Conservative Missouri women defend Akin

The Washington Post has run a very interesting article on several conservative women from Missouri who still defend Todd Akin, the poster child for no exceptions for rape or incest.  The story almost transports the reader to the land time forgot.  Sharon Barnes and Janice DeWeese were both busy in Fenton, Missouri defending Todd Akin and the life they had chosen for themselves.  According to washingtonpost.com:

They are women who think that they have in some ways become less liberated in recent decades, not more; who think that easy abortion, easy birth control and a tawdry popular culture have degraded their stature, not elevated it. Though the women here were of varying faiths and economic backgrounds, they were white and bound by a shared unease with Obama in particular and liberals in general, who seemed so often to hold them in contempt.

“So you’re not upset about the ‘war on women’?” joked a man in a golf shirt who stopped by for a Romney bumper sticker, referring to the slogan Democrats have used to cast Republicans as hostile to women.

“Do we look battle-scarred?” DeWeese quipped.

“We’re doing perfectly fine,” said Barnes, who was cheery — considering that she’d recently been called a “monster” and a “blasphemous disgrace,” and had her soul condemned to hell for defending Akin after he said in an interview that in instances of “legitimate rape,” pregnancy is rare because women’s bodies somehow shut it down.

And…

Barnes, a local Republican committeewoman, told a reporter that if a woman is raped and becomes pregnant, then God has “blessed this person with a life” that should not be taken.

“I didn’t mean a loving gift,” Barnes later clarified. “The whole concept of rape is so violent, so horrific. I was just trying to say — it’s just hard to express that the child should not be punished.”

Ms. Barnes and I live on a different planet.  We wouldn’t know each other if we lived next door to each other.  Our world views are so different we probably wouldn’t see the same sky if we both looked out our respective front doors at the same time.  The difference between us isn’t as much the world view as it is I don’t want to make her change.  She does want to make me change.  She wants to put restrictions on me.  I don’t care if she continues to be a cave woman as long as she leaves me alone.

Let’s examine a few of her beliefs.  She speaks of easy abortion.  I have known quite a few people who have had an abortion.    Not a one of them has ever used the word “easy.”  They spoke of the sadness they felt making such a gut-wrenching decision.  They spoke of getting around protestors and having to scrounge up enough money when they were broke.  They spoke of many things but easy wasn’t one of them.

Ms. Barnes speaks of birth control as being easy.  Why the hell shouldn’t birth control be easy?  Those who abhor abortion absolutely should want birth control to be extremely easy to use and easy to obtain.  What is she thinking?  The statement is so preposterous it renders me speechless.

As for tawdry popular culture, I expect that popular culture has always been tawdry.  Its up to us who feel it is tawdry to rise above it and protect our children and families from it.  No one forces us to wallow in it.  I don’t think that birth control or abortion have anything to do with tawdry popular culture.  It’s amusing to watch tawdry culture on the History Channel.  Some of the things we bitch about were also bitched about 150 years ago.

I don’t think I would call Ms. Barnes a monster or a blasphemous disgrace.  I also would not damn her soul to Hell.  That isn’t my job.  I  do see how she angers other women though.  Perhaps she should just be ignored and left to be with her own kind.

Barnes had always understood life through the prism of her own experience, and little had happened over the years to change her politics. She went to college at Illinois Wesleyan University in the 1970s and heard about women burning bras and demonstrating for equal rights, which never really made sense to her, she said.

“I don’t know, I personally never felt that I needed liberating,” Barnes said. “I guess that is thanks to my parents. They always said: ‘Do whatever you want to do. Work hard and you will get where you want to be.’ ”

Barnes worked several jobs including Burger King.  She saved enough money to move to St. Louis, ended up in the secretarial pool, and married to boss.  Had the playing field been level, perhaps she could have gotten a career oriented job and not been forced to work at Burger King.  Did the male graduates of her college join her at Burger King?  Did she graduate?  That part is unclear.

The Barnes  chose not to have children.  That bit of information made me start thinking that “easy birth control” comment.  The account of this woman is enigmatic to me.  But, she is free to be whoever she wants to be.  She seems trapped by her own life experiences.  That happens.  Ms. Barnes and Pokie don’t see a war on women.   Neither chose to see it.  Probably neither has to see it.  They have nothing at risk.