Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 09:51 pm
This is really a story about what ails the current Republican Party and the kind of beliefs and attitudes behind Donald Trump’s win, which is to say, everything that the women were marching against on Saturday in the historically huge, global Women’s March.
After attending President Trump’s inauguration and being interviewed on Fox News, an elected New Jersey Republican official asked on his Facebook Page, “Just asking, will the women’s protest be over in time for them to cook dinner?”
With this passive aggressive ode to misogyny that he later scolded women who were objecting for not taking as a joke, John Carman included a picture of a woman working in the kitchen, according to Amy S. Rosenberg, reporting in Philly.Com.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
New Jersey GOP official FB Page attack on women marchers
(Image via Philly.com)
The story was updated after he took the image down due on Monday to backlash, but he left up the viral image claiming that Rosa Parks left the bus clean. He obviously didn’t understand Park’s protest either, but I can assure him, white men like him were not approving at the time.
This official who endorsed Donald Trump for president was mad to see women out marching and he had to hunt for reasons why he was mad/threatened. The reason he came up with was that those women should be home serving men like him. Why he would think that he is entitled to be served by a woman based on her gender alone is a question I can’t answer. He also missed the fact that there were a lot of men out marching for women’s rights on Saturday.
According to the Philly.Com article, he said in an interview that he supports women’s rights but, “Some people just have to get a sense of humor. It’s not like we’re in the 1700s.”
But while he was on it, he thought he might let those ladies know that their hats really offended him.
“I will support anyone who wants to march. I am a proponent for women’s rights. With that said, some of these marchers, with their vulgarity and replicas of female body parts on your head, they hurt the cause rather than help it. I’m saying ‘Come on, really?’ That’s the part that turns you off.”
Carman is saying to women that if only they act as he approves, then he might get on board with their protest. This is not only patronizing but inaccurate and assumes that women needed him on board. They do not. That he needs to be appeased first in order for women to have a say. That if only they had done this march the right way, that is to say, not at all or sweetly with cookies baked for him – i.e., with no threat to his perceived entitlement, then he would have been on board.
This is a lie. No protest movement ever got anywhere trying to appease the oppressors. Read MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail for why. This has been the message to the women who marched by the conservatives who support Trump, “You’re turning people like us off, damaging the cause.
No, no they are not. If they were damaging the cause, conservatives wouldn’t be upset since they are against the cause. And no, you don’t get to claim you’re for women’s rights while you dictate to women how they should behave.
Carman’s “humor” also revealed that he didn’t understand the march or who was there, at all. There were married women, single women, pregnant women, women with families, men with children — all kinds of people. Many women choose to do the cooking in their family and many of them enjoy it. Cooking in and of itself is not the problem. The problem is assuming that is a woman’s place and no more.
Here’s where Donald Trump’s party has no say anymore: On matters of vulgarity, obscenity, what is decent and what should not be done in public, Donald Trump Republicans have no moral standing.
This is a man who endorsed Donald Trump for the highest office in the land, and continued to support him after he mocked a disabled reporter, was heard bragging about grabbing women by their “p*ssy” whenever he pleases, called female reporters the c word, mocked a Gold Star family, said his opponent might be shot if she won, and so much more.
Carman and other Trump supporters who spent the weekend trying to shame the marchers don’t realize they have zero moral standing. They have no authority to try to shame anyone. They have installed a vulgar, disgusting, abusive, contemptuous bully into the White House to lead the free world, so they can’t be taken seriously when they get offended by a hat.
A hat never abused another human.
Donald Trump did.
He bragged about it.
Trump supporters really have to wrap themselves into a pretzel to conclude that it was okay for Donald Trump to be heard bragging about grabbing women by their p, because they like that he just says what he means and that’s just locker room talk. But it’s super offensive when women announce in defiance that they own their own body parts, and thus wear a hat to prove it.
It’s okay for Donald Trump to act on the idea that women’s body parts are his to take, but not okay for women to say they own their own bodies. Huh.
Another problematic issue here is Carman’s attitude that he is in charge of dictating how his ignorant “humor” (aka, weak, passive aggressive anger) should be taken by women. See the problem there?
Yeah. That’s why those women were marching.
Newsflash, Carman et al: It’s not up to you. You have zero moral standing, you aren’t in charge of women, you don’t get to dictate how they spend their time, what they wear on their heads, what their signs say, what they do with their bodies, and what kind of medical care they can have. And they don’t care if you are “turned off.” Trust me on this.
Imagine that this stranger appointed himself in charge of dictating your medical decisions and rights, and his colleagues in Congress said sure, why not, he seems to have a strong opinion and thus outweighs the experts and basic human rights.
Now you know why women are so angry.
Image: Facebook
Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
Connect with Sarah on Post, Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.
