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The next time someone tells you there’s no such thing as rape culture, ask them if they’ve tried  “Date Grape Koolaid.”

The Daiquiri Factory (clever, I know!), in Spokane, Washington, sparked protest and support when it named its grape-flavored daiquiri (sounds delicious, I know!) “Date Grape Koolaid” (clever, original, funny, disgusting, I know!). But the story doesn’t end there. Like so many instances of rape culture, the initial incident almost pales in comparison to the way those who perpetuate rape culture double down, attack the people who call them out, and ultimately cast themselves as the real victims. Their adamant denial of the existence of rape culture, their lack of empathy, their display of privilege and their denigration of rape survivors are evidence of the very rape culture they claim doesn’t exist. This is what it looks like on Facebook.

Here is the Facebook post which the Daiquiri Factory put up last week announcing their drink specials, which included Date Grape Koolaid:

Here are some of the responses the ad elicited (most of which have been removed): “Date Grape Koolaid is not a clever or funny name. It is offensive and condones sexual assault.” Another person wrote, “I am disgusted and mortified by your jest at sexual assault…. I can only hope that you will wise up and change the name of your drink. It was wrong of you to name your drink ‘Date Grape Koolaid’ and the fact that you keep referring to it as a joke makes it even more degrading and offensive.” When one woman commented, “I can’t believe more people haven’t picked up on this. Date Grape Koolaid? With date rape statistics higher than ever and even worse in a college town, this is clearly a dangerous mentality to perpetuate,” the bar replied, “You know why they haven’t because they’re smart enough to know that this is not what it is meant.” Here the Daiquiri Factory tells people to stop being so negative and reading into everything!

Here, they tell a critic it’s all in her head:

Here, the bar tells people upset with a drink special that turns date rape into a pun that they are not only warped and imagining things, but “supporting HATE”:

The bar also offers some free self-help after-school-special advice about the power of positive thinking, failure and success!

Here, the bar tells a critic, who, presumably referenced her own rape,  that she hasn’t actually been raped.

People take to the Daiquiry Factory’s Facebook page to support its intransigence and criticize those who oppose drinks with rape-based names. Here, jokes with not funny rape punchlines are shared!

You know how Republicans like to say Democrats are the ones obsessed with abortion because they’re the ones who keep talking about it? (While Republicans just try to make it illegal or inaccessible)? Or how racists like to say to people talking about racism that they’re the racists because they’re the ones who keep talking about it (while the real racists just say or do racist things)? Well, here’s the Date Grape equivalent:

People organize a protest against the bar’s name choice. An organizer of the protest,  Taylor Malone, tells reporters:

As someone who has survived rape twice, the most recent one being three months ago, it tells me and other survivors that our experiences don’t matter and that people either don’t believe us or don’t care about us and that all we are is a punch line… would hope they would apologize and change the name….At this point, with all of the backlash against the name and the response from the owners it doesn’t seem like that’s likely.

The bar responds by vowing not to back down:Then they disrespect those who are uncomfortable with the drink’s name, continuing to make light of rape and showing off how much Date Grape-based fun they are having.

Here’s another reminder of how committed the bar is to their rape-themed drink:

In case anyone missed how much fun the people at the Daiquiri Factory were having over Date Grape drinks and how little they cared about the people upset by them, here’s their Superbowl Sunday posting reveling in their victory:

When the story picks up national attention, the Daiquiri Factory realizes that, far from victimizing anyone, they themselves are the victim of a media which is so irresponsible that it fails to cite Urban Dictionary.  They declare that they are the victims of slander! They are being silenced by a media that insists on…reporting things that happen.

Here, the bar engages in a campaign to raise awareness about the two-pronged oppression they face from the media and protestors. They use humor to mock both enemies of freedom:

Daiquiri Factory mocks the overly sensitive feelings of their critics, offering a group therapy session happy hour. Those protesting  clearly “need help.” Thought disordered protestors are invited as well as “sheeple,” because obviously you have to be a band-wagoning sheep with no mind of your own to find anything wrong with this delightful drink.

I’m just waiting for the persecuted Daiquiri Factory to organize a fundraiser for their cause. Luckily, protestors really have created petitions asking that the bar change the name of the drink. You can find them here and here.

Correction: this post initially included the following as an example of pubic support of the bar and the idea that rape is funny.

I have since been contacted by Nathan Lansing, who has informed me that his comment was made in a satirical tone and. He was upset at lumped together with”misogynists and rape-culture advocates.” I apologize for misrepresenting Mr. Lansing, especially as someone who has been attacked by people who did not get my satire, which I thought was obvious.

 

The Australian musical comedy duo Sparrow-Folk exposes, literally, the menace that is public breastfeeding.

