, feminists, and the Department of Defense:

"...[T]he sexual abuse report says that there has been, since 2006, a 64% increase in violent sexual assaults. Now, what did they expect? [Men and women in the military] are in close contact, the whole airing of this issue has never been done by Congress, it's strictly been a question of pressure from the feminist.

And the feminists have also directed them, really, to spend a lot of money. They have sexual counselors all over the place, victims' advocates, sexual response coordinators.

Let me just read something to you from McClatchy Newspapers about how much this position on extreme feminism is costing us. 'The budget for the Defense Department's Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office leapt from $5 million in fiscal 2005 to more than $23 million in fiscal 2010. Total Defense Department spending on sexual assault prevention and related efforts now exceeds $113 million annually.' That's from McClatchy Newspapers.

So, you have this whole bureaucracy upon bureaucracy being built up with all kinds of levels of people to support women in the military who are now being raped too much."

First let's note Trotta's craptastic suggestion that it's "extreme feminism" that's "costing us"- as though it's feminists rather than, say, rapists, who are the primary cause of the need for a sexual assault response.

What about the menz indeed.

And then there's her equally craptastic suggestion that sexual assault services for our troops are.... a bad thing.

Support the troops indeed.

But more to my point today is this message that women shouldn't serve in the military because men having to be in close contact with women will result in men raping the women because men are just hard-wired that way and there's nothing that could be done about rape aside from completely keeping women out of the military. (Oh hey, great PR campaign for heterosexuality and marriage by the way! Women: You and your children should live with these beings who are, by their very nature, unable to not rape you if they are in close contact with you! Sure, sign me up ASAP! Or not. Yep, definitely more of a lesbian now, thx.)

But wait!

In the other red corner, we have Rick Santorum, explaining why women shouldn't serve in combat:

"When you have men and women together in combat, I think men have emotions when you see a woman in harm's way. I think it's natural. It's very much in our culture to be protective. That was my concern. I think that's a concern with all of the militaries."

Sure.

Here we see, once again, the infinite incoherence of anti-feminism, gender complementarism, and gender essentialism.

It's men's inherent nature to valiantly protect women. When they're not busy uncontrollably raping us, of course.

Also notable how this worldview erases male rape victims. Don't worry though, friends, I'm sure that's the fault of the The Feminists too. Fracken MRAs.