Public figures reinforce cultural attitudes about women, rape and birthcontrol

                                    Iranian woman who offers an image to say "my body, my choice"

Carol Forsloff---In the United States a former Presidential candidate and preacher, Mike Huckabee, believes, in reference to women and contraception, they can control their impulses without having government-sanctioned birth control methods.   In India a woman politician offers the statement that women are the cause of rape, defending her statement as "her opinion."  How do attitudes like this influence our culture and patterns of behavior?

Asha Mirje, the woman politician in India, was quoted by the press as saying women were "responsible to an extent" for rape.  She went on to add their "clothing and behaviour" played a part in what happened to them.

Human rights activists as well as the opposition party to that of Mirje were quick to respond that Mirje"s comments were "unacceptable".  Mirjie's defense, however, was to state that this had been her "personal opinion."  Nevertheless, her opinion was public; and the consequences to the culture in a country where a rape is said to be recorded every 22 minutes is disturbing, counter the activists.

Huckabee's remarks brought an outpouring of discussion about his attitudes in reference to giving women access to no-co-pay birth control under the Affordable Care Act.  His remarks, "they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government,"offered an example of opinions that are pervasive in reference to women and sex.  Some members of the Christian right were quick to defend Huckabee's remarks, while some in the Republican party were also said to want to distant themselves from those remarks.

In the United States women are divided on the issues of contraception and abortion.  References to women's sexual responses as something they should just control in order to prevent unwanted births reinforces attitudes about sex and women's issues that have influenced the culture in negative ways, according to experts on sex, reproduction and psychology.

Ms Mirje later apologized about what she said, maintaining it was her "personal opinion." Huckabee defended his remarks by pointing to the press as being responsible for the firestorm along with the political opposition.  “I'm always flattered when people on the far left manufacture a new version of being ‘offended. They can be quite creative in finding something that hurts their feelings,”  he was quoted as saying to a Fox News host.

Experts on the matter of unwanted pregnancies maintain the burden of preventing unwanted pregnancies is a shared responsibility.  Furthermore, even though abstinence is the method of 100% guarantee as offering birth control, the shared responsibility presented includes methods of contraception as well.  But the notion of pregnancy being the woman's fault continues to be offered as the foundation for focusing on women in counseling and birth control forums.

Rape is known to be an act of violence, not of sexual response.  It is that violence that is said to be at the heart of the problem, and the lack of knowledge of what rape really is and its long-lasting impact on the woman's life and the life of her family but also on the community as a whole.

Public figures offer pronouncements that often reinforce prejudgments and lack of knowledge about sex and women, as each culture struggles with accepting responsibility for the outcomes of those remarks and women become the target of the negative impact they can bring.

Religious debates over prayer in schools part of gun violencecontroversy

[caption id="attachment_17209" align="alignleft" width="234"] Mike Huckabee, former Arkansas Governor and Fox News Commentator[/caption]

Carol Forsloff — Does God withdraw His love when there is no prayer in schools, therefore allowing 20 children and six adults to die? Those who see God like themselves with feelings of jealousy, anger, and rejection might think so; but there are many who disagree and believe that notion is part of the reason why more and more people seek their answers to perplex questions outside religion.

The mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School is being blamed on the lack of prayer and praise in the schools by a number of religious leaders, like former Arkansas Governor and Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee. These same notions were pronounced after Hurricane Katrina and the bombing of the World Trade Towers. However, these statements presume an angry God, jealous of not getting man's full attention and acknowledgment, and loving selectively. These are the characteristics we assign to ourselves, but why do we assign these same ones to God, when we are told by virtually every world religion that God is love instead?

We are also told in many churches how we should love like God, some saying that as God loves us all without qualification, we should love our brother in much the same way. Yet when tragedy strikes, many religious leaders describe God's response as a qualified one, selective according to those who pray or don't.

In that same fashion, God is seen as saving the lives of those who praise him, so we pray for our health and our lives. We ask God to give us what we need and want, as if God is a finite being who makes decisions based upon selective judgments and qualifications.

To blame God for the deaths resulting from mass shootings, or other forms of violence, presumes God functions like ourselves and to blame ourselves by accusing one another of not having enough faith, the wrong kind of beliefs, selectively judged, or not praying, again where selectivity may be used to define prayer and in what manner again assigns to God our own negative human qualities and how we make demands. We get angry if someone does not say thank you for a favor or service we perform and believe God too requires the same attention and in the same way. Yet how can finite beings comprehend the infinite and reduce God to a being who looks on idly by, with the power to stop a shooting in Connecticut, and then decides not to intervene because prayer is not allowed in the school?

While some religious leaders maintain their beliefs that there is insufficient faith, and therefore an increase in violence, many of these same leaders side with the gun owners on the lack of gun control measures and promote concealed weapons that can be carried to church, as the law permits in Louisiana.

For many people believe God is love means God is everywhere, loving unconditionally sinner and faithful and yet allowing each person the freedom to make responsible or irresponsible choices. It is the lack of making those responsible choices that creates the violence among us and the lack of love, cooperation, trust and help required of a community that truly cares for everyone.