Nurse-flashing wasn’t a term. Until now. When I invented it. But it’s a serious problem. It is when a woman shoves her breast into your her baby’s face in public. Luckily, this self-indulgent nutritionistic practice is getting called out. Last month, for instance, the notoriously boob-phobic and modest establishment called Victoria’s Secret told a customer she could not breastfeed her baby in the dressing room. Though technically private, a dressing room is, apparently, a sacred and boob-free space. But don’t worry. The sensitive employee provided excellent customer service by suggesting that the woman breast feed in a more appropriate venue: the end of a very long alley, where nobody would see her.

Below Australian musical duo Sparrow-Folk confesses that mothers revel in ruining people’s days with their “tits.”

Congrrrrrrratulations are in orrrrrrderrrrrr forrrrrr Scotland, which just became the 17th countrrrrrry legalize same-sex marrrrrriage. But that’s not all.

[Now without the brogue] Today, Scotland legalized same-sex marriage in a parliamentary vote of 105-18. The parliament also ended something called the “spousal veto,” which required that transgender people get written permission from their spouses before having their gender recognized by the state. Though England and Wales had already passed marriage equality legislation, Scotland is the only country in the United Kingdom to get rid of the “spousal veto.”

And there was a rainbow. For real. Which appeared hours before the vote. And which just  might convince those who believe in an all mighty weather-controlling god that said all mighty weather-controlling god hearts marriage equality and rights for transgender people. #JustSayin

As we covered before, bans on insurance coverage of abortion have become a popular anti-choice tactic in recent years. Twenty-four states have banned Obamacare plans from covering abortion. But an anti-choicer’s work is never done and now states are prohibiting all private insurance plans from covering the procedure.

If you live in one of the nine states in dark purple in the map above, you can’t use private insurance to cover abortion. Those who live in one of the 10 light purple states should know that these states have considered legislation that would ban your coverage. And it’s not like those of us who live in the remaining states can breath a sigh of relief, given that anti-choicers are doing whatever they can to limit reproductive freedom.

For more on this scary trend, see Molly Redden‘s piece at Mother Jones.

According to Rand Paul, the success of the women in his family proves that if there is a war on women, the women are winning it. It sounds like someone needs to brush up on their Kimberlé Crenshaw, STAT.I always had a sneaking suspicion that Rand Paul wasn’t well versed in intersectional feminist theory. It turns out I’m right. When David Gregory asked Paul on Meet The Press to comment on Mike Huckabee’s recent misogynist diatribe, the senator said,

This whole sort of war on women thing, I’m scratching my head because if there was a war on women, I think they won. You know, the women in my family are incredibly successful.

I have a niece at Cornell vet school, and 85% of the young people there are women. In law school, 60% are women; in med school, 55%. My younger sister’s an ob-gyn with six kids and doing great. You know, I don’t see so much that women are downtrodden; I see women rising up and doing great things. And, in fact, I worry about our young men sometimes because I think the women really are out-competing the men in our world.

Giving Paul the benefit of the doubt, I’m guessing, Gregory offered him a do-over and gave him a chance to provide an answer founded in policy and analysis, as opposed to the Paul Family Tree, accomplished as it may be:

My question, about whether you think it’s appropriate for the party, key figures in the party, to be talking about women, women’s health, women’s bodies, and the role of the federal government related to those things?

At which point Paul totally picked up what Gregory was putting down dropped the ball once again:

But what I would say is that we didn’t start this sort of I think glossy and sometimes dumbed-down debate about, you know, there being a war on women. I think the facts show that women are doing very well, have come a long way.

And, you know, like I say, I have a lot of successful women in my family and I don’t hear them saying, “Oh, woe is me. This terrible, you know, misogynist world.” They look out and they’re conquering the world. The women in my family are doing great, and that’s what I see in all the statistics coming out. I have, you know, young women in my office that are the leading intellectual lights of our office.

So I don’t really see this, that there’s some sort of war that’s, you know, keeping women down.

OK, Rand. We get it. the women in your life are doing really well. But, do you, Rand, get that this is a question about policy and not biography?And that your anecdotes gleaned from family reunions aren’t actually the best indicator of whether or not there is a war on women? Before determining that women are doing better than men professionally, you may want to compare your homegrown and charmingly quaint data to data data. For instance, actual studies show that women don’t get promoted as frequently as men, though they ask for promotions just as much; women are less appreciated though they are asked for more favors at work; and women still get paid less than men. On average, women get paid 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. And the wage gap is even worse for women of color, with African American women earning 64 cents and Latina women just 55 cents (see image above).

Which brings us to the intersectionality thing. Even if you want to use biography in place of facts, don’t you get that bragging about the success of women who are from an already successful, politically connected, not to mention white family doesn’t make the best PR? Usually when white Republicans play the individual story instead of overall picture card, they have the sense to share an anecdote about someone not, you know, related to them. They tend to come from struggle, be poorer, maybe not even white. And their stories are invented or co-opted to serve not as exceptions to the rule but as the norm.

