After news broke that Harvey Weinstein is a serial harasser and suspected sexual abuser, women across Twitter shared their experiences of harassment and assault with the hashtag “#MeToo.” NRA spokeswoman Dana Loesch jumped in on the trend, sharing that she is moving her family from her home because of harassment and threats of rape and murder over her pro-Second Amendment views.
For conservative women, Dana’s story isn’t at all unfamiliar.
When I was a student at Georgetown University, I was the chair of the College Republicans group on campus. During that time, I experienced all kinds of harassment and ridicule from liberal men who were apparently disgusted by my political views yet attracted to my physical appearance.
I was taught through these experiences that feminism—and basic respect—only extends to women who think a certain way.
Liberal men would condescendingly tell me that my views were abhorrent and then turn around and hit on me. When I rebuffed their advances, they would become bitter and ramp up the political attacks. Unsurprisingly, feminist women never came to my defense because they were either cheering it on or were involved in the attacks by their male allies.
On one particular occasion on Halloween, a costumed man began flirting with me at a party. Eventually, he found out that I led the CRs and asserted that I was a “racist.” I was rightfully offended by the accusation, but that didn’t stop him from trying to convince me to come home with him.
When I shot down his advances, he called me a “bitch” and left. I received text messages from him the rest of the night begging me to come over to his place. It shouldn’t have been surprising when several months later he was calling me a misogynist on Facebook.
After I had graduated, a student wrote an entire “diss track” about me, wherein I was referred to as “mediocre,” a “snake,” too stupid to graduate from Georgetown, and was accused of “slander and libel.” Not long after the track came out, the student messaged me on Facebook to let me know that he thought I was “super cute.”
I chose not to respond, and the student continued to post angry and mocking Facebook statuses about me–in the comments, his friends (some of them women) threatened to find me and beat me up.
These are just a few examples, but this type of scenario happened often enough that it represented a pattern. I was guilty of two sins. Not only did I have the wrong political views for these men, but I didn’t make it up to them by choosing to sleep with them.
Feminist women looked the other way at the disrespect and degradation because they were fine with it as long as it shut me up.
This is why it’s not at all surprising to me that Dana Loesch is being threatened and harassed by liberal men. And it’s not surprising to me that women are not standing up for her and defending her right to speak. Harassment has become an effective political tool that threatens conservative women into silence.
The vulgar treatment of conservative women by men (and women) on the Left must be called out by these so-called feminists. Otherwise, they are only paying lip service to the idea that all women should be treated with respect.