Obama Jokes Again About Violently Protecting His Daughters' Sexuality

[Content Note: Misogyny; rape culture; violence.]

I've written previously about my contempt for the President's repeated "jokes" about violently defending his daughters' sexuality, and now I am again grinding my teeth as he used another campaign appearance to "joke" about how he will lock up his daughters and how happy he is that they're protected by "men with guns." (Bonus barf for the old "boys are smelly" gag.)

It is wonderful to be at MasterLock. I have to say, though, it brought back some memories. I was thinking about, uh, my gym locker in high school. [laughter] And, you know, if you go into the boys' locker room in high school, um, sometimes it's a little powerful, the odor in there. [laughter] So I was thinking about the fact that, uh, yeah, we weren't washing our stuff enough. [laughter] And then I was thinking about, as I got older, and I kept on using MasterLocks, I became an even better customer because I couldn't always remember my combination. [laughter] So I'd end up having to have the lock sawed off, and buy a new one, so I was giving you guys a lot of business. [laughter and cheers] And now, as I was looking at some of the really industrial size locks, I was thinking about the fact that I am a father of two girls who are soon gonna be in high school, and that it might come in handy to have these super-locks! [laughter; Obama laughs] For now, I'm just counting on the fact that [Obama laughs] when they go to school, there are men with guns with them, so. [laughter]

This is A Problem. Despite the fact that the opposition party has, on both the state and federal levels, endeavored to undermine access to abortion, to contraception, and even to woman-centered healthcare providers, and despite record numbers of anti-choice legislation being passed across the nation, and despite increasing incidents of anti-choice terrorism, our ostensibly pro-choice president has not only failed to give an address centering reproductive rights, failed to give even a passing mention to reproductive rights in his "Women's Equality Day" proclamation, failed to acknowledge this onslaught of state-sponsored terrorism in defense of an inherently violent ideology in his State of the Union address, failed to prioritize science over religion, failed to prioritize healthcare over religion, and failed to be generally clueful, but the only time he does publicly speak about women's reproduction (aside from bragging about ceding ground to anti-choicers to pass legislation, while insisting it's "not an abortion bill") is when he's making "jokes" about how his daughters' unsullied cunts are something he must tenaciously guard because their sexuality doesn't belong to them.

This is, suffice it to say, not someone who is an ally on reproductive rights. This is someone who is more deeply entrenching anti-choice (and rape culture) narratives, who thinks, in the midst of a monumental backlash against feminist principles regarding bodily autonomy, agency, and consent, that it's funny to joke about locking up his daughters and violently preventing any expression of their sexuality.

He's not just failing to be an ally. He's actively working against feminist ideals.

And then there's this: For a father who quite rightly has drawn boundaries on behalf of his daughters regarding their privacy from photographers, he seems rather shockingly unconcerned about violating boundaries regarding public discussion of their sexuality. Even if it weren't politically inappropriate to make such "jokes," he's appropriating something deeply personal that belongs to his daughters to get a laugh at national campaign events.

Of course, if he recognized their ownership of their sexuality, he wouldn't be making the "joke" in the first place.