But back to what we’re really talking about when we talk about the War on Women. I appreciate that your comprehensive view includes economic justice (not that you’d use those words, per se) and the intersection between economic and social issues (though, again, you wouldn’t use those words exactly). but Huckabee and Gregory and almost everyone who uses the term War on Women is referring, at least in part, if not primarily, to the attack on reproductive rights. Things like, as the ACLU puts it so nicely, “restricting contraception; cutting off funding for Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically unnecessary ultrasounds; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, and prohibiting insurance companies from including abortion coverage in their policies.” Or the desire to probe the very thing you are to afraid to utter. It’s called the vagina.

Even your fellow GOPer John McCain acknowledges there is a War on Women. Though, in all fairness, you and Huckabee probably consider him a Democrat, anyway.

Real Clear Politics has the transcript of the entire video clip here.

According to the mayor of Sochi, which will soon play host to the Olympics, there are no gay people in his town. Yet there are thriving gay nightclubs. How can gay people be invisible all the time except for during the night, when they come out in droves? It must be sorcery. In a video report, the BBC’s John Sweeny attempted to find out what the mayor of Sochi thought about his gay constituents. It turns out it’s a moot point because, as Mayor Anatoly Pakhomov explains, “We don’t have them in our town.” When Sweeny asks if he’s sure, Pakhomov responds, “I’m not sure. I don’t bloody know them.” What makes Sweeny so sure that there are gays in Sochi? He’s just a typical Western outsider trying to impose his own beliefs on Russia’s traditions. Well, as he tells the mayor, he went to a gay club the night before. And, indeed, despite the non-existence/ the mayor not “bloody” knowing any LGBT people, one club is so popular, it draws 400 people a night. Not only do the gays become visible only at night and hide from their mayor, they promote – see? I told you – sorcery.

Speaking of imposing ideas, when Sweeny asks Pakhomov if gay people will be welcome to the Olympics, the mayor responds: “Our hospitality will be extended to everyone who respects the laws of the Russian federation and who doesn’t impose their habits and their will on others. But yes, everyone is welcome.” It certainly sounds very welcoming. Almost as hospitable as when Putin, last week, said that gay people were welcome, as long as they didn’t contaminate the youth with their propaganda. Or their sorcery, he should have added.

Pete Seeger, one of the world’s most well-known, prolific and influential folk singers, died yesterday at the age of 94. Famous for his anti-war music, pro-economic justice  and environmental music, Seeger also used his voice to raise awareness about gender norms and patriarchy. Here he is singing I’m Gonna be an Engineer, a song written by his sister Peggy Seeger. Lyrics and links after the jump.

Learn more about Pete on this Democracy Now special, which aired today.

Here’s Pete singing This Land is Your Land at President Obama’s inauguration.

President Obama on Pete’s death.

Something I wrote on going to his 90th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden.

A really moving performance of Pete’s anti-war ballad Bring Them Home at the Madison Square Garden concert, featuring Tao Rodriguez-Seeger, Warren Haynes, Band of Horses’ Ben Bridwell and Tyler Ramsey, Drive By Truckers’ Patterson Hood and Preservation Hall Jazz Band and the New York City Labor Chorus.

94 Reasons Pete Seeger Matters.

Pete Seeger being a total badass in the face of McCarthyism and the House Un-American Activities Committee.

I’M GONNA BE AN ENGINEER

When I was a little girl I wished I was a boy
I tagged along behind the gang and wore my corduroys.
Everybody said I only did it to annoy
But I was gonna be an engineer.

Mamma said, “Why can’t you be a lady?
Your duty is to make me the mother of a pearl
Wait until you’re older, dear
And maybe you’ll be glad that you’re a girl.

Dainty as a Dresden statue, gentle as a Jersey cow,
Smooth as silk, gives cream and milk
Learn to coo, learn to moo
That’s what you do to be a lady, now.

When I went to school I learned to write and how to read
History, geography and home economy
And typing is a skill that every girl is sure to need
To while away the extra time until the time to breed
And then they had the nerve to ask, what would I like to be?
I says, “I’m gonna be an engineer!”

“No, you only need to learn to be a lady
The duty isn’t yours, for to try to run the world
An engineer could never have a baby
Remember, dear, that you’re a girl”

She’s smart — for a woman.
I wonder how she got that way?
You get no choice, you get no voice
Just stay mum, pretend you’re dumb.
That’s how you come to be a lady, today.
Well, I started as a typist but I studied on the sly
Working out the day and night so I could qualify
And every time the boss came in, he pinched me on the thigh
Said, “I’ve never had an engineer!”
“You owe it to the job to be a lady
The duty of the staff is to give the boss a whirl
The wages that you get are crummy, maybe
But it’s all you get, ’cause you’re a girl”

Then Jimmy came along and we set up a conjugation
We were busy every night with loving recreation
I spent my days at work so he could get an education
And now he’s an engineer!

