Yes, that guy is an A-hole of the rankest order.
A little background however. Today Elena called me from her car, sucking air. She was horrified and told me this story. She had her radio on so she only got the audio portion. I sort of shrugged it off. I thought she was going to come through the phone and neuter me without anesthesia.
Why was I not horrified? That stupid, moss-backed comment was something I heard when I was a kid. People snickered and thought they were being horribly clever. Kids, girl type kids, rolled their eyes and yawned. It was something men said and thought they were cute or something your grandmother said. It was a short cut, and in those days, a less crude way for telling girls to keep their legs together. No mention of flies zipped.
However, we are a long, long way from me being a kid and this jerk should have known better. If anyone allows you near a microphone, you should know better. His remark was stupid, ignorant, inappropriate, and lots of other things. The horrifying fact is, the poor dumb ass thought he was being funny. He is so out of touch with reality out in the real world that he actually thought he was adding some levity to the conversation by being dismissive. He has no idea that millions of women will hear the name Foster Friess and his life will no longer be his own. He is now a laughing stock and an object of derision.
The real jihadists he is speaking of are here amongst us in the form of him, Rick Santorum and those like them. He was born in 1940 so he is about 72. He is filthy rich and involved in conservative Christian initiatives. He has also donated to Scott Walker’s campaign as well as lots of money to Rick Santorum. All that money and still socially inept.
When does it end? Each days brings about another assault. Andrea Mitchell wasn’t kidding about catching her breath. She was dumbfounded at his poor social skills.
Sadly, Foster-baby thinks that “GALS” are thinking about sex. Wrong. They are thinking about de-sexing him.
From Politico:
Friess:
He is full of crap. Birth control pill hit the scene about 1960. Unless my math is off, Foster would have been 20. Yes, there were birth control pills. Maybe he didn’t know about them. Lets give him until 25 to at least have heard of them.
Give me a break. He needed to just admit he is a dumb ass.
These days nothing is considered funny unless it has tons of foul language in it therefore no one took it as a joke. Just watch any ‘funny’ YouTube clip by a young person, and it is usually plastered with F-bombs as if that’s the requirement to be funny. Now THAT’s sad.
@Second Alamo
The F-bomb is less offensive than the misogyny displayed by the Republican Party and its backers.
So the present generation that has brought us drive-by shootings, preteen sex, rampant street crime, and music with the foulest women degrading lyrics ever created suddenly shows righteous indignation over a harmless joke from the previous generation? Go figure.
SA, it wasn’t harmless. That is the point. It might be harmless to YOU. It isn’t to the millions of women he seriously offended.
Trying to deflect to what pigs kids are isn’t making this issue go away. Kids were pigs when you and I were young too. Tell me YOU never said the F word. Every kid at least whispered it.
Maybe if there were more birth control, there wouldn’t be so many kids out there being pigs.
For the record, I am not of the present generation. I, like you, have grand children. I am offended as hell that some chauvanist pig just a little older than my own husband thinks he was in any way appropriate.
Unlike Elena, I wasn’t shocked. I have heard it all before. I was just disgusted, pretty much the same way I was when I was 15.
PS. Don’t call grown women ‘gals.’ It is just another attempt to reduce them to not really being grown up. (I know YOU would never do that and I have been trying to break Mr. Howler of the habit. He says he doesn’t do that but I have heard him.)
If I might make a small suggestion: try not to get all spun-up about what one person, with tangental power, has to say about anything. People say stupid things every day, on both sides of the political spectrum. If it’s a candidate for office, a sitting office-holder, or someone with a large constituancy, alright, be upset. But if we get apoplectic at every single comment we disagree with, we’ll end up having strokes.
Steve, I would agree with you except….this was the story of the day. You know…ink by the barrel. Additionally, this man, who thinks this way, is dumping millions of dollars into the candidacy of a man who thinks this way. That makes his comments a bit more than tangential. Money is power.
There are millions of women out there who didn’t even get the bad joke. Were they offended at this old moss backed man? Hell yes. I said that Elena practically ripped me apart for just being disgusted.
Steve, you know, someone telling a man to keep his fly up just doesn’t have the same implication as telling a woman to keep her legs together. In the former, there is sort of a wink wink nudge nudge in tone. Keep your legs together is pejorative and carries social tone like nothing that could ever be said to a man.
When the men in Richmond stop making up the rules for us “she-males” and contraception is considered an integral part of health care, then I will crawl back under my rock. Until then, the sleeping vintage warrior has been gouged and poked. She is awake and ready for battle.
I agree, one idiot doesn’t represent all the idiots. Show me some followers of Santorum who think normally and I will listen.
SA,
I was offended and I don’t promote any of the activities you described so your point is mute.
Steve,
Here is the problem though, he isn’t just any schlubb off the street, he is the guy with the big bucks propelling santorum forward financially. The other issue I would suggest is that his attitude, from what I have heard lately, is not uncommon amoung a certain population of repbulicans men. Santorum being one of them. He talks about the good ole days before birth control. I find him and his entire narrative about contraception incredibly offensive and incredibly archaic.
