Trending Topic #Liberaltips2avoidrape Completely Misses The Mark.

Image found at Mother Jones*

 

In the last 24 hours, a new hashtag has started to trend on Twitter known as "#Liberaltips2avoidrape."  When I first heard about it, I was greatly offended not just for women, but really for the entire human race.  I still am, in fact, especially since I spent a good two hours pouring through these awful tweets.

The trend started as a way to mock Democratic State Representative Joe Salazar of Colorado, who had introduced a bill making it illegal to carry weapons onto college campuses even if the holder has a conceal and carry permit.  Opponents to the bill say that passing such a law would make it more difficult for students to protect themselves against mass shooters and rapists (apparently ignoring the fact that no mass shooting in the last 30 years has been stopped by an armed civilian, and that "in 2010, nearly 6 times more women were shot by husbands, boyfriends, and ex-partners than murdered by male strangers" (Mother Jones)).

Here's more from Mother Jones:

Salazar came down on the side of those who believe that more loaded guns on college campuses is a terrible idea. (This isn't such a radical opinion if you look at the data.) He delivered the following rebuttal on the state House floor:

It's why we have call boxes, it's why we have safe zones, that's why we have the whistles. Because you just don't know who you're gonna be shooting at. And you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped, or if you feel like someone's been following you around, or if you feel like you're in trouble and when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and you pop... pop a round at somebody.

There's footage of the speech here.

It's pretty clear what Salazar was trying to say: Frightened college kids carrying handguns might result in unintended casualties. You could argue that it was clumsily phrased, but there isn't anything nefarious. The statement was so blah that the Colorado House Republican minority didn't bother to issue a press release about Salazar's statement. At least not until after conservative bloggers, seeking to brand somebody the Democratic Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin, commenced their social-media freak-out during the long President's Day weekend.

Salazar was labeled the new poster boy for the "real war on women," and painted as someone who denies women the right to protect themselves against sexual assault. He was portrayed as an out-of-touch, gun-stealing lefty who promoted blowing a whistle over actually fighting off an attack. Many also latched onto Salazar's "you don't know if you feel like you're gonna be raped," upgraded the meaning to something around the lines of, "women can't ever tell when they're about to get raped/getting raped," and voilà! New Todd Akin.


Oh, now I get it!  The trend is supposed to be funny!  Okay.  I mean, really, check out some of these hilarious gems just annihilating Salazar and his crazy liberalness!

 Divadoll123 is right!  It isn't about gun control at all.  It was only started in response to a Democratic representative arguing to keep campuses safer by arguing for gun control.  Wait, what?  Gun control was exactly why this topic was started, you mouth-breather. 

This isn't about empowering women to protect themselves at all.  It's about stopping people from harming innocents.  Please explain why mace or a taser won't work.  Why do you need a gun?  Do you need to have something that will take someone's life away?
 

 It's funny because of how much he missed the point!  Raising your son to respect women is teaching someone not to rape.  Instead of telling women that they shouldn't wear certain clothes because it makes them seem more "rape-able," why don't we focus more on creating a culture where men don't treat women as objects? 

You see, what Bill "Hyperbole" Zeiser is trying to do is make it seem like liberals want to take women's guns away and just "teach men not to rape" which, judging by his sarcasm, he doesn't think will work (probably because he's oversimplifying things).  If he could have typed a little more, I guarantee his next sentence would have been obvious: "Liberals are trying to increase the odds of rape for a woman." 

Ahahahahaha!  Too funny, Beer_Wolf!  Gang rape is incredibly funny!

Now, now, let's not be silly.  He can't be every where at once, now can He?    

Hahaha, way to stick it to Salazar!  Oh, wait... you're not.  In fact, a pretty high percentage aren't.

Better to be a kind, caring individual then a closeted psychopath that's one finger twitch away from being a murderer.

See, here are the problems with this trend:

1) It's suppose to be poking fun at liberals for our beliefs, yet really all it's doing is insulting rape victims by attacking beliefs that conservatives think liberals have.

2) It was started as a way to call attention to Salazar's comments, but his comments were taken out of context.  Many people using this hashtag are wondering why liberals and women's rights groups aren't just as upset with Salazar as we were with Akin.  Perhaps it's because what Akin said was stupid, misogynistic, and went against all of biology and common sense combined, whereas what Salazar said was just kind of bumbled.  Yes, it could have been phrased better, but all he was saying is that it's easy to discharge a loaded weapon in a panic and hurt someone innocent.  Akin said that legitimate rape does not result in pregnancies, inferring that if you were raped and became pregnant, then you must have been consenting to it and it was never rape after all.  That's sick. 

3)

This one comes up a lot too, and I think it has to do with that Letterman thing awhile back.  I don't know of many people that actually thought what Letterman said was funny (or, really, that he's a funny person at all).  He apologized for what he said, but the fact remains: rape isn't a joke.

This trending hashtag is disgusting and vile, and everyone who contributes to it has no idea why it was started, or what Salazar's original comment was in its entirety.  The only thing it is good for is determining who on Twitter is a complete fucking idiot. 

So here, read this article - the same one cited above - and educate yourself.  Or go here, to the Twitter Search Feed, and subject yourself to tweet upon unsavory tweet until your mouth tastes of ash and you hate humanity.  

Author's Note: I was originally going to approach this post sarcastically and praise the conservatives for such a fantastic argument (see what I did there?), but I couldn't.  It hurt my soul to try.  Rape isn't funny.  Period.  If you think that Salazar's comments are even in the same ballpark as Akin's, then you have obviously missed the point of the Akin outrage.  Grow up, educate yourself, and then join the rest of the world as we progress into the rest of the 21st century.    

*As far as this very top image goes, I am floored.  The creator of this image, a conservative tweeter, attached this to his hashtag, apparently arguing that a good way to not get raped is to be old, bitter, and ugly.  I'm glad he censored the "ass," though.  Otherwise this image would have been very insulting.