He said: “I know you’ll always be a lady
The duty of my darling is to love me all her life
Could an engineer look after or obey me?
Remember, dear, that you’re my wife!”

As soon a Jimmy got a job, I studied hard again
Then busy at me turret-lathe a year or two, and then
The morning that the twins were born, Jimmy says to them
“Your mother was an engineer!”
“You owe it to the kids to be a lady
Dainty as a dish-rag, faithful as a chow
Stay at home, you got to mind the baby
Remember you’re a mother now!”

Every time I turn around there’s something else to do
Cook a meal or mend a sock or sweep a floor or two
Listening to Jimmy Young – it makes me want to spew
I was gonna be an engineer.

I only wish that I could be a lady
I’d do the lovely things that a lady’s s’posed to do
I wouldn’t even mind if only they would pay me
Then I could be a person too.

What price for a woman?
You can buy her for a ring of gold,
To love and obey, without any pay,
You get a cook and a nurse for better or worse
You don’t need a purse when a lady is sold.

Oh, but now the times are harder and me Jimmy’s got the sack;
I went down to Vicker’s, they were glad to have me back.
But I’m a third-class citizen, my wages tell me that
But I’m a first-class engineer!

The boss he says “We pay you as a lady,
You only got the job because I can’t afford a man,
With you I keep the profits high as may be,
You’re just a cheaper pair of hands.”

You got one fault, you’re a woman;
You’re not worth the equal pay.
A bitch or a tart, you’re nothing but heart,
Shallow and vain, you’ve got no brain,

Well, I listened to my mother and I joined a typing pool
Listened to my lover and I put him through his school
If I listen to the boss, I’m just a bloody fool
And an underpaid engineer
I been a sucker ever since I was a baby
As a daughter, as a mother, as a lover, as a dear
But I’ll fight them as a woman, not a lady
I’ll fight them as an engineer!

Words and music by Peggy Seeger
(c) 1970  Stormking Music, Inc.

You know you’re doing something right (as in good) when the right (as in bad) wing starts a not-very-clever hashtag about you. And ironically, the #MoreFakeThanWendyDavis hashtag is a self-parody. Because what’s really fake is the claim that Wendy Davis lied about her past. Not that the truth ever gets in the way of a good smear and/or hashtag campaign.

So, according to the headline of an article in the Dallas Morning News on Monday that is overflowing with quotes from anonymous people, Wendy Davis “touts life story in race for governor, key facts blurred.” The article itself undermines that claim, reading, “The basic elements of the narrative are true.” So what facts are blurred? Well, according to this earth-shattering exposé, Davis was 21, NOT 19, when she was divorced. FOR SHAME! The hit piece claims:

It is her biography — a divorced teenage mother living in a trailer who earned her way to Harvard and political achievement — that her team is using to attract voters and boost fundraising…Davis was 21, not 19, when she was divorced. She lived only a few months in the family mobile home while separated from her husband before moving into an apartment with her daughter.

It turns out, as Davis explained,

“The truth is that at age 19, I was a teenage mother living alone with my daughter in a trailer and struggling to keep us afloat on my way to a divorce.  And I knew then that I was going to have to work my way up and out of that life if I was going to give my daughter a better life and a better future and that’s what I’ve done. I am proud of where I came from and I am proud of what I’ve been able to achieve through hard work and perseverance. And I guarantee you that anyone who tries to say otherwise hasn’t walked a day in my shoes.”

This is hardly scandalous or news-worthy. And yet, a fake scandal was born. And then, a hashtag was spawned and trended on Twitter. Davis has said, “My language should be tighter….I’m learning about using broader, looser language. I need to be more focused on the detail.” But what’s really going on here?

As Aviva Shen at Think Progress points out, the attacks on Wendy Davis’ life story “follow a classic sexist playbook.”

The Dallas Morning News profile and subsequent media reactions have played up her marital and familial problems to poke holes in this story. While these personal details would be hardly a blip on a male candidate’s record, they are now being used to paint the state senator as a classic sexist archetype: the ruthlessly ambitious woman who sacrifices her children and uses her sexual wiles to manipulate men.

Shen outlines three sexist tropes the media is using to smear Davis: “She didn’t really struggle because she only lived in a trailer for a few months as a single mom….She manipulated her husband into paying her tuition….She abandoned her children in order to pursue a career.” Sound familiar?

I’m confident that Davis will persevere. Shoddy journalism and hashtag-ing is nothing compared to filibustering and standing on your feet for 13 hours.