Moon, we were typing concurrently! I like the way you think 😉
@Elena
Its also a lie. That dude was in his 20s when The Pill came along. He is banking on no one doing the math.
The ability to control one’s own reproduction is paramount to one’s ability to economic well-being. If women don’t have that control, then they have no real control of their own destiny. Money = power.
Women who turn this important issue over to men have relinguished control over their economic futures. Women need to take back this right from male strangers who feel they know best. When men get pregnant, then they get to have a place at the discussion table.
Moon, if men could get pregnant we wouldn’t be having this discussion!
@Elena
Take it from an old warrior. If you get all bent out of shape over each individual grenade hurled in your direction, you will lose perspective on the larger battle. In political parlez, this is called a “distraction”. In military terms “a diversionary demonstration”…all I’m saying. Sure, he has deep pockets and can fund conservative campaigns. George Soros has them too, and he funds liberals. Where they send their money is a concern. The bone-head things they say, not so much.
@Steve, liberals, while far from perfect, are not trying to take control of who has access to contraception. Think about it this way:
Unless women have control over their own reproduction, they have no personal power over their own economic situation. If you have no power over that, then you pretty much are powerless. Its been that way since caveman times and can be keenly observed in Afghanistan and many African countries. One only has to look back at the history of this country and when women really became independent of their husbands and other male relatives. Want an example? Why did women who were barely past being ‘girls’ marry old goats and civil war veterans (think pension) 70 years old? Economic security. It sure as well wasn’t love.
As an even older warrior, there is a difference in getting bent out of shape and getting others bent out of shape. Many younger women have never known a life without power. I have. Dismissing women as having their panties in a knot or just needing to calm down just drives the point further home. Every case of stupidity like shown by Foster Friess is good to bring home. Its a good reminder about power.
I wouldn’t even classify myself as a feminist–just generationally knowledgeable.
Steve,
I understand your point, but my concern is that all these “little battles” are making up the more “global war”. It is the new Republican narrative that contraception is for sluts and not simply a health care right/human right for women.
Just as I cannot put myself into the shoes of a man, you cannot put yourself into my shoes. The idea that a bunch of men are sitting around on so many panels, albeit TV or congress, talking about MY ability to control my reproduction is so offensive it is amost indescribable.
I have heard a personal story of a woman, now in her early 70’s who became pregnant as a teenager(18). She had to go before a panel of men, psychiatrists, and plead her case that she would go crazy if forced to bear this unwanted child. How DARE men have the ultimate control over her decision and her body. Now, I imagine, she would not have become pregnant had birth control been easily accessible. So please, on some level, I feel as though you are, although I am sure unintentionally, belittleing the concerns of many women like myself who feel personally threatened by the recent events surrounding contraception.
Given the passage of a personhood bill and forced transvaginal ultrasound, my concerns are not merely an over reaction to a percieved threat, they are valid.
Show me a country where contraception is not accessable to women I can assure that country is not a developed country.
@Steve Thomas
So what’s the larger battle? Are all the assaults on women’s rights to contraception and legal abortion just minor skirmishes to divert attention from what? Just whom are these assaults supposed to rally? The ever dwindling members in good standing in the Republican party? Just what do you guys hope to achieve by alienating large numbers of women?
@Censored especially when each of those women represent a vote before a presidential election.
I stop when the assault stops. Puff up ploys wont work now.
When you can step back and realize this isn’t a “zero sum game”, you will understand the larger battle. Cobras and Mongooses.
Ah ha, but it depends on which kind of war is being waged. In this case, it is clearly the being pecked to death by a duck strategy. In that case, each significant peck needs stitches, as it were. 😈
Steve,
At this point, the narrative IS what matters. Somehow, reproduction and contraception are being “recreated” by uber conservatives and their republican representatives. If women sit back and allow the “men” to determine the perception, women are screwed (pardon the crass pun).
We all know, “perception is reality”………
This battle is meant to moblize whom exactly, certainly not the republican establishment?
If you’re implying that women have to yield a few of their rights for the sake of a Republican win, you may be surprised. The party plays cobra at its peril. Again, what’s the larger battle? Specifically. What’s this larger good that women have to sacrifice for?
FYI !
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/17/foster-friess-bayer-aspirin-contraception_n_1284387.html
“My aspirin joke bombed as many didn’t recognize it as a joke but thought it was my prescription for today’s birth control practices,” he wrote on “Foster’s Campfire Blog,” where he posts along with other contributors. “In fact, the only positive comments I got were from folks who remembered it from 50 years back. Birth control pills weren’t yet available, so everyone laughed at the silliness on how an aspirin could become a birth control pill.”
“After listening to the segment tonight, I can understand how I confused people with the way I worded the joke and their taking offense is very understandable,” he wrote. “To all those who took my joke as modern day approach I deeply apologize and seek your forgiveness.” He noted that his wife didn’t like the joke, either.
Santorum statement:
_ Santorum: Says he wouldn’t try to take away the pill or condoms. But he believes states should be free to ban them if they want. He argues that the Supreme Court erred when it ruled in 1965 that married Americans have a right to privacy that includes the use of contraceptives.
Great, Virginia is following his lead. Maybe we should just start wearing burkas too.
Exactly. Not the establisment. It’s meant to mobilize the conservative wing, which has been floating between candidates. Contraception will not be banned, ever. Abortion, while may limited, will not be banned, ever. These bells have been rung, and can’t be unrung. Folks that are too close to the issue, can’t see this as a GOTV tactic. A sound one? I don’t know.
In a GOP primary I understand the tactic, but for the General election, what a stupid tactic. WAY to many independents and moderate republicans will be turned off.
@Elena
The comments after this article – as well as the article – are worth reading. Much humor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/the-hysterical-contraception-debate/2012/02/16/gIQA1RCbIR_blog.html?hpid=z1
For God sakes. Condoms are sold in every drug store in the nation! What do you mean women don’t have access to contraceptives. What are they, like a buck fifty a piece? Who the hell can’t afford that? If you parents don’t give you a big enough allowance for you to buy one, then you’re too damn young to need one!
Let me tell you SA, at Bloom, you have to ASK some snot nosed kid to get you the condoms. Talk about humiliating. That chain ensures NO ONE protects themselves. Furthermore, who the hell are you to tell women what contraception they can and cannot use.
So married women are suppose to depend on condoms too? Do you also need a lesson in ED and why condoms don’t work so well for those men? Really, are you going to dig your heels in regarding THIS stupidity?
I thought more of you SA, I really did 🙁
Elena, the point made was that women were being denied contraceptives. Now if the point being made was the type of contraceptives, and not the blanket statement ‘contraceptives’, then I would agree with you. It’s just that it is so available in various forms in this country that unless you are too young, or have a medical condition I can’t imagine it can’t be easily obtained. So where is this big roadblock to women in general that seems to be the target? What percentage of the nation’s women are possibly affected? Once again we are dwelling on the tiny minority as if everyone is in the same situation. In other words, making mountains out of mole hills, but it is a political year, so have at it.
SA, if the standard is, women shall have contraception free of charge, then all women should have the same access, whether they work for Xerox or Georgetown University. It shouldn’t be up to your employer what health supplies you get.
Not everyone can or wants to use the same type of contraception.
What you imagine your employer having any say at all in what kind of medicine you take? ewwww!
@Second Alamo
You’re missing an important point. The most frequently used condoms are those used by men. Duh. You have to rely on the cooperation of your male partner for those to be effective (and they aren’t as effective as other means of contraception). Why they aren’t used is a question that you should address to men. Women can say “no” if a partner won’t use one or take a chance on one being effective, but there are better options out there.
The term ‘free of charge’ is a great misnomer is it not? Nothing is free, not even freedom. Once again the government is redistributing wealth by placing another financial burden on those who pay taxes to provide for those who don’t. At what point does this increase in financial burden stop increasing? I’d rather see my tax money being used to provide food, and other essentials. Those who can’t afford contraception are many times those who are in some respects financially rewarded for having children. Therefore they may not use or want them in the first place.
SA, do you have health insurance or do you pay for everything out of pocket? Its really that simple. There are no co pays on contraception.
On the other hand, would YOU want to write a check out of your own pocket for a tubal ligation? Didn’t think so.
To some people, $50 extra dollars a month is a burden.
@Second Alamo
We all pay taxes for something we don’t use. I’ve payed for public schools without having children in them, but they’re a good investment for society. I’ve paid for wars that I don’t support, soccer fields that I don’t use, highways in states that I don’t visit. Someone who doesn’t use it pays for the park where I walk my dog and the road a mile from my house. (My neighbors and I pay for our roads.)
Maybe we as a society need to make information about birth control (and contraceptives) more readily available to teenagers in school. I doubt many of them or adults are having children merely to pick up a measly monthly check that doesn’t really reflect what it costs to raise a child. I see a problem with people who criticize the poor – an easy target – but don’t want to spend the money it would take to break the cycle. (And I’ll admit that there are families which have a long history of poor choices. My sister was a CPS worker for more than twenty years and has relayed a few stories.)
Ok, so today contraceptives should be provided for all women. What will the government want us to provide for tomorrow, and the next day, and the next? Will not one day someone decide that housing, and transportation are as essential as contraceptives? I would say there are many things that are required to make it through life, and we should strive to see that all are able to obtain the bare essentials to make it, contraceptives not so much.
Contraceptives will be a part of all woman’s health care package. That isn’t that unusual. Would you think it strange if you read that all health care packages had to provide vaccines? prostate exams? Alzheimers medication? Why is contraception any different? It5 is part of health care. What is so horribly difficult about this concept?
Contraception is a bare essential to females if they want to control their own reproduction. It can be expensive. I have never heard so much moaning and bitching and complaining over something so basic. I have not heard one woman complaining. It has been men. It is so patently obviously why….
@Second Alamo
Contraceptives are cheap compared to all the social services that would be provided to a teenager, unskilled adult, or poor woman who has an unintended pregnancy. And the consequences can be worse for the child of an unwelcomed pregnancy.
I agree that it’s a good idea to help people obtain the essentials to make it through life. The problem is that that requires money and a lot of people would rather deal with the consequences of underfunding those services than spend the money on preventative measures.