Brutality Against Women

...unfortunately is not the exclusive province of troglodyte mobs in Islamic countries.
We just have to look at our very own armed forces:

 

Cliff Owen/Associated Press

Kori Cioca, in her lawyer's office on Sunday, described being raped while serving in the Coast Guard. She is one of 17 plaintiffs filing a federal lawsuit against the Department of Defense. 

The suit — brought by 2 men and 15 women, both veterans and active-duty service members — specifically claims that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and his predecessor, Donald H. Rumsfeld, “ran institutions in which perpetrators were promoted and where military personnel openly mocked and flouted the modest Congressionally mandated institutional reforms.”
It also says the two defense secretaries failed “to take reasonable steps to prevent plaintiffs from being repeatedly raped, sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by federal military personnel.”

A lot of attention to the plight of Lara Logan, but is anyone reading this?
I think men everywhere (in some countries more than others) are totally oblivious to the pervasive, insidious and deeply ingrained culture against women. It goes pretty much unchallenged in many aspects of our lives. Or if women challenge it, if and when they themselves are aware of it, they are mocked as rabid feminists. Look at that ridiculous satyr Silvio Berlusconi. He is going on trial for underage sex and abuse of power. Women in Italy have had it with his offensive sexism. He offends, undermines and disrespects half the citizens of Italy. But he is still in power.
Everywhere you look, if you look closely, you find instances of the constant demeaning of women, sometimes violent and criminal, but most of the time daily and average.
As many others have pointed out before, this is very transparent in our media and entertainment industries.
For instance, today I read the A. O Scott's review of the new Adam Sandler movie, Just Go with It.  I thought it interesting that the story involves two extremely good looking women, Jennifer Aniston and Brooklyn Decker, whom we are supposed to believe have some sort of romantic attachment to an ugly, childish ball of fat like Adam Sandler.   Aniston plays his receptionist (!) in the movie, but he gets to play the doctor. I have nothing against Adam Sandler (I loved Don't Mess With The Zohan) but we take it for granted that in movies gorgeous women are always falling head over heels in love with older, fatter, balder, uglier men, while it's never the other way around. I'd like to see that, for a change. That is, a dreamboat like Daniel Craig or whatever male star strikes your fancy, having a romantic attachment to a woman his age or older who is not airbrushed, starved and surgically enhanced within an inch of her life. I defy you to give me one example of a movie or TV show where this happens. From A.O Scott:

The sexual politics of “Cactus Flower” are interestingly awkward, looking anxiously back to the ’50s and flinching at the onset of feminism, but this version occasionally lets loose an unacknowledged snarl of regression and resentment. None of the women have professional ambitions or money of their own; their primary asset is “hotness.” Ms. Aniston proudly shows herself off in a bikini — and looks great, it must be said — while Mr. Sandler keeps his shirt on, hanging loosely over his baggy pants. Yes, I know, the double standard is nothing new, but a wittier, less insecure movie might have at least had some fun with it.
But Mr. Sandler is not really willing to risk making fun of himself. He is too much of a bully for that. The infantile hostility that has always been part of his schtick seems increasingly tired, and “Just Go With It” is flecked with mean, lazy gags. There is some cheap homophobia at the end, and a lot of the kind of misogyny that treats the existence of nonthin, nonrich, nonwhite women as a joke in itself.

You would think we'd be past this but no. It goes on.  To maintain this travesty, the media, or whoever is responsible, will also have us believe that these glamorous women look the way they do because of their unearthly genes and nothing but. So actresses always put on a ridiculous and patently suspect show of stuffing their faces with lardy foods for the benefit of the press. Some of them look like they just emerged from a German dieting camp circa 1945, so I find it absurd every time they profess their love of bacon cheeseburgers and pounds of pasta Alfredo. Truth is, to look good in a movie, male or female, you have to starve yourself. But do we expect our leading men to share their love of lard with their fans? What a ridiculous notion. We are far more forgiving of lardiness, wrinkles and other signs of humanity on male actors than on females.
You may think it a stretch to relate sexual abuse to glamorous, anorexic blondes, but my point is that it is all part of the same continuum of lack of respect for women. Rabid feminists call it objectification. And it is so. The inability to see a woman in human terms. The lack of basic respect for her physical, mental and spiritual integrity.