It's Not Like The Weather

"Rape is like the weather. If it's inevitable, relax and enjoy it".

This sentence was uttered in 1990 by Clayton "Claytie" Williams, then Texas gubernatorial candidate. Except he thought the microphone was off. It was not. He lost the race to Ann Richards.

In 2016, candidate Trump was elected to the presidency of the United States of America after bragging, also when he thought microphone was off, of "grabbing them by the pussy".

Apparently raping women had become less unpalatable than making a very insensitive absurd statement about it.  I don't know how the Trump presidency has worked out for you or how you think it's working out for the world but I haven't forgotten that this was a foundation for it: the tolerance and embrace of a person who brags about assaulting women.

So, like many women, now living in a country where saying that goes unpunished and where doing that is in theory now far less punishable than aborting or in some states, miscarrying under circumstances judged to be a woman's responsibility, an embryo that, trust me, is not capable neurologically of pain till about 20 weeks in the womb, consciousness till after birth, a real heart beat till it has a heart around 20 weeks.

We are also living in a world where children die or suffer of preventable poverty, hunger and disease including in the USA. A world and its children current and future which is also impacted large scale by many decisions which are not biologically and ecologically sustainable.  At least not if the goal is really to not hurt or kill children.

But going back to Claytie. I was in an OR the day he lost his gubernatorial bid.

I was a medical student and my attending cardiac surgeon wanted Claytie to win.

I was a medical student in a room full of men: from Russia, China, the USA. They had come to observe my famous attending operate.

Med Students Circa 1990: Plunkett, Preisinger and Glowinski

He wanted another kind of blood that day than the one from his cardiac surgeries: female blood. "So little girl...." (he called me that by the way) what do you think about rape? "  He then proceeded to express that rape was a invention by women without any foundational reality. Sex was enjoyable, hence rape did not exist. Women who were raped were missing an opportunity for joy. He was surgically invasive in his attempt at getting a raise at the female representation in the room.

I started to cry. Which was not ideal in several ways, including my proximity to the patient's open chest. But I had a mask on and it absorbed my tears.

"What's wrong little girl?"

"I. Have. A. Cold." I said with the dead look that those who know me understand as pre-explosive.


This was 29 years ago. This would be less likely to happen in a medical school. Not without consequences.  

What is happening to women rights and safety overall is worse.

By the way, who suffers the most when you hurt women? Oh..Children.

Till Later,